Guinness Cork Jazz Festival
Various venues
★★★★☆
The Canadian jazz writer John Kelman had a single yardstick to measure whether a jazz festival is actually, in fact, a jazz festival. “Can you attend the event for its entire run,” he once wrote, “ignore the non-jazz programming, and still be immersed in a broad cross-section of jazz each and every day, even facing difficult choices about what you decide to see?”
By that criterion, despite the plethora of soul, funk, hip-hop and Afrobeat acts in this year’s line-up, and the proudly proclaimed “jazz-free zone” of concerts at Cork City Hall, this year’s Guinness Cork Jazz Festival just about lived up to its name. The jazz-loving punter had to dig deep and stick to a handful of dedicated venues. But if you knew where to look, there was a vibrant jazz festival taking place in Cork over the bank holiday weekend – albeit often DIY and largely away from the official programme.
Very much the progenitor of a long-standing tradition of presenting the finest of jazz, especially from across Europe, in the most inspiring of settings, the Triskel Arts Centre offered a number of captivating concerts in the splendour of its main Christ Church performance space.
On the Saturday afternoon, as part of a five-date Music Network tour, the inimitable brass player Daniel Herskedal and his agile trio played a superbly evocative concert to a full house. Switching between tuba and bass trumpet, two sonorous yet unwieldy instruments rarely seen centre-stage, Herskedal provided an object lesson in musical mood and atmosphere.
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Playing compositions from his most recent album, the suitably titled Movements of Air, as well as from his Edition Records back catalogue, the Norwegian virtuoso showed a supreme commitment to subtlety and beauty, and to the way music can transport you to far-off places – from the frozen landscapes of the Arctic north to the warmer contours of the Middle East. Slipping effortlessly between jazz, folk and classical, this was gorgeous music, exquisitely played.
The same might be said of the Albanian-born vocalist Elina Duni and the English guitarist Rob Luft, who appeared as the finale of three Sunday concerts that celebrated Triskel’s enduring relationship with the estimable German label ECM.
Sensitively supported by the Swiss flugelhorn player Matthieu Michel and the Scottish drummer Corrie Dick, the duo drew upon music that ranged from American jazz standards to an ancient Arabic love song, with traditional folk tunes from Duni’s homeland, and original compositions, acting as a kind of gateway between the two. Both leaders are consummate musicians: Luft sounds (and looks) like a deft young Pat Metheny, while Duni’s vocals are wonderfully expressive and unadorned – rich in the lower registers, crystalline up high.
It may not get any recognition or funding in official jazz festival circles, but the Cork Improvised Music Club (CIMC) has, over the past decade or more, also presented inspirational music in the city. Organising monthly events in the intimate listening room that is the independent record shop Plugd, the CIMC creative force, drummer, saxophonist and composer Dan Walsh scheduled three early evening duo gigs over the weekend, two of which I caught.
On Saturday, US-born and Dublin-based Steve Welsh, on alto and tenor saxophones and synths, and young Cobh native Michael McCarthy, on drums, created a set of diverse extemporisations that were interactive worlds unto themselves – shifting from free playing to post-bop, ambient soundscapes to modal jazz, dense flurries of sound to cymbal splashes and long single saxophone lines invested with maximum spirit and texture.
The following evening, two leading Irish musicians, the saxophonist Cathal Roche and the double bassist Neil Ó Lochlainn, provided a calm and contemplative space among the roistering madness of much of the festival. Playing with a steadfast sense of patience and restraint, the duo’s opening extended improvisation of long breathy alto lines and harmonic arco bass frequencies gradually evolved and refracted, like distant radio waves or the unsettling sounds of the ocean deep.
One of the most joyous events of the weekend was the Cork School of Music Jazz Big Band concert at midday on Saturday. A highly talented, 18-piece student ensemble enthusiastically directed by the versatile pianist, composer and arranger Cormac McCarthy, the band and its special guests, who included the fine English saxophonist Ben Castle, flew through challenging charts by, among others, Basie, Strayhorn and Maria Schneider with flair and élan. It was music to put a smile on your face and a tap in your foot.
“We want some more jazz at this festival,” McCarthy said, unequivocally, at the end of the hour-long concert, to loud cheers from a 400-strong multigenerational audience. It’s surely not too much to ask.
