Music

The best jazz gigs this week: Maarja Nuut graces Little Museum

Wax On’s fifth instalment of listening club in Workman’s focuses on Thelonious Monk

Estonian violinist Maarja Nuut brings her experimental blend of folk, jazz and electronica to the Santa Rita series at the Little Museum of Dublin on Wednesday 21st

Cormac Larkin's face
Cormac Larkin
Sat Mar 17 2018 - 05:00

Wednesday 21st

Wax On #5: Thelonious Monk

Workman's Club, Dublin, 7pm, €10 (€8 online), improvisedmusic.ie

The popular vinyl listening club – produced by the Improvised Music Company and moderated by this correspondent – reaches its fifth instalment this month. Already checked off the jazz icon list are Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Louis Armstrong and John Coltrane, but this month, our attention turns to the great individualist of be-bop, pianist Thelonious Monk.

Monk’s idiosyncratic style led some critics to suggest that he couldn’t actually play the piano at all, but today’s jazz musicians know different and Monk’s music, his sense of humour and his cubist approach to harmony and rhythm are held in huge esteem by contemporary improvisers.

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A playlist of iconic Monk tracks is pondered by a panel of musicians and other interested parties, but be warned, space is limited so early booking is strongly advised.

Maarja Nuut

Little Museum of Dublin, 7pm, €15, ergodos.ie

Violinist and vocalist Maarja Nuut is a rising star of the European jazz scene and typical of the contemporary generation of improvisers from this side of the Atlantic.

The US tradition of blues and swing is barely discernible in Nuut’s compellingly sui generis sound; instead, the young Estonian draws on the folk traditions of her own region, refracting the ancient Shamanic sounds of the Baltic through a contemporary prism of electronics, sound processing and live looping.

Programmed by experimental music label Ergodos as part of the long-running and indecently intimate Santa Rita series, Nuut’s second visit to Ireland in as many years is another opportunity to get an up close look at the glowing edge of European experimental music.

Thursday 22

Tommy Halferty

Arthurs, Dublin, 9.30pm, €10, arthurspub.ie

Tommy Halferty was the leading light of a generation of Irish guitarists inspired by the great Louis Stewart, but the Derry man incurred his mentor’s wrath when he began to push beyond orthodox bebop in the late 1980s.

Halferty’s legendary concerts at the tiny Focus Theatre, with a trio that included bassist Ronan Guilfoyle and drummer John Wadham, broke new ground for jazz in Dublin, charging into the post-Coltrane landscape in pursuit of Halferty favourites like John McLaughlin and Pat Metheny. Halferty and Guilfoyle make a rare appearance together this week – with Kevin Brady, from Halferty’s regular trio, filling the drum chair – that is likely to raise the volume and rouse the ghosts of their youth.

Michael Buckley

Bruxelles, Dublin, 9pm, €10, bruxelles.ie

If you know a discerning visitor to Dublin who is looking for their fix of high-quality jazz, here’s where to send them. Saxophonist Michael Buckley’s residency off Grafton Street is fast becoming the most unmissable regular gig on the capital’s jazz scene with a roster of senior mainstream players and a repertoire of songbook and classic jazz standards.

Buckley is a free-blowing horn in the tradition of Michael Brecker and Joe Lovano, and the session – dubbed Dublin Standard Time – also features virtuoso Venezuelan pianist Leopoldo Osio and first-call Dublin bassist Dave Redmond.