Langtoun Jazz Festival: 2023 festival weekend unveils shows at three venues

The event will showcase seven bands across three venues from Friday June 23 to Sunday 25th - and the organisers have urged people to lend their support. The festival returned last year after lockdown, and had to curtail its programme due to poor ticket sales, but it is back this summer to bring some of the best musicians to the Lang Toun.

The 2023 event is being run by Langtoun Jazz, and brings its shows to the Old Kirk and St Bryce Kirk in the town centre plus Hayfield Community Centre.

Grace Black, founder and treasurer, said: “We are very excited by the variety of styles in our 2023 programme; there really is something for everyone. It’s also great to have a festival which spreads out into different venues around town. We were really keen to highlight the amazing richness of new young talent emerging from the Scottish scene and making waves nationally and internationally, and the three Friday and Saturday concerts certainly deliver that aim. Tickets are already selling well for those three concerts and the Sunday tea dance.”

The programme offers something for all music fans - not just jazz lovers. The festival opens with a concert at the Old Kirk by the Matt Carmichael Quintet, heralded by BBC Music Magazine as “a distinctive new voice in a crowded scene.”

The saxophonist and composer has performed at Celtic Connections, Ronnie Scott’s, and Love Supreme Festival as well as being a guest soloist with the Grammy Award winning WDR Big Band in Germany. His debut album ‘Where Will The River Flow’ was critically acclaimed, amassing over three million streams.

On the Saturday evening, a trio of young musicians emerging from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland take centre stage, led by Ben Shankland, an Edinburgh-born pianist and composer. He is joined by Kirkcaldy-born Ewan Hastie on bass, and Chun-Wei Kang on drumsEwan is in his fourth year of a Bachelor of Music degree on the RCS Jazz programme. He started playing the bass guitar at the age of 12 and took up the double bass during his time with Fife Youth Jazz Orchestra.

He was announced as the winner of the BBC Young Jazz Musician 2022 in November last year, incidentally succeeding Fergus McCreadie (2018) and Matt Carmichael (2020) as a Scottish finalist, but going one better by landing the title.

On the Saturday afternoon in St Bryce Kirk, audiences can look further into the future with a concert by Fife Youth Jazz Orchestra.

Founded in 1976 by award winning Kirkcaldy musician and composer, Richard Michael OBE, it has introduced hundreds of youngsters between the ages of eight and 24 to the particular musical freedom offered by jazz with its emphasis on improvisation. Many have gone on to study at Royal Conservatoire in Glasgow and are now making a living as professional musicians and winning awards too. Ewan will be doing a workshop with FYJO players before the concert and may also join the band for a couple of tunes.

On Saturday afternoon in the Old Kirk, audiences can relax to a range of standard and more contemporary numbers from Inverkeithing Community Big Band - it’s a free show but also fundraiser for Kirkcaldy Food Bank, with the audience asked to make a donation.

Sunday afternoon brings a chance to dust off the dancing shoes as the Louisiana Fairytale Riverboat Jazz Band repeat their very popular performance of last December at Hayfield Community Centre. The venue will be offering an afternoon tea at a small extra cost.

The festival wraps on Sunday evening in the Old Kirk with a double bill of top-quality Scottish bands

Figiro Quartet is a light jazz and swing group hailing from the west of Scotland who specialise in bringing a vintage twist to modern classics, with covers ranging from Nina Simone to The Beatles and from Édith Piaf to Jessie J.

JazzMain is one of the most acclaimed, renowned, and respected groups performing in Scotland and the UK today. The band continually breathes fresh life into both the familiar and lesser-known Blue Note Records’ canon – the ground-breaking label long associated with the giants of the music such as Horace Silver, Sonny Rollins, Benny Golson, Jimmy Heath, and Dexter Gordon.

But there’s more – there’s a soul and funky edge to the music too. Grover Washington Jnr, Stevie Wonder, even Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston are given the JazzMain treatment. In recent years, JazzMain has undertaken projects with several renowned UK Jazz stalwarts including guitar maestro Jim Mullen and legendary trumpet supremo Bruce Adams. The band’s passion for its cool and bop-style jazz remains undimmed as it nears its 20th anniversary. Full details and booking information at www.langtounjazz.co.uk