Award-winning Edinburgh jazz venue adds extra shows to its Fringe programme

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The Outhouse in Edinburgh, which is hosting a busy jazz programme during the massive Fringe arts festival that runs in the Scottish capital every August, has added three shows featuring some of Scotland’s leading jazz players.

Guitarist Graeme Stephen, saxophonist Martin Kershaw, bassist Mario Caribe and drummer Tom Bancroft, who are all bandleaders in their own right, are the collective brains behind the Playtime series which runs fortnightly in the Outhouse throughout the year and when spaces became available in the venue’s Fringe programme they stepped at short notice in to fill them with new presentations.

Stephen, who has made a specialism of creating new soundtracks to silent films, will stage his original score to the classic chiller The Cabinet of Dr Caligari on August 16 at 7pm, with Kershaw and Bancroft joining him in playing to an overhead projection of Robert Wiene’s 1920 film, which stars Friedrich Feher, Rudolf Lettinger and Werner Krauss.

Stephen then joins Kershaw, bassist Mario Caribe and the Canadian drummer Chris Wallace, who is making a return visit to his former base, in saluting Wayne Shorter on August 23 at 7pm. This follows recent, enthusiastically received Playtime tributes to Bill Evans, Thelonious Monk and Ornette Coleman.

The final concert in the series, on August 25 at 9pm, presents the Playtime house quartet – Stephen, Kershaw, Caribe and Bancroft – exploring evergreens from the Great American Songbook in their own, idiosyncratic style, with arrangements from all four musicians.

The Outhouse, which is situated in Broughton Street Lane, just round the corner from Edinburgh’s tram terminus in York Place, won a Herald Angel award for its programme during the Fringe last year and as well as the additional three concerts, its intimate loft space is currently hosting jazz sessions in a range of styles including vintage jazz, tributes to Billie Holiday, June Christy and the Gershwins, and special international guests, New Orleans singer Lillian Boutte and Caribbean saxophonist Arturo Tappin.

More information at www.outhouse-edinburgh.co.uk

Last modified: July 15, 2018