Music

The best jazz gigs of the week

From punky improv by Fugazi-linked Messthetics to elder statesman Jim Doherty

Heavyweight US punk improvisers Messthetics play Voodoo, Belfast (Saturday) and Grand Social, Dublin (Sunday)

Cormac Larkin's face
Cormac Larkin
Sat Feb 2 2019 - 05:00

SATURDAY 2 

Messthetics/Robocobra

Voodoo, Belfast, 7pm £11.50 robocobraquartet.com; also Sunday 3, Grand Social, Dublin

Those who like their improv loud and nasty will be bracing themselves for this incendiary double bill: Messthetics is a new trio featuring drummer Brendan Canty and bassist Joe Lally of US punk band Fugazi – together again for the first time since that legendary unit broke up in 2002 – along with experimental Washington DC guitarist Anthony Pirog. As if that weren’t enough, Belfast bombasts Robocobra will be adding their own brand of raw energy to proceedings. Light the blue touch paper and stand well back.

Mark Bradley/Linley Hamilton/Rick Swan

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Strule Auditorium, Omagh, 8pm £10/£8 struleartscentre.co.uk

For all its iconic status as the quintessential jazz instrument, the trumpet has been eclipsed in recent decades by the saxophone and the guitar, but the Belfast scene bucks the trend with this “Triumvirate of Trumpets” featuring Mark Bradley, Linley Hamilton and Rick Swan, part of the Omagh Jazz and Big Band Festival. The festival, which finishes on Sunday, also features vocalist Victoria Geelan’s ensemble later tonight with leading Belfast pianist Scott Flanigan and muscular US saxophonist Meilana Gillard.

SUNDAY 3

The Docks

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

The artist-curated Dublin Jazz Co-Op series is a valuable weekly check in with the glowing edge of the Dublin creative music scene. This week Dublin-based Ukrainian composer and vocalist Olesya Zdorovetska’s presents her Docks project, which she describes as a “sonic response to political dystopia”, with Keith Lindsay on electronics, Colm O’Hara on trombone, Derek Whyte on bass and Matthew Jacobson on drums.

TUESDAY 5

Insufficient Funs

Music@One, Ulster University, Derry (1pm) & Bennigans Bar, Derry (8pm); also Bello Bar, Dublin (Wednesday); Sofa Sessions at Billy Byrnes, Kilkenny (Thursday); Black Gate, Galway (Friday); The Hut, Dublin (Saturday); Glucksman, Cork (Sunday)

Irish duo Insufficient Funs were one of the stand-out acts at the prestigious 12 Points showcase at the Jazzaldia festival in San Sebastian/Donostia in 2016, but chances to hear them live are as rare as the enormous bass saxophone wielded by Brussels-based horn player Sam Comerford. With eclectic grooves and percussive interference from creative Dublin drummer Matthew Jacobson, this nationwide tour is a chance to check out one of the most unusual and frankly entertaining jazz units to emerge on the European jazz scene in recent years – and that’s up against some pretty unusual and frankly entertaining competition.

WEDNESDAY 6

Geraldine Laurent & Tommy Halferty

Alliance Francaise, Dublin, 6.30pm Adm free alliance-francaise.ie; also Thursday 7, Arthurs, Dublin; Friday 8, National Yacht Club, Dún Laoghaire

French saxophonist Geraldine Laurent cleaves to the classic jazz tradition, excavating the American Songbook and citing giants such as Coltrane, Rollins and Dolphy among her influences. The fortysomething altoist lands in Dublin this week for a series of encounters with guitarist and serial Francophile Tommy Halferty: today it’s a chamber trio with bassist Derek Whyte in the Alliance Française; then on Thursday, it’s a full-throated quartet with organist Scott Hamilton and drummer Kevin Brady; and on Friday, the duo play the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire.

THURSDAY 7

Chris Montague

Garter Lane, Waterford, 8.30pm €12 garterlane.ie; also Friday, Tinahely Courthouse, Wicklow; Saturday, Wexford Arts Centre, Wexford

Chris Montague is a rising star of the UK jazz scene, a guitarist with his own approach to the instrument who founded the influential Troyka trio and has performed with British stars such as Django Bates, Kit Downes and Gwilym Simcock. Montague was last seen on these shores on a Music Network tour with saxophonist Trish Clowes in 2018, and he’s back this week at the invitation of Wexford drummer and jazz instigator Kevin Lawlor, with well-regarded Welsh bassist Ashley John Long along for the ride.

FRIDAY 8

Jim Doherty at 80

NCH, Dublin, 1.05pm €18 nch.ie

In a long and impressively varied career, pianist Jim Doherty has led numerous influential groups, composed for stage and screen (he wrote the fondly remembered theme to Wanderly Wagon) and accompanied a roll call of illustrious visitors to these shores, including Zoot Simms, JJ Johnson and Spike Robinson. He was particularly associated with his old friend Louis Stewart – he gave the great guitarist his first gig, with the Chris Lamb Showband in 1960, and with Stewart, was part of an Irish quartet that gave a legendary performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1968. This special 80th birthday concert sees the affable pianist, who is sounding better than ever, reunited with some of his closest musical associates, including bassist Dave Fleming, drummer Myles Drennan and saxophonists Richie Buckley and Brendan Doyle, with vocalists Honor Heffernan and Susannah de Wrixon joining the celebrations. May his playing hands never fail.