These are my thoughts, sitting backstage in The Glad Cafe with Scotland’s leading Hot Club Swing-influenced band. Twice crowned Best Band at the Scottish Jazz Awards, the band Rose Room celebrates 15 years together this dry December evening on Pollockshaws Road in Glasgow. Singer and violinist, Aitken, chats merrily, bouncing off the equally chatty, double bassist, Jimmy Moon. Tam Gallacher, unshakable on rhythm guitar, is quieter, but no less friendly, alongside the quartet’s newest member, Connor Smith, whose tight jazz wanderings on lead guitar are fast becoming a defining feature of Rose Room’s elegant swing.
A family affair
This winter gig at the Glad Cafe is “a wee family affair” says Gallacher, waving to his daughter who’s on ticket duty for the evening. The closeness and familiarity of these smaller venues is special, says Moon – despite the admitted allure of a proper dressing room, with “wine and beer and water, towels and all this kind of stuff. Somebody comes and takes you to the stage with a torch. But a place like this where it’s going to be like that with people”. He crosses his fingers in demonstration – “it’s brilliant. When you’re on stage in the Concert Hall, you can’t see the audience because the lights are in your face. When you play in a small venue, the people are right there. I look at the feet; the feet are tapping.”
Their love for performing is clear, and clearer still when they admit that they don’t sustain a whole living from just the band. “We really are a hand-to-mouth band” says Moon, and Aitken gives cause: “there’s just not that many opportunities for jazz, unfortunately, in Scotland.”
Scotland’s jazz scene
The talk turns to The Blue Lamp in Aberdeen, which closed at the end of last year. Widely considered the beating heart of Scotland’s jazz scene. The venue hosted regular sessions which Aitken dubs as one of the best gigs in the calendar. Moon remembers it fondly as “funky, all different chairs and dust. Without being a smelly carpet place, it had a little bit of grime about it.” It’s a stark reminder of the precariousness of live music across the country.
The Glad Cafe, however, remains alive and kicking. Aitken stresses it’s “accessible for bands because we can hire it – it’s cheap.” They talk readily of the expense of other venues around the city, the hidden charges – security, lighting; or even one gig which, Smith recounts wryly, charged £70 for towels. Quite literally waiting round the corner for them, Moon spotted the Glad Cafe during their formation years when his guitar workshop sat in the next lane. After talking with now Creative Director, Joe Smiley, they began to feel confident that they could put something on their own together, have some fun, get friends in and have a laugh.
Fun, friends and laughs
This evening is no exception. At 7pm they sidle into the small space, squeezing breezily past audience members packed in like sardines, and make their way to the small, low stage. People shuffle carefully past others, carrying brimming drinks and searching for empty seats. When there’s no more seating to be found, people stand. Stage lights blare on the band’s faces as they get into position. Soon, the room will transform from alive to electric, filled with their sound.
They introduce themselves, although it’s arguably unnecessary for the majority here, for whom this is less an introduction and more a reunion. From their first gig 15 years previous, Aitken says “people who saw us [there] have been coming ever since”. Their chat good-natured and playful, they ease the audience in with a festive tune or two before diving into their trademark Hot Club Swing. They sound, quite simply, like magic.
Unforgettable titles
The gypsy jazz classic Joseph Joseph brings a solo from Aitken – furiously fun, her performance lies somewhere between a homage to Grapelli and a classical cadenza. Smith takes over on guitar, in a solo sounding like fast dripping honey.
A change of pace delivers pensive numbers like The Nearness of You and I Wish You Love; no less delightful than their rapid counterparts. The audience will undoubtedly feature a few converts tonight, not unexpected for gigs like this. A fantastically solid set from a band somehow flying under the radar. Aitken had said beforehand, “It’s going to be close to a hundred tonight. It’s going to be tight.”
Aitken anticipated a wee flutter of nerves before going on stage, but there is no stage-fright to behold. They share the same ease with an audience that they do with each other – perhaps most apparent in Aitken and Smith’s constant exchange of solos, which they pass back and forth like the inevitable swing of a pendulum.
As the evening ends
As the evening nears its close, I think back to a rendition of The Very Thought of You at a previous gig of Aitken and Smith’s. The pair played and sang so exquisitely that the crowd seemed in perfect agreement not to erupt immediately at the song’s close and left a beat of silence before beginning applause. “Since the advent of bringing Connor in, it’s different.” Gallacher had said backstage. It comes across tonight. Nuages produces that same pause – a perfect understanding that playing at once so striking and thoughtful must be given space for absorption.
There is, predictably, an encore, and we’re indulged with a couple more tunes. Included, cheekily, is the Disney classic Everybody Wants to Be a Cat. It’s indisputably true – the kind of music you want to crawl inside of, they preach to the converted.
The morning after the night before
The radio’s left off on the way home. The next morning, even, the remnants of last night’s set have nestled their way inside your head. Silence seems the best way to enjoy them, until the next time.
The verdict is clear: Rose Room are a band tailor-made for small spaces tightly packed, and always with the promise of more.
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