IN THE cosmopolitan melting pot that is modern jazz, a distinctive sound to emerge in recent years is that of guitarist Lionel Loueke, singing gently in unison with his high-tensile guitar grooves, or adding very African-sounding clicking mouth percussion.
It's an engaging combination, augmented by some discreet electronica, but the US-based Loueke, who hails from the small west-African country of Benin, used to nurse mixed feelings about his vocal abilities. "That's something that used to bother me a lot," he says from his home in New Jersey, "because I used to not like my singing at all. Even now I don't rate myself as a singer. But I think every musician will sing – some sing out loud, some sing inside, and the way I hear it, I use my voice more like an effects pedal, like a device on the instrument. It's natural for me to sing every note I play; I've got used to it and now it doesn't bother me at all."
Loueke, who has been attracting enthusiastic reviews both for his live performances and for his album of last year Karibu (Blue Note), has visited these shores before as a sideman with Herbie Hancock, but on 26 June he makes his Scottish debut under his own name at the Glasgow Jazz Festival, in his long-standing trio with Swedish-Italian bassist Massimo Biolcati and Hungarian drummer Ferenc Nemeth. It's a perhaps appropriately cross-cultural line-up for a musician who has worked long and hard at his own particular brand of jazz fusion. Initially inspired by the great American jazz guitarists such Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass, he went on to assimilate elements of his native tradition along with the mainstream western styles. "It wasn't easy at the beginning," says Loueke, now 36. "I was listening to these guys – Pass, Benson, Montgomery – and transcribing them by ear when I was still in Benin. I didn't know how to write the music at that time, and at the beginning I was focussing more on jazz.
"It's easy for me now because it's the most natural approach to music for me, now that I've studied jazz and I understand what's going on harmonically and rhythmically. And that helps me to understand better the African music as well."
In Benin – best known in musical terms as the home of world music star Angélique Kidjo – Loueke grew up surrounded by music, he says, though not so much in his immediate family, although his older brother played Afro-pop on guitar and gave him the occasional shot. A seminal moment, however, was when a friend arrived from Paris with a George Benson CD. Loueke was hooked and, starting to take his music very seriously indeed, enrolled at a classical music course at a college in the Ivory Coast.
He tells the story of how, while studying there and desperate to raise money to pay his rent, he had been trying unsuccessfully to get a regular gig at a local club. Eventually, one night, while the band was taking a break, he unceremoniously borrowed their guitarist's instrument and started playing. Despite some attempts to unstage him, he played long enough to convince the club manager to give him a residency for almost two years. "It was a great way for me to survive and keep going at school."
His evident ability got him into the American School of Modern Music in Paris, an offshoot of Berklee College in Boston. After graduating, the young guitarist won a scholarship to attend the prestigious Boston establishment, and went on to win a coveted place at the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz, a highly selective institution which enables its students to study and play with some of the greatest musicians about.
It was through the Monk Institute that Loueke fell in with three jazz giants who would become both mentors and collaborators – pianist Herbie Hancock, saxophonist Wayne Shorter and trumpeter Terence Blanchard. Hancock, with whom Loueke has now played extensively, is on record as declaring, "I flipped", about the first time he heard the young African guitarist. "I'd never heard any guitar player play anything close to what I was hearing from him."
Both Shorter and Hancock crop up on last year's Karibu album, and Loueke is expansive in his tributes. "These are my heroes. They've had a huge influence on me and my music, but also on my life. Not only are they great musicians, but they're mature human beings."
Loueke's long standing trio with Biolcati and Nemeth – both of whom he has known since his Berklee days, promises a memorable evening at the Old Fruitmarket and its cross-cultural nature echoes the multifarious nature of the Glasgow Jazz Festival, which opens on Friday. Headlining concerts range from the festival's coup of a solo performance from the renowned pianist, composer and electric jazz pioneer Chick Corea, in his only UK appearance this summer (30 June) and a gig from the accomplished composer and bassist Kyle Eastwood (yes, son of Clint) and his quintet to a Johnny Mercer centenary concert (21 June), with Sir Michael Parkinson hosting a line-up of Scottish jazz diva Carol Kidd, Clare Teal, Laurie Holloway and Todd Gordon.
There is the European fusion work of pianist Bugge Wesseltoft at the Arches (20 June), funky young MOBO Award-winning young saxophonist Yolanda Brown at the Tron (21 June) while old crooner Neil Sedaka serenades the SECC on 26 June. There is the new-wave fusion of Get the Blessing, appearing with formidable young Scots drummer Alyn Cosker's trio on 19 June, while Scots sax star Tommy Smith joins the Norwegian bassist Arild Andersen and Italian drummer Paolo Vinaccia in their celebrated trio on 25 June.
For fans of big band jazz the BBC Big Band with joins forces with saxophonist Art Themen (25 June), while the Scottish National Jazz orchestra reprises its much acclaimed arrangement of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and its tribute to drum legend Buddy Rich (28 June).
The bubbling Scottish jazz scene is well represented, including trumpeters Colin Steele and his Quintet (27 June) and Ryan Quigley with his big band plus Del Amitri singer-songwriter Justin Currie (27 June), while veteran Scots saxophonist Bobby Wellins plays the Tron on 23 June.
Emerging new talent is celebrated in the BBC Radio Scotland Young Jazz Musician of the Year final at the Old Fruitmarket on 24 June, while this Monday, the newly introduced Scottish Jazz Awards will be presented in what promises to be an extravagant bash at the Tron .
• Lionel Loueke appears at the Old Fruitmarket on 26 June. The Glasgow Jazz festival runs from 19-30 June. For further details, see
www.jazzfest.co.uk or tel. 0141-552 3552.
