Fergus McCreadie Trio: Live at Churchill College Chapel, Cambridge

The final night of Cambridge Jazz Festival 2025 was also the final date of a 17-date tour for pianist Fergus McCreadie and his trio.

The rather marvellous chapel at Churchill College, Cambridge

My first experience of McCreadie’s music was during the Covid-19 pandemic, when I reviewed his album Cairn in early 2021. There was something undefinably Scottish about that album and the same is certainly true of the 2025 release The Shieling. Hearing him perform tracks from the album live with his trio at Cambridge was a special moment for me.

Recording The Shieling was a new process for the trio, where they took McCreadie’s compositions into a remote cottage studio on North Uist in the Scottish Outer Hebrides. Joined by David Bowden (bass) and Stephen Henderson (drums), with production by the genius composer and trumpeter Laura Jurd, McCreadie produced something of supreme beauty that translated well to the chapel at Churchill College.

Throughout the evening, McCreadie, Bowden and Henderson brought a little of the Scottish landscape and climate to a capacity audience (on our own southerly windy and rainy night in November). The selection of tunes gave a taster of The Shieling and there was a respectable queue for audience members bagging their own CDs and vinyl albums afterwards.

Beginning the night, McCreadie considerately chose my favourite of his tracks: Wayfinder. The tunes progressed one following the other, with a gentle drum solo leading into Sparrow Song before a bass introduction to The Ridge and then Wind Shelter McCreadie took a pause to introduce the musicians and the album, before explaining the last few tracks, the writing and recording process.

For those of us unfamiliar with the 282 Munros (Scottish mountains over 3000 feet) and the challenge to collect - or ‘bag’ - all of them, McCreadie explained how climbing them has become a creative activity in which he can find inspiration for his composition. Once the trio, with sound engineer, piano and producer, arrived in the cottage and began the arranging and recording of McCreadie’s ideas, the cottage itself added even more inspiration. You can read his account of the process on his website.

Each tune was both evocative of the Scottish landscape and a demonstration of the musicians’ skill. The three instruments were used to their full potential - from every note of the piano, to bowing, plucked bass and the rims and sides of the drum kit. Alongside Henderson, sat a small shruti box on a table, used to great effect - hear more of it when you listen to the whole of The Shieling.

You can see what I thought when I reviewed Cairn in February 2021, and this gig ended the Cambridge Jazz Festival to perfection.