Fergus McCreadie Trio
SJE Arts, St John the Evangelist, Oxford
Friday 11 April 2025

Fergus McCreadie : Piano
Stephen Henderson : Drums
David Bowden : Double Bass

Pianist-composer Fergus McCreadie’s trio bring a distinctly Scottish flavour to the piano trio format.  Not only is what sounds like the Scottish traditional music integral to McCreadie’s compositions, what he writes is largely inspired by a love of the Scottish landscape that extends to the titles of the four albums the trio has issued so far: ‘Turas’(2018), ‘Cairn’ (2021), ‘Forest Floor’ (2022) and ‘Stream’ (2024), all of which consist of McCreadie’s compositions arranged by the trio.

As well as the official albums, during lockdown an official bootleg was released of a live performance in 2020 at Black Mountain Jazz, Abergavenny, ‘Live at Black Mountain’. McCreadie also has made a first foray into recording solo piano with a digital 5 track E.P ‘Sketches’ in late 2023.  In April 2025 a trio 5 track digital only E.P ’ Stream (Revisited)’ became available with four tracks from ‘Stream’ and one from the self-released ‘Turas’ that have changed by being performed live since they were originally recorded

What is very exciting for fans of the trio is that McCreadie told tonight’s audience that they can look forward to a new full studio album which will be released in October.

McCreadie’s talent was recognised early. He won Scottish Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year in 2018 , the year of his graduation from the Royal Scottish Conservatoire. ‘Forest Floor’ the trio’s highly praised third album which got McCreadie noticed beyond jazz circles and received several awards. Among these was being the first jazz album to win Scottish album of the year and gaining a nomination for the Mercury prize.

McCreadie is only one of four jazz musicians to have done the double of being nominated for a Mercury Prize and being selected for the BBC Next Generation Artists scheme (2022-24). Also he plays keys in another band, corto.alto ( nom de plume for band leader Liam Shortall) whose debut album ‘Bad with Names’ was nominated for the 2024 Mercury prize.

What is hardly ever recognised is that they must have a formidable work ethic. . As well as creating a significant body of high quality recordings in a relative short short time, particularly since the success of ‘Forest Floor’ it can seem that, like Bob Dylan, the trio are perpetually on tour. In the last thirteen to fourteen months, including the ‘Unfurrowed Field’ tour which was a collaboration with the Manchester Collective, they’ve done at least three tours.

Additionally all three have other projects. Drummer Stephen Henderson composes for and leads a five piece, Modern Vikings, whose members include McCreadie and Bowden. Double Bassist David Bowden ( BBC Young Scottish Jazz Musician of the Year 2017) leads Glasgow based jazz -fusion outfit Mezcla in which Henderson is the drummer.

As well as his trio and the increasingly high profile corto.alto who have won both UK Jazz Act of the Year and the Innovation Award at Jazz F.M’s awards 2025, McCreadie plays in Scottish composer-saxophonist Matt Carmichael’s group and in drummer Graham Costello’s STRATA.
McCreadie tells tonight’s audience he does hill-walking but when not doing jazz, but you have to wonder how on earth he makes the time.

Fergus McCreadie made his debut on this site’s pages in 2020 when The Jazz Mann was present at the trio’s visit to Black Mountain Jazz which was the source of the official bootleg issued during lockdown:
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/fergus-mccreadie-trio-black-mountain-jazz-melville-
centre-abergavenny-23-02-2020 .

Reviews of ‘Cairn’ https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/fergus-mccreadie-trio-cairn and ‘Forest Floor’ https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/fergus-mccreadie-trio-forest-floor followed, the latter has a detailed account of McCreadie and his trio’s progress up to that point.

I firt saw trio live when they played one of the 35 minute showcases at the Jammin’ Juan jazz market place of 2023, and my brief account of their performance on day3 can be found in my report of the event:
https://www.thejazzmann.com/features/article/jammin-juan-2023-palais-des-congress-juan-les-pins-france-8th-to-10th-november-2023.

The next time I saw them was the Oxford stop in March 2024 of the tour named ‘The Unfurrowed Field’ after a track on the ‘Stream’,named ‘The Unfurrowed Field’ after a track on the ‘Stream’, the trio undertook with classical musicians from The Manchester Collective:
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/manchester-collective-and-fergus-mccreadie-trio-town-hall-oxford-16-03-2024.

Very shortly after I was very lucky for the first time to see the trio play a full concert on their own when they were out touring again t and by chance a long planned visit to Newcastle coincided with them playing there:
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/fergus-mccreadie-trio-the-glasshouse-gateshead-12-05-2024.

A year on and the trio were touring once more. My anticipation of their visit to my home city of Oxford was high anyway, but was increased further by the venue being one with superb acoustics and one in which though it is medium sized(tonight it was set out for a maximum of about 250), it is very possible for performers and audience to bond and create a warm intimate atmosphere.

It is an indication of the reputation that McCreadie and his colleagues have built up that by the time they came on stage there was scarcely an empty seat. It is intrinsic to their approach to playing live that once on stage they don’t know what will happen next as they deliberately don’t have a set list (except on the tour with the Manchester Collective). McCreadie tells the audience this about half-way through. ” We never plan these gigs. There’ s no set list. Let’s continue with a tune from a previous album but I don’t know what that will be”.

The tunes usually emerge from McCreadie starting playing a solo improvisation. At the start McCreadie sat quite still at the keyboard, head slightly bowed, hands at rest looking as if he might be meditating. There is a moment of delicious tension in the room until he begins improvising a relaxed, spacious and beautiful melody before his two colleagues join and what develops is a 25 minute seamless medley of two of his tunes, ‘Forest Floor’ and ‘Sun Pillars’.

The medley had many of the characteristics that have propelled the trio to prominence. There’s was a strong sense the trio were improvising in the moment around McCreadie’s attractive melodies. The telepathy between them seemed even stronger than when I’d seen them previously despite little obvious eye contact. They’ve been playing together ever since being thrown together almost accidentality when all three were at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

They interweave d passages with quicksilver changes of dynamics, volume, mood, and texture. McCreadie’s pianism dazzled, his left hand powerful and his right often mercurial. But it was all done in service of the music and not out of self-aggrandisement. In Bowden’s first solo it seemed that his double bass was half talking , half singing, and Henderson was equally impressive doing great work especially when he had a brush in one hand and a drum stick in the other. Then when the trio upped the pace towards the end of this opening sequence they showed they could be a power trio when they wanted to be, it was visceral and exhilarating.

‘Sun Pillars’ was an example of the trio further exploring a number through live performance. While the original recorded version is almost entirely upbeat, bright and propulsive throughout (the refracted sunlight making the mass of falling rain crystals sparkle perhaps) , tonight this is preceded by a sustained contemplative passage, David Bowden’s double bass has a more prominent role and the climax was more visceral.

The trio went on to offer us quite an extensive taster of their forthcoming studio album playing several tunes from it. It was recorded on Uist in the outer Hebrides,( McCreadie said it was further from Glasgow to there than Glasgow to Oxford). One of the tracks they previewed ‘Lilly Bay,’ was titled after the name of cottage where they stayed. It began with a gorgeous slow repeated melody underpinned by arco bass and tinkling textures from Henderson’s cymbals. It’s a tune that was jam packed full of ideas. The glorious beginning never absolutely settled and had an air of mystery which was resolved by it becoming louder and seeming to refer not only to Scottish traditional music ( McCreadie almost doing a reel on the piano stool while playing) but also to the blues and even possibly twentieth century contemporary classical music (Bela Bartok?). It made me want to get up and dance( I didn’t) but I could not have kept up when it became frenzied led by McCreadie playing incredibly fast until Bowden’s double bass brought calm to the proceedings.

There are racks on the new album are inspired by McCreadie’s love of hill walking. One of these new tunes, I think ‘The Path Forks’, had a section that discombobulated me in a good way, transporting me from the Scottish hills to a Gnawa ceremony in Morocco as Henderson used a hand percussion instrument that made a clacking, cracking sound similar to that of Moroccan castanets called Krakeb, and McCreadie plucked the inside of the piano making a sound similar to the Moroccan three string bass lute, the ghimbri.

The trio played without a break for about ninety minutes, and there were still more gems to come.
McCreadie playing fast in combination and in contrast to the deliberate pace of Bowden’s double bass, more excellent brushwork from Henderson, Bowden’s understated arco bass alongside a marching rhythm from Henderson’s drums, and a lovely McCreadie composed Scottish air were all moments that sparkled.

The trio and the audience gelled, which created an intimate atmosphere in what is quite a large space. The audience showed how much they’d enjoyed what they had heard with a prolonged standing ovation that led to the trio playing ‘Cairn’ and an unnamed tune as an encore.

With the encore it had been nearly two hours of totally absorbing melodic, joyful and inventive jazz led by McCreadie and at the same time it was a complete trio performance. It was their best performance of those I have been lucky to be at, and confirmed that the Fergus McCreadie Trio have to be thought of as being amongst the front rank of piano trios.

It has been announced that the Fergus McCreadie Trio will appear at this year’s London Jazz Festival (LJF) in a double header with leading trumpeter- composer Laura Jurd in November.  In a brief chat afterwards Fergus told me that the new album had been produced by Laura Jurd, and it is an intriguing a possibility that she may play with them at the LJF.

https://www.fergusmccreadie.co.uk/

COLIN MAY

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