Supposedly, it is summertime, and open-air jazz festivals are blooming across Europe, with Montreux imminent and the massive Ascona event already swinging in sun-washed Italy. In those locations the alfresco ethic is fine, but in Glasgow the rain is unrelenting and the city's 14th festival opened with bravely optimistic concerts in the chill of a rainswept George Square. The deluge continued while a trio of hardy perennials - Isaac Hayes, BB King, Tony Bennett - drew the crowds into various indoor venues .
Good though Hayes, King and Bennett still are, they are indicative of a music increasingly resting on ageing laurels. The arrival of New York pianist David Berkman with a batch of original compositions was like a shaft of sunlight on the Clyde. New composers such as Berkman are essential to a music founded on perpetual progression; since his 1998 solo debut disc, Handmade, the former session pianist has refused to hide behind the standards, resolving instead to write his own.
Berkman's Quartet is a loose-limbed machine, with a supple interaction forged over three acclaimed US albums. In the stuttering Weird Knock they scattered into quick, precise solos before reforming in a rhythmical attack like fighter planes out of the sun. Their technical mastery was evident, and Berkman's lean, complex arrangements are filled with emotion.
Revelling in a space somewhere between post-bop free jazz and classic melodic structures, the quartet swung and glided effortlessly. During Tangoed Web Sam Newsome's soprano sax reeled out beautifully smooth lines as Thomas Bramerie's bass anchored it all with a rock-solid pulse. The drums were a pattering pattern laid down by Terreon Gully, and Berkman's piano bursts were sometimes poignant, sometimes witty and always telling.
Berkman is reclaiming ground that seemed lost to jazz posterity; he has an Ellingtonian sense of grace combined with driving rhythms and abstract surprises. More an inventor than radical reformer, he keeps his compositions concise but leaves his experimental options open. A subtle yet sassy performance from a commanding new talent.
