Thanks to the Dublin Jazz Society, Ralph Sutton (left) has paid a number of visits to Dublin in recent years. He's back again, next week, to give an exposition of the swing and stride piano idioms of which he has been a leading figure for half a century. The stride style, especially, is more difficult to play well than it sounds, but then the founding fathers, Fats Waller, Willie The Lion Smith and James P. Johnson were well equipped for it - as is Sutton, with that implacable lefthand laying down the rhythmically precise base it needs while the right delivers the lines and arabesques that make the style so decorative and melodically attractive. He's in the John Field Room at the NCH on Wednesday.
Ray Comiskey