The best jazz gigs in Dublin and Galway this week

Sunday, March 24th

Peter Moc Group featuring Brian Charette
Arthurs, Dublin, 4pm, €10
arthurspub.ie

Hammond organist Brian Charette’s impressive resumé includes appearances with Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon and Chaka Khan, as well as fronting groups of his own with guitarists like Gilad Hekselman and Ben Monder.

The New York organist was in town last year to record with Czech-born Dublin guitarist Peter Moc and Charette returns this week to perform music from the album with Moc’s regular trio featuring bassist Andrew Csibi and drummer Kevin Brady.

Hover Trout
Workman's Club, Dublin, 7.30pm, €10
facebook.com/dublinjazzcoop

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The Dublin Jazz Co-Op series is a perfect chance to dip a toe into the swirling cross currents of contemporary improvised music, both in the capital and further afield, with a high-quality programme curated by prominent Dublin jazz artists presented every week in the intimate Vintage Room at the Workman’s Club.

Hover Trout is a Berlin-based trio mining the saxophone-bass-drums seam of classic jazz, shot through with veins of indie rock and Americana.

Canadian saxophonist Jonathan Lindhorst is a leading light of Berlin’s growing ex-pat musician community, and he brings with him his regular trio companions, US bassist Matt Adomeit and fellow Canadian drummer Sly Juhas.

Julien & John with Susannah De Wrixon
Bewley's Café, Dublin, 8pm, €10
instagram.com/julienandjohnofficial

Dublin guitarists Julien Colarossi and John Keogh have been building a rapport and a repertoire as a duo since getting together in 2014, bringing a jazz sensibility to tunes everybody knows by Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan and even Coldplay.

They released a fine duo album, Street Life, in 2016, but recently they have begun working with talented vocalist and actor Susannah De Wrixon and here’s a chance to hear where they’re headed for their next album in Bewley’s Café Theatre on Grafton street.

Tuesday, March 26th

Signal Series: Oxygen Thief/Kevin Lawlor Quintet
Wild Duck, Dublin, 8pm, €12/€15
improvisedmusic.ie

The second in the new monthly showcase series from the Improvised Music Company at the Wild Duck off Dame Street features guitarist Chris Guilfoyle’s excellent Oxygen Thief trio, with bassist Barry Donohue and drummer Matthew Jacobson, with a special appearance from Romanian vocalist and composer Aleka.

Also on the bill is a quintet led by dynamic Wexford drummer Kevin Lawlor featuring saxophonist Kelan Walsh, guitarist Colm Lindsay, keyboardist Patrick Molitor and bassist Jack Rufus Kelly.

Friday, March 29th

The Commons: Music Without Borders on Brexit Day
Arthurs, Dublin, 10pm, €12/€15
improvisedmusic.ie

London-born Dublin-resident saxophonist Nick Roth sounds a note of international harmony for Brexit Day with a group of front rank improvisers drawn from across Britain and Ireland.

“As musicians”, says Roth, “we claim a loyalty to something greater than the nation state. Music is from the world and we are of it.”

The eight piece group includes celebrated Welsh pianist Huw Warren, best known as one third of the Quercus trio whose releases on the ECm label have been widely admired.

Also taking part in this four nations exchange of musical love, which grew out of a Brexit panel discussion at last year Galway Jazz Festival, are English trumpeter Neil Yates, Scottish trombonist Kieran McLeod and Galway clarinetist and festival curator Matthew Berrill.

The group also plays two concerts in Galway on Saturday 30th, at the Mick Lally Theatre at 11am and St Nicholas’s Church at 8pm – more on those gigs next week.

Piano Day: Sarah Nicolls's inside-out piano
Mick Lally Theatre, Galway, 8pm, €16.50
druid.ie

Adventurous pianists have long known that there are more sounds in their instrument than just those obtained by pressing the keys, but it has always been hard for audiences to see what sort of manipulations are going on under the lid.

British pianist Sarah Nicolls has solved this by developing her own inside-out piano, an impressive sui generis instrument designed to be interfered with by a musician at the forefront of piano experimentation.

The performance is presented by the Galway Jazz Festival team as part of Piano Day, an international celebration of what is arguably the most important instrument in the western musical tradition.