To the music industry masses clustered round the tables at this year’s Mercury Prize ceremony, 25-year-old Fergus McCreadie may have been an unfamiliar name. As the traditional token jazz nominee, he was the rank outsider to scoop the prestigious award for his album Forest Floor. 

But in his native Scotland, particularly his adopted home city of Glasgow, the prodigiously talented pianist has been a mainstay of the grassroots jazz scene for a number of years, first emerging as a dexterous proposition while still a student on Professor Tommy Smith’s fabulously fertile jazz course at the Royal Conservatoire Of Scotland, before reaching the 2018 BBC Young Musician Of The Year final.

McCreadie, originally from Dollar, formed his own trio with David Bowden on bass and Stephen Henderson on drums, as well as providing calm yet brilliant backing in a number of Glasgow’s clamorous young jazz ensembles. His previous albums, Turas (2018) and Cairn (2021), showcased his elegantly realised fusion of haunting Celtic folk tradition and technically dazzling jazz practise.

Everything came together on his evocative third album, Forest Floor, recorded over three days in summer 2021 and released in April this year. OK, it didn’t trounce the odds to win the Mercury Prize but, two evenings later, McCreadie scored a double whammy, being named as Instrumentalist Of The Year at the Jazz FM Awards and lifting the Scottish Album Of The Year Award, the first jazz artist to do so. 

The List's Hot 100 was announced on 1 December in the December/January issue, available now.