Review: Ready Player Seven at the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival

I saw Ready Player Seven this weekend at the St Bride’s Centre in Dalry. It was my first ever Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival gig and it was a good one!

Firstly, the St Bride’s Centre is perfect for music. The building is an old church, so the acoustics are top-notch, and the atmosphere isn’t altogether out of alignment with jazz.

If you head to Fountain Park, you’re in the right area—just on the wrong side of Western Approach Road. So head towards Haymarket but veer off at that scary crossroads at Clifton Terrace. If you live on the Dalry side of town then you’ll the area.

I’m a music fan but rarely say, “Hey, Google, play Jazz on Spotify.” Ready Player Seven combines retro computer game soundtracks with Jazz, so I was an easy sale!

I was curious. Jazz is about improvisation, but Ready Player Seven promised to recreate retro computer game music, so how did they do?

They nailed it. I recognised all the tracks and could tell these were jazz versions, but only once spotted when someone snuck in some improvised joins.

Ready Player Seven’s sound

As the name suggests, there are seven of them;

• Chuck Dearness (trumpet)
• Patrick Darley (trombone)
• Kassandra Louisa E’ Silva aka KC (tenor Saxophone)
• Tolek Konior (guitar)
• Mike Kearney (keys)
• Cameron Bradley (bass)
• Vid Gobac (drums)

The band puts Vid in the middle, and he leads and introduces, then the brass of KC, Chuck and Patrick are on the left with the strings and keys of Cameron, Tolek and Mike to the right.

Each musician gets their turn to solo or lead a bit of a song, often it was one of the brass musicians but by the time the set had finished each talent had had the chance to shine.

It was fun keeping up. In particular, the lead would switch between Chuck, Patrick, and Kassandra, and I’d try to notice (I’m that bad) or predict and see where the music would go next. Ready Player Seven kept me guessing, and I’m sure any one of them could carry any part of any adaptation.

Ready Player Seven vibe

Fun, friendly and family-safe sum up Ready Player Seven. There was no swearing, moping or audience participation, but there were certainly cheers, applause, and the audience enthusiastically calling out their praise when the band announced their next song.

I sat in a varied audience and would estimate the age range was 80 to 8, with many families and probably more women than men.

It helps to know the retro games but the music is so good, you don’t need to. They played tracks from various Mario games, Sonic the Hedgehog, Zelda and Castlevania.

I sat a few rows behind a youngster (perhaps 10) who bopped along happily, in fact delightedly, to every song with a Pokemon plushie in each hand. Those pocket monsters danced along for an hour and a half, only going wild at the end when Ready Player Seven played some Pokemon.

Crucially, the band would play music from levels and parts of the game. We’re not talking about theme tunes from TV here. Not even when they played Ducktales.

Overall

Keep an eye on the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival. If they sign for 2025, grab your tickets straight away.

I’d gladly go back to the St Brides’ Centre again and might even be tempted to listen to more jazz.