In recent years, criticisms could be levelled against the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival for being overly steeped in traditionalism. While the event remained a cornerstone of Edinburgh's summer festivals, and continued to gain good audience figures, there was little indication of the potentially revolutionary sounds on offer within the jazz spectrum.
Programmes would contain little in the way of "modern" jazz, depicting a musical form which seemed to have ceased forward development sometime in the mid 1950s'.
Happily, this situation is somewhat reversed with this year's line-up. Major crowd-pleasing favourites such as Courtney Pine, Jools Holland with his ever faithful Rhythm & Blues Orchestra, classic jazz pianist Dick Hyman and a tribute to the ill-fated, sad-eyed genius of Chet Baker are presented alongside a number of acts who form a vanguard of 21st century jazz.
As in previous years, there's also the free, outdoor jazz fest events for more traditional fare: Mardi Gras (2nd August), Jazz on a Summer's Day (2nd August), and Grassmarkets (2nd August), part of a series of events marking the recent completion of the area's renovation.
Most excitingly are performances from three bleeding edge bands from Norway's incredibly fertile music scene. Elephant9 are the trio of Supersilent's Stale Storlokken on organ and electric piano alongside the rhythm section of Nikolai Eilertsen and Torstein Lofthus.
Their sound is a constantly grooving wash, ultra-tight bass and drums fronted by the swampy layers of Storlokken's multiple keyboards. It's reminiscent of the far frontiers voyaged by seventies Miles Davis, but with an added psychedelic twist. The live result should be a fairly incendiary Blast Off.
Atomic and The Thing share the same rhythm section of Ingebrigt Haaker Flaten on bass and Paal Nilssen-Love on drums. And what a hell of a rhythm section it is. Flaten's muscularly dextrous playing sounds at times like he's ripping the strings off his instrument while Nilssen-Love is, quite simply, the best young jazz drummer in the world today, managing to combine a subtly delicate touch with the temperament of an exploding octopus on the kit.
While the five-piece band of Atomic are a more conventional, studied take on melodically free jazz, the trio of The Thing are at home in the worlds of jazz, underground rock and even noise music. A trio led by sax man Mats Gustaffson, The Thing first formed in 2000 as a tribute to the work of the legendary Don Cherry. Since then, they have focused on exposing the parallels between the most extreme avenues of ecstatic, heavy-hitting free jazz with the unhinged, gut-pummelling energy of garage rock. The result is modern fire music of the rawest, vein-popping variety. Imagine Peter Brotzmann or Albert Ayler covering The White Stripes and you're getting close.
All three of these bands are essential dates for anyone interested in the potential for jazz in 2009.
Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival, Various Venues, 31 July - 9 August.
Atomic. Bosco, 31 July
The Thing. The Lot, 2 August
Elephant9. Voodoo Rooms, 5 August