Various venues, Cork Fri-Mon guinnessjazzfestival.com
With the jazz content of the Guinness Jazz Festival increasingly diluted by non-jazz acts, someone may have to invoke the Trade Descriptions Act, but there is still some worthwhile jazz to be found there this year.
The Everyman Theatre (the festival’s main venue) hosts familiar visitors Kurt Elling, Monty Alexander, Gilad Atzmon, The Bad Plus and Pharoah Sanders. It’s good to see drummer Jack DeJohnette’s band with the great saxophonist John Surman on the bill, and there will be curiosity about Eldar, a pianist from Kyrgystan who leads his own trio.
There is also a certain je ne sais quoi – though I don’t know what it is – about the Sun Ra Arkestra (above), the one-time avant-garde’s answer to tribute bands. And, though Yurodny is a fine band launching a new CD, its roots and soul are more in central European folk music than in jazz.
The Triskel (based temporarily at Jurys) makes a welcome reappearance under the festival umbrella after two years in outer darkness, with a strong programme featuring some of the best Irish groups around (Mike Nielsen, Mark McKnight, David Lyttle, Phil Ware) and such imports as the folky Carmina and the François Bourassa and Alain Bedard quartets.
At the Firkin Crane, trumpeter Claudio Roditi leads a capable trio, and Nikki Iles heads a fine all-female band with the stunningly original title, Cherchez La Femme. And for those who like big band nostalgia, there is Harlem Nights 1930.
After that, for jazz fans the fare is harder to find. But, buried in the boozy ambience of the Guinness Festival club are a few jazz acts to check out, among them singer Lea Delaria, Jim Hart with Louis Stewart, the Bjorn Solli Organ Trio, Anthony Pinciotti, Honor Heffernan and, again, Cherchez la Femme and Claudio Roditi.
But, make no mistake, this is a slimmed down jazz festival on a diet.
Selected headliners
Friday 23
Mark McKnight-David Lyttle (Triskel@Jurys Cork Hotel 8pm)
Sun Ra Arkestra/The Bad Plus (Everyman 8.30pm)
Saturday 24
Al Di Meola/Yurodny (Everyman 2pm)
Carmina (Triskel@Jurys 2.30pm)
Kurt Elling/Monty Alexander (Everyman 8pm)
Claudio Roditi/Cherchez La Femme (Firkin Crane 8pm)
François Bourassa/Akain Bedard (Triskel@Jurys 8pm)
Sunday 25
Jack DeJohnette/Gilad Atzmon (Everyman 2pm)
Phil Ware (Triskel@Jurys 2.30pm)
Harlem Night 1930 (Firkin Crane 7pm)
Mike Nielsen (Triskel@Jurys 8pm)
Pharoah Sanders/Eldar (Everyman 8.30pm)
