Album Review: Standards, Vol. III by National Jazz Trio of Scotland

Just as the Electric Light Orchestra wasn't an orchestra, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion isn't really a blues band, and the Foo Fighters don't actually fight foo, the National Jazz Trio of Scotland is neither a jazz combo nor a three-piece, but their third proper full-length, Standards, Vol. III, is certainly not a typical pop album, either. Led by Bill Wells on keyboards and electronics, the National Jazz Trio of Scotland delivers a set of spare but often lovely melodies performed in minimal fashion by Wells, using a palette of sounds that don't often resemble what one usually expects from a keyboard, with vocalists Lorna Gilfedder, Kate Sudget, and Aby Vulliamy singing softly but with genuine strength and power, both individually and in harmony.

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"Bill loves chaos," my friend Robbie says, laughing as we both watch Wells – himself heaving with laughter – tickled mightily by some inter-song snafu. He's playing to a packed house at the Glad Café on the South side of Glasgow; actually, unusually, playing as a trio - Wells on piano, a scuffed, knackered looking upright that Wells makes sound concert-grand; Kate Sugden singing and playing marimba; Aby Vulliamy playing viola and singing. No one I know laughs like Wells: it's always a judder from the diaphragm up, never a coy giggle, always a full body shake.

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