this year an invasion
of European bands, but a Musician of the Year Award to
Jason Moran from New York,"It is a pleasure to visit
the Cork Jazz Festival, but I have come all this way and you are going to hear music you
have never heard before.."
Jason's set arrives in a patina of New York street sounds
as the three musicians, Tarus Mateen - bass, and Nashid
Waits - drums join Jason - piano, on a street excursion
without parallel. A quite wonderful demonstration of a
jazz discourse without solo slots, this is a constant
stream of exciting conversation, which is interupted only
once by the voice .."THAT was trash.." This
group have merged jazz cells into music that has many
emotional effects, from rythmic variation to crisis
levels that are uncannily echoed by the almost ghostly
sound track of their movement through the crowds on the
pavement, the hinged doors of roads palpitating with
traffic and human turbulence.
"At the forefront
of the European jazz revolution, E.S.T." - a line-up
of piano,base and drums, a great set taking
place in the Everyman Theatre with Dan Berglund
describing experimental spaces on his base with the cello
shaft that became a kind of shifting boundary to the
mental probes of Esbjorn Svensson on the piano. It is
hard to avoid the jargon of excellence to describe their
set - electric, not disturbing but elusive, projecting
one into an area of thought about sound.They were
subsequently awarded European Musicians of the Year on
stage, by Pat Cox, President of the European Union.
The Hammond Organ had plenty of exercise, including a
near catastrophic explosion for Georgie Fame due to an
incorrect connection. A young German musician,Barbara
Dennerlein gave a performance that nearly broke through
my strong aversion to this instrument, and it was very
nice to hear Alison Miller again on drums who has learnt,
or created, more tricks with the sticks, and fluttered
them to great effect for "Fly Away" and other
musical creations by Mimi Fox (that I listened too for a
short while escaping from the BBC Jazz Orchestra
at the Everyman,unfortunately without my sketchbook.)
Another Hammond Organ player,Mike Carr,brought some young
musicians with him. Jack McGouran kindly gave me access
to the Everyman Theatre,where I also heard Dewey Redman,
who finished his set with a performance on a wooden pipe,
the mouthpiece silver with a strong coil in it , and at
the end of the wooden pipe which may have also had a
spiral in the interior there was a trumpet flange - this
instrument seemed to echo the thousands of years of
herding and life in Africa - from which Dewey broke off
to sing an ancient African chant with forceful words and
rhythm. Like a young man again he moved about the stage
or stood looking up purposefully toward the sun or the
universe, mesmeric.
I rushed back and forth to The Metropole (Guiness
Festival Club)where there is always a huge crowd of
people milling through five rooms and stairs and
corridors, where musicians crash against the unmusical
racket of conversation, glass clinking and laughter and
achieve the marvelous silence of attention that we will
give them....This magic challenge apparently only occurs
in one other place in Europe, where elsewhere,
internationally, the punters sit in hallowed silence
start to finish. But musicians of calibre enjoy this
loquacious challenge and achieve satisfaction from the
Irish whose musical abilities in our tradition must
always encounter a similar audience. We can become transfixed by wonderful
performances and a certain atmosphere of joyful
exhuberance always lays its veil over the City every year
for this Festival. I heard Tom O'Hare on Monday on the
vibes, with a great set and such a surprise for Monday
which usually settles into a kind of quiet reserve for an
audience of perhaps the more professional classes - but
this year the whole world tumbled in, Prof. Paul Donnell,
U.C.C.,on piano took on the challenge playing better than
ever before, his students seated right up to the platform
in any space they could acquire. Late at night Louis
Stewart arrived looking tired but relaxed, Peter
Washington played base, Larry Coryell on guitar, Lanny
Morgan and Len McCarthy on sax and the five of them with
Miles Drennan on drums played a rousing set at such a
pace it set the blood racing.
No disappointments? Yes, Brad Mehldau, who has taken on
the persona of a Jack Kerouac,his contortions on the
piano stool, his snarls, in contrast with minimal
phrasing, repetitive and only held together by an irate
pouting and pounding drummer and baseplayer; so out of
date and in maximum a bore.The Paul Durcan of the jazz
world? Also I fear that tickets into the Metropole Sat.
and Sunday evenings were too expensive and the crowd did
not arrive.Nice for Mimi Fox and some heavy Englishmen
who wanted silence.....
way and you are going to hear music you
have never heard before.."
solo slots, this is a constant
stream of exciting conversation, which is interupted only
once by the voice .."THAT was trash.." This
group have merged jazz cells into music that has many
emotional effects, from rythmic variation to crisis
levels that are uncannily echoed by the almost ghostly
sound track of their movement through the crowds on the
pavement, the hinged doors of roads palpitating with
traffic and human turbulence.
piano,base and drums, a great set taking
place in the Everyman Theatre with Dan Berglund
describing experimental spaces on his base with the cello
shaft that became a kind of shifting boundary to the
mental probes of Esbjorn Svensson on the piano. It is
hard to avoid the jargon of excellence to describe their
set - electric, not disturbing but elusive, projecting
one into an area of thought about sound.They were
subsequently awarded European Musicians of the Year on
stage, by Pat Cox, President of the European Union.
while escaping from the BBC Jazz Orchestra
at the Everyman,unfortunately without my sketchbook.)
Another Hammond Organ player,Mike Carr,brought some young
musicians with him. Jack McGouran kindly gave me access
to the Everyman Theatre,where I also heard Dewey Redman,
who finished his set with a performance on a wooden pipe,
the mouthpiece silver with a strong coil in it , and at
the end of the wooden pipe which may have also had a
spiral in the interior there was a trumpet flange - this
instrument seemed to echo the thousands of years of
herding and life in Africa - from which Dewey broke off
to sing an ancient African chant with forceful words and
rhythm. Like a young man again he moved about the stage
or stood looking up purposefully toward the sun or the
universe, mesmeric.
We can become transfixed by wonderful
performances and a certain atmosphere of joyful
exhuberance always lays its veil over the City every year
for this Festival. I heard Tom O'Hare on Monday on the
vibes, with a great set and such a surprise for Monday
which usually settles into a kind of quiet reserve for an
audience of perhaps the more professional classes - but
this year the whole world tumbled in, Prof. Paul Donnell,
U.C.C.,on piano took on the challenge playing better than
ever before, his students seated right up to the platform
in any space they could acquire. Late at night Louis
Stewart arrived looking tired but relaxed, Peter
Washington played base, Larry Coryell on guitar, Lanny
Morgan and Len McCarthy on sax and the five of them with
Miles Drennan on drums played a rousing set at such a
pace it set the blood racing.