Music / acid jazz
The Long and the Short of it
When Scottish nu’jazz combo corto.alto hit the stage at The Jam Jar on December 11 it will mark the final coming together of the band with Bristol’s Worm Discs record label after a two year stumbling block caused by you-know-what. The Worm crew had caught sight of the band’s on-line presence and just knew that their energy and musical pizazz made them natural playmates for the label’s developing stable of Bristol bands like Snazzback and Run Logan Run. “Us Worms have been excited about them since we first stumbled upon them in 2019” an enthusiastic Jackson Worm has said. “Honestly, they are one of our favourite new bands anywhere!” A 2020 gig was promptly arranged to bring them to the city with the prospect of a flourishing collaboration but, of course, it was cancelled. Or rather postponed – and now the band’s debut album Not For Now has just been released on Worm Discs and we shall finally get to see them live.
is needed now More than ever
Back in 2019 trombonist and producer Liam Shortall’s cunning plan was this: rather than battle with the logistics of pulling a permanent band together he would first try to make a series of single tracks for sound and video. Being blessed (or cursed) with a flat on one of the country’s noisiest roads – Glasgow’s riotous Sauciehall street – he figured he could call up the pick of the city’s thriving jazz scene, pull them together in his front room, hand out some charts and cut the tracks right there. His debut, in May 2019, was the soul jazz number No which garnered an impressive 3,000 views on Youtube. Thus encouraged, every three weeks after that he released another tune ranging from complex jazz constructions to funky groovers and soulful R’n’B flavours. He called the project corto.alto – a Spanish pun on his own name, it translates as ‘short.tall’.
corto.alto aka Liam Shortall
By rights the band should have hit the road in May 2020, passing through Bristol en route to the Glastonbury Festival, but at least the hiatus gave them time to put the album together and it’s a fine showcase of the range of Liam’s musical imagination and the supersmart gang of collaborators he has assembled. Tracks include the grime-infused Brotherhood, featuring vocals from rapper Franz Von, the jumpy funk of Mayday and the cool jazz breeze of No Pt III. The musical cast features amazing pianist Fergus McCreadie, firebrand saxophonist Harry Weir and drumming powerhouse Graham Costello as well as K.O.G vocalist Franz. Despite being new to live performance the band were a sensation at Gilles Peterson’s We Out Here festival in the summer and there’s every prospect that they’ll have the Jam Jar jumping on December 11.
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