John Burgess

Originally inspired by his mother’s collection of jazz recordings. His mother Frances had been the girlfriend of Alex Welsh during his time in Edinburgh. By 1982 was a helper at the EIJF when he had the chance to hear a multitude of great jazzers at close range. Through the efforts of Mike Hart, in 1985 he acquired a clarinet and from another source, a plastic alto sax. Originally self taught but also had lessons from Gordon Cruikshank and extended his playing by transcribing solos from sheet music. In 1986, played on ten sax in the EIJF young musicians competition with a modern styled group called ‘Jazz Monk’ and by then was moving between Edinburgh and London before settling in London in 1987. There he was to play and record with many big names and also toured to festivals in Europe and elsewhere. In 1994 he left London to attend the Berklee School of Music in Boston, USA, where he studied under George Garzone. A return to Edinburgh in the later 1990s saw him with ‘Hamish McGregor’s Fat Sam’s Band’ for 4 years and some work with a band led by Ralph Laing which included Al Fairweather. In 2005, by now permanently based in Edinburgh, played briefly with ‘Bill Salmond’s Louisiana Ragtime Band’ and also with bluesman Tam White’s backing band. He formed the ‘Nova Scotia JB’* in 2009 which made many recordings playing in a classical jazz style. In 2016, he remained in the Edinburgh area and maintained his wide-ranging interests in jazz and his pride in and respect for local greats such as Sandy Brown, Al Fairweather, Stan Grieg, Dave Keir, Dave Paxton and Archie Semple’ on whose playing he based his clarinet style. By then he had recorded over 70 times as a sideman and 7 albums under his own leadership.

*It should be noted that there have been 3 different Nova Scotia bands in Edinburgh (1) the 1950s band led by George Crockett (2) the 1970s band which an off-shoot of the ‘Old Bailey’ band and (3) the 2009 band led by John Burgess.