Folk Bands and Artists
Calum Gourlay
London
Calum Gourlay was born in Glasgow and grew up playing jazz in Fife Youth Jazz Orchestra, The National Youth Jazz Orchestra of Scotland and Tommy Smith´s Youth Jazz Orchestra, in which he was the very first bassist selected from across Scotland at the age of 16.
In 2004 he was the only bassist enrolled that year for the B.Mus.Jazz course at The Royal Academy of Music. He graduated with first class honours in 2008 and has gone on to become a stalwart musician in the UK jazz scene within the last ten years.
As part of The Kit Downes Trio he played on the Mercury Award nominated Album Golden released in 2009.
His debut album, Calum Gourlay - Live at The Ridgeway, (2015) received rave reviews from the UK jazz press, not least because of its confident format – a solo, live recording in his own living room in front of an intimate audience. As a result, he was selected as a finalist of the Scott LaFaro Jazz Prize (International Society of Bassists).
He has since gone on to establish two residencies at the Vortex Jazz Club, London – Thelonious from 2015 to 2017 presenting the entire catalogue of Thelonious Monk with Martin Speake and Hans Koller; and a monthly big band residency with its ambitious aim to provide London with a regular Big Band night playing new compositions and new arrangements and reflecting the city´s musical diversity. The big band recently celebrated it´s second birthday at The Vortex.
As a sideman, he has performed with many leading jazz musicians from across the UK, and the world. Gourlay has held the acoustic bass chair with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra, under the direction of Tommy Smith, since 2006. In the last few years, the orchestra has toured and recorded with, amongst others, Joe Locke, Dave Liebman, Benny Golson, Kurt Elling, Makoto Ozone and Eddi Reader.
He has also featured prominently with Tommy Smith´s own quartet celebrating Coltrane. He has been a regular band member for Sam Leak, Tom Bancroft, Fini Bearman, Tom Cawley, Colin Steele and many other London and Scottish based bands.
Since 2018 Calum has been a professor of Jazz Bass at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance. He has also taught one to one at the Royal Academy of Music and directed his own big band music at The Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
