Friday 22nd
JAZZ FESTIVAL
Limerick Jazz Festival (continues till Sunday), various venues, see limerickjazzfestival.com
Limerick is a city that has always punched above its weight, jazz-wise, thanks to the energies of enthusiasts like drummer/promoter John Daly and guitarist Joe O’Callaghan. This year’s festival may be pocket-sized compared to some other cities’ offerings, but there’s still plenty to snag the curious ear: star UK saxophonist Soweto Kinch’s trio (Dolans, tonight); Dublin City Jazz Orchestra with vocalists Suzanne Savage and Charlie Mooney (Belltable, Saturday), a powerful late night double bill with O’Callaghan’s Electric Freeplay and the James Taylor Quartet (Dolans, Saturday); and crowd-pleasers Booka Brass (Dolans, Sunday). There’s also a free workshop for children on Saturday morning and a masterclass from Kinch on Saturday afternoon. Cormac Larkin
Thursday 28th
ALBUM LAUNCH
Edel Meade: Blue Fantasia
Bello Bar, Dublin, 8pm, €12, bellobardublin.com
Edel Meade may have been instrumental in launching the singing careers of others with her popular vocal workshops, but this month, the Dublin vocalist and composer steps into the spotlight herself. Blue Fantasia is a debut album of sophisticated, often disarmingly personal songs from Meade, and top-knotch performances from a talented band, which for the album launch at Bello Bar, includes trumpeter Linley Hamilton, guitarist Julien Colarossi, keyboardist Scott Flanigan and bassist Dave Redmond. CL
GUITAR SUPER-DUO
Hugh Buckley & Nigel Clark
Arthurs, Dublin, 9pm, €10, arthurspub.ie
Unlike most other instrumentalists, guitarists seem to particularly enjoy each other’s company. Hugh Buckley and Nigel Clark first struck up a musical friendship at one of Buckley’s legendary Dublin Guitar nights and an acoustic guitar super-duo was born: Buckley is a fluid be-bop-inspired player who has assumed Louis Stewart’s mantle as the Dublin scene’s leading mainstream guitarist; Clark’s early career was spent in the dazzle of flashbulbs as a member of Glasgow band Hue and Cry, but since then, he has been quietly turning himself into a sensitive and versatile accompanist and, with singer Colette Cassidy, a songwriter of real originality. Likely to attract other guitarist types, in case that has any bearing on your decision to attend. CL
EXPERIMENTAL
Roy Carroll
Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast, 1pm, Free (ticketed event), movingonmusic.com
Dublin-born composer Roy Carroll is a sonic manipulator, an adventurer in the slipstream of technology and improv, deploying acoustic and electric instruments with equal disregard for convention. A long time denizen of Berlin’s fertile experimental music scene, Carroll’s former projects include the legendary Dublin collective Trouble Penetrator and Berlin’s Splitter Orchestra. This one-off solo show is a rare chance on these shores to hear where Carroll’s outrageously creative head is at these days. CL
