Jazz enthusiasm in Scotland has always been strong, but since Jack Bruce the northern half of the UK has not produced a jazz musician of distinction. That is about to change, because with the drummer, composer and bandleader Graham Costello and his entourage, Scottish jazz is taking a completely new look. However, the Glaswegian is a stranger to the term jazz. "I don't really like to resort to the word jazz. My music has nothing to do with swing or the typical jazz reflex of building long improvisations on a short theme. The whole jazz tradition is completely irrelevant to me. I see myself as a composer who is more oriented towards noise and minimal music. Before I formed my band Strata, I had played in a noise rock band myself. But categories like jazz and rock belong to the past for me. Previous generations may have needed them, but for me they don't mean anything anymore."
