Next week offers a choice for jazz fans – but they clash.

The main interest will centre on Loren Stillman, already marked  as an outstanding and very individual US alto saxophonist among the current generation of young lions. He is touring with
Irishman Simon Jermyn's Trot-a-Mouse quartet with Joachim Badenhorst (clarinet) and Seán Carpio (drums). They  play in the Triskel, Cork on Wednesday and the Sugar Club, Dublin on Thursday. It should be one of the more intriguing groups  to be heard here this year.

Meanwhile, famed French violinist Jean-Luc Ponty brings his quartet to the NCH in Dublin  on Thursday, featuring William Lecomte (keyboards), Guy Nsangué Akwa (bass) and Damien Schmitt (drums).