corto.alto
Producer and multi-instrumentalist corto.alto mixes jazz with improv and electronica and is a mouthpiece for the strong Scottish jazz scene.
Glasgow-based composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Liam Shortall, aka corto.alto, has been described as a traditional jazz fan raised in the internet age whose mix of improv and electronica – laid out over a heavy bass beat – is out and about in the paws of modern jazz.
The debut album Bad With Names was released in October 2023 and, according to Shortall, is about ”forgiving yourself”, with the theme: the passage of time and wasted youth. The record brings together some of the UK’s strongest young jazz instrumentalists, including Mercury-nominated pianist Fergus McCreadie.
With the feel of a string quartet, Shortall’s Quartet takes the corto.alto sound in a new direction. Liam Shortall knows his jazz history through, among other things, his time in the brass line of the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra.
In the summer of 2023, corto.alto played at the festivals in Glastonbury, Love Supreme and Barcelona’s Jamboree Jazz Club. Now this exciting composer is coming to the Stockholm Jazz Festival and Fasching as an ambassador for the strong Scottish jazz scene.
Promoter: Stockholm Jazz Festival
Lineup:
Liam Shortall - bass, trombone, electronics
Mateusz Sobieski - tenor sax,
Graham Costello - drums