Blue Note Records opens first ever Glasgow store as jazz festival fever hits town

Blue Note Records is opening its first ever store outside London this week, to coincide with the Glasgow Jazz Festival. The Blue Note Records pop-up store will offer the largest physical selection of Blue Note vinyl in the UK. 

But jazzers, act fast. Because The Blue Note Records pop-up store will only be in the city of the Blue Nile for four days from Wednesday (19 June).

Jazz fans pour into the city every year for the Glasgow Jazz Festival, with this year’s event headlined by US saxophonist and improvisational legend Bobby Watson, the Kyoto Jazz Quartet and new Scottish jazz-soul ensemble Mama Terra. 

Shows take places across the city, from Òran Mór and the Mackintosh Church in the West End, to the city centre’s legendary dive bar Nice ‘n’ Sleazy in the centre of town, St Luke’s in the East End and the Southside’s famous Glad Café.

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The Glasgow Jazz Festival has a strong reputation for bringing the biggest names in jazz to the city.

Miles Davis, who headlined in 1990 as Glasgow celebrated becoming European City of Culture, Dizzy Gillespie, Ray Charles, Gladys Knight, Pat Methany, Courtney Pine, Pharaoh Sanders, Georgie Fame, Mulatu Astatke and tuba superstar Theon Cross are just some of the big names to have played at Glasgow Jazz Festival over the years.

Attracting the iconic Blue Note record label to the city is another coup.

Blue Note Records will take over high-end record and hi-fi shop Loud and Clear on St Vincent Street in Central Glasgow, offering exclusive playbacks and the widest range of Blue Note music and merchandise imaginable.

The pop-up store is part of Blue Note’s 85^th anniversary celebrations. Alongside an extensive tour by the Blue Nile Quintet, featuring some of the label’s brightest young stars, the return of the vinyl boxset subscription series and classic reissues, there will be new releases from jazz piano great Nduduzo Makhathini, saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins, bassist and rapper Meshell Ndegeocello and nine-time Grammy winner Norah Jones.

The Glasgow Jazz Festival takes place from 19-23 June.

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