Music

The best jazz gigs of the week

Catch Brilliant Corners festival in Belfast, and a Kenosho Kid nationwide tour

US guitarist Dan Nettles’ Kenosha Kid plays Belfast, Kilkenny, Dublin, Galway and Ballydehob this week. Photograph: Ryan Myers

Cormac Larkin's face
Cormac Larkin
Sat Feb 29 2020 - 05:00

SATURDAY 29

Brilliant Corners
Black Box and various venues, Belfast, continues till March 7th
Belfast's excellent Brilliant Corners festival has been up and running since Thursday and continues until Saturday, March 7th. Still to come in this kaleidoscopic festival of creative music – and well worth a trip north for intrepid southerners – are hip Brooklyn quartet Wood River, led by Berlin saxophonist Charlotte Greve and featuring guitarist Simon Jermyn (Saturday 29th, see also Thursday); UK saxophonist Evan Parker with bassist Alan Niblock and drummer Mark Sanders (Sunday 1st); US guitarist Dan Nettles' Kenosha Kid (Tuesday 3rd, see below); the launch of Belfast trumpeter Linley Hamilton's new album, For the Record, with American grandees Adam Nusbaum and Mark Egan in attendance (Wednesday 4th, see below); a rare performance from composer Dylan Rynhart's Fuzzy Logic ensemble (Thursday 5th); and Derry guitarist Joseph Leighton's star-studded quartet featuring UK saxophonist Julian Siegel (Saturday 7th). There's also a short season of music films at the Beanbag Cinema and jam sessions at the Sunflower pub (Friday 6th & Saturday 7th) in the city's Cathedral quarter.

Totally Made Up Orchestra feat Brian Irvine, Tonnta & ReDiviDeR/Guillaume Orti and Stephane Payen Duo/BABs
NCH, Dublin
The New Music Dublin festival, which finishes on Sunday 1st at the National Concert Hall, is presenting a brilliant programme of mostly composed contemporary music, but here are two performances that readers of this page shouldn't miss. At lunchtime today, anarchic Belfast jazz composer Brian Irvine reprises his Totally Made Up Orchestra, inviting all comers to join in a spontaneous act of music-making with vocal ensemble Tonnta. Then late in the evening, the stage curated by Dublin creative music label Diatribe presents three forward-looking improvising ensembles: innovative Dublin quartet ReDiviDeR, featuring saxophonist Nick Roth, trombonist Colm O'Hara, bassist Derek Whyte and drummer Matthew Jacobson; experimental French saxophone duo Guillaume Orti and Stéphane Payen; and noted London electro-acoustic trio BABs, featuring bassist Olie Brice, clarinettist James Allsopp and trumpeter and electronicist Alex Bonney. The faint of heart should look elsewhere for amusement.

Halferty Boisseau Lavergne
Arthur's, Dublin
Guitarist Tommy Halferty's association with France goes back several decades, and the Derry man has led numerous successful tours there featuring the cream of the French jazz scene. His short Irish tour with two of France's finest ends tonight in Dublin. Respected Nantes bassist Sebastien Boisseau has worked with many of the heavyweights of the French scene, including Daniel Humair and Louis Sclavis, as well as illustrious visitors like Pat Metheny and Kenny Werner, and free-spirited drummer Christophe Lavergne, a long-standing member of Halferty's French trios, has performed with pianist Benoît Delbecq and trumpeter Stéphane Belmondo. It's a rare chance to catch the Gallic side of one of Ireland's best loved and most influential jazz musicians on his home turf.

TUESDAY 3

Kenosha Kid (tour)
Tuesday 3rd, Black Box, Belfast; Thursday 5th, Billy Byrne's, Kilkenny; Friday 6th, Lost Lane, Dublin; Saturday 7th, Black Gate, Galway; Sunday 8th, Levi's Bar, Ballydehob
American guitarist Dan Nettles has an unusual modus operandi. Based in the indie rock asylum of Athens, Georgia, the genial guitarist travels the world, reinventing his band, Kenosha Kid, wherever he lands by hooking up with like-minded musicians and teaching them his music, a freewheeling blend of surf rock, country, funk and college radio. His connections with Ireland go back several years now, and following a rapturously received performance at the Bray Jazz Festival last year, Nettles is back for a five-date tour with a European iteration of Kenosha Kid, including Berlin bassist Roland Fidezius, and two of the Dublin scene's most fearless adventurists, OKO guitarist Shane Latimer and ReDiviDeR drummer Matthew Jacobson.

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WEDNESDAY 4

Linley Hamilton Quintet (tour)
Wednesday 4th, Black Box, Belfast; Thursday 5th, Anderson's, Sligo; Friday 6th, Tea Rooms, Carrick-on-Suir; Saturday 7th, Arthurs, Dublin
Belfast trumpeter Linley Hamilton realised a long-held ambition last year when he toured and recorded with his dream band, featuring two legendary US musicians, drummer Adam Nussbaum and bassist Mark Egan, alongside regular collaborators, saxophonist Derek O'Connor and pianist Cian Boylan. With the recording, For the Record, due for release at the Brilliant Corners festival this week (see Saturday 29th), Hamilton, presenter of Jazz World on BBC Radio Ulster, has reassembled the quintet for a short Irish tour. The leader is an accomplished post-bop trumpeter with a burnished tone and a keen sense of drama, and with the mercurial O'Connor – best known as the resident horn in the Late Late Show band – also in the mix, and a solid gold rhythm section driven by one of the most respected US drummers of the past 50 years, this is a top drawer quintet with a polished set of Hamilton originals and perhaps a few surprises up their sleeves.

A Love Supreme
Arthur's, Dublin
The last time this muscle-bound quartet of Irish jazz heavyweights performed the music of John Coltrane's A Love Supreme, there were queues down the street and they sold out two shows at the late, lamented JJ Smyth's. Driven by the hard-swinging force of brothers and long-time rhythm partners Ronan and Conor Guilfoyle on bass and drums, and featuring the extravagant talents of Dublin saxophonist Michael Buckley and Venezuelan pianist Leo Osio, it's hard to imagine an Irish group more suited to evoking the power and majesty of Coltrane's towering 1964 masterpiece.

THURSDAY 5

Signal Series: Jermyn-Carpio Duo/Tom Caraher Band
Arthur's, Dublin
The Improvised Music Company's monthly series showcases the best of what's happening on the domestic scene, and this month's double header presents two of the most creative Irish musicians of the current generation, guitarist/bassist Simon Jermyn and drummer/composer Sean Carpio. Jermyn, a thoughtful and original multi-instrumentalist and band leader, has been prominent on the Brooklyn scene for the last decade, working with some of New York's leading improvisers, and Carpio may well be the most talented jazz musician this island has produced since Louis Stewart, with a generous artistic embrace that reaches far beyond what might be expected of a jazz drummer. A collaboration between these two – a recording is also scheduled while Jermyn is home for a visit – promises high levels of invention and musicality. Also on the bill is forceful US-trained, Tralee-based saxophonist Tom Caraher with a top-notch band including pianist Darragh O'Kelly, bassist Barry Donohue and drummer Shane O'Donovan.