Last year’s SAY award winner Fergus McCreadie on opportunities the prize has brought and Glasgow’s jazz scene
Fergus McCreadie, a Glasgow-based musician who scooped up 2022’s Scottish Album of the Year Award, on the city’s underground jazz scene.
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00:00 My name is Fergus MacReady and I'm a jazz pianist. I'm here because, well, last year I won this award, I was very lucky, so I'm here to perform the award and to see who the next winner is.
00:12 No problem. So coming up from last year then, how have you sort of developed, what has come from the opportunities that this award has brought you?
00:20 I think more than anything it's the chance to play a lot of gigs actually, and to just play a lot, I think that's the main thing for me. I think jazz and the music that we play in the trio is such a thing that develops in the live scenarios, and the more you can play live the better I think.
00:37 Having that opportunity to really play live a lot and sort of explore a lot on these gigs and stuff, I think it's been really good for us, so yeah, I'd say that's the main thing.
00:44 Tell us a bit more about the jazz scene in Glasgow, because we talked about the Blue Arrows just shut down, Swing as well I think is also shut down, I'm not sure. So tell us a bit more about the jazz scene in Glasgow where it is just now post-Covid.
00:55 Well it's quite an underground thing still, I think we're, I mean, Corso Alto, which is probably, you could argue the biggest Scottish jazz band at the moment, just played the Queen Margaret Union actually, almost at capacity, which is a really big gig.
01:08 So people are doing these big gigs, but you're right in that the jazz venues aren't about as much at the moment, which is a shame. But I think it's inevitable to be honest, because there's so much underground stuff and so many cool gigs and sort of like weekly nights and stuff like Lay Low or Jazz at the Glad Cafe are a couple that come to mind.
01:26 So it feels like, just feels constantly rising and constantly, you know, I think we're in a really exciting time where, don't know where it's going to go, but it feels like it's going somewhere good hopefully.