Project Arts Centre, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
27 April 2007

Improvised Music Company’s 12 Points! festival of new European jazz, which took place over four nights in late April at the Project, was a great idea waiting for someone like IMC artistic director Gerry Godley to bring it to life. And Godley and his staff did an excellent job, presenting a dozen very different young artists and bands from Norway to Hungary in an atmosphere that was relaxed, stimulating, and intimate.

If the three acts at the Friday night show were any indication, the next generation of European jazz is talented and diverse. All three – the Danish quintet Light Airborne, the Swedish band of multi-instrumentalist Nils Berg, and the Bulgarian pianist Dimitar Bodurov – played innovative and energetic sets that betrayed a complex and global range of influences.

Of the two Scandinavian quintets, Nils Berg’s group, which included the excellent vibraphonist Mattias Stahl, was the more impressive. Like Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Sun Ra (to whom Berg dedicated the quirky, swinging ‘Sunny Side’), Berg is a musical eccentric, with an uncanny ability of breaking down a tune into its constituent parts and rebuilding it as something unique and organic. His wry musical offerings, with offbeat references to folk and pop, kept surprising the audience, and the band’s distinctive instrumentation (including cello and harmonica) was used to create subtle and compelling harmonies.

Light Airborne’s leader is another multi-reedman, Niels Løkkegaard, who moved easily from tenor to alto sax to clarinet to flute, managing a distinctive style on each. With a breathy alto sound reminiscent of Eric Dolphy and a much lighter feel on tenor, he expertly matched instrument to composition, and his writing displayed a broad emotional range. ‘Song for the Northwest Neighbourhood’, a duo for alto and piano, was especially evocative: a spare, plaintive Nordic song with a clever use of silence. Unfortunately, Løkkegaard’s band, under-rehearsed and lacking in cohesion, failed to do full justice to the writing.

The highlight of the night was Bodurov, the only solo performer in the festival and a remarkable young piano talent. Drawing primarily on Bulgarian folk songs and dances, Bodurov brought classical technique and intense jazz lyricism to this distinctive material, full of complex rhythms and exotic melodic lines. Like Keith Jarrett, he seems to have a very open approach to improvisation, interpreting the songs freely and creatively while shaping them with his very personal style. And as if to show that he was equally adept in the mainstream, he played a bravura version of John Coltrane’s ‘Giant Steps’ which swung mightily and captivated its listeners.

Let’s hope that IMC can build on this success and make 12 Points! an annual festival that helps keep Dublin at the heart of the vibrant European jazz scene.

The Hayes/Cahill brand has extended far beyond the conventional audience for traditional music, a fact that makes them natural candidates for crossover experiments such as the recent series of gigs with guitarist Bill Frisell. The last episode in this three-venue short tour, presented by Note Productions, filled Cork Opera House with expectation. Like voyeurs at a first date, we wondered how the new partners would get on.

Martin Hayes opened the show with a stark solo version of ‘Port na bPúcaí’. We were treated to the now-familiar Hayes modus operandi, building from a simple first round through a stage-by-stage development of the straights and curves of this ethereal air. A whiff of rosin, caught in the Opera House lights, added to the enchantment. ‘The good news is that that’s as sad as it gets,’ he said as he finished, immediately breaking the spell.

Bill Frisell comes across as an unassuming, silver-haired gentleman. He also proves himself a superb musician with an exquisite touch. He carved ‘Moon River’ into slivers and reconstructed the song independently of its time signature. Frisell held up the familiar and showed us something totally new. ‘Hard Times’ and ‘Shenandoah’ both benefited from the Frisell renovation method. But he brought a box of digital tricks with him that tended to detract from his undoubted skill set. Apart from the obvious delay effects and the increasingly common cascade effect, he used a loop recording mechanism that allowed him to record a basic track and then to layer extra tracks on top, ad infinitum. While this device could have presented some interesting possibilities, here it acted as a musical straight jacket, with cleverness giving way to self-indulgence. Frisell was joined by Dennis Cahill for a two-guitar jaunt, which was long and rambling, like a late night jam in a student gaff, albeit of a particularly high quality.

In the second half, things took off, with all three musicians weaving a multi-layered, multi-faceted performance. Hayes and Cahill did what they do best – Irish traditional music with added flavours and unexpected twists and turns. We heard a continuum of airs flowing into reels into jigs, back into reels. The melody dominated for a time, then faded into the background, before re-establishing itself for the final assault. Hayes’ fiddle remains as persuasive as ever, transcending mere technique. Cahill’s guitar provides both foundation and superstructure – solid and constantly inventive. Frisell superimposes extra layers. He copies the melody on occasion; he adds a high electric drone; he drives the rhythm; he interjects fills and seams and bubbles to create an intriguing boiling effect. Then the compliment was returned. We had a two guitar plus fiddle version of Frisell’s ‘Tell Your Ma, Tell Your Pa’. We had ‘East Clare versions’ of Thelonious Monk, ‘East Clare version’ being a well-known diversionary tactic aimed at heading off the folk (and probably jazz) police.

The musicians clearly enjoyed themselves; so, too, did their audience. But, despite the presence of so many sparks, the evening failed to ignite fully. Perhaps the venue was too big and impersonal. Perhaps more time in each other’s company would have resulted in a more integrated fusion. Or perhaps some musical genres are simply mutually exclusive.

The Life and Times of Grace O’Malley, the 16th Century-Century Irish Pirate Queen Augustinian Church, Galway, 17 May 2007
Pirates of the Baroque
St Nicholas Collegiate Church, Galway, 18 May 2007

In spite of the Arts Council’s mind-numbingly culture-killing funding attitude to the annual Galway Early Music Festival, it has just celebrated its twelfth year, this time with the theme of piracy. Subtitled ‘Pirates of the Corribean,’ it ran from 17-20th May. Almost predictably, Grace O’Malley led events.

The venue for the music-and-narrative of the Pirate Queen’s life by the Irish Consort was Galway’s Augustinian Church, a resonating, sound-bright space that has seen its fair share of musical performances. In three sections – Irish, Tudor and Elizabethan – this was a flawless covering of a complex period in Irish history, framed imaginatively in a spoken narrative. The opening lovely ‘Responsary for St Brigid: Felix Hiberniam,’ a late fifteenth-century antiphonal, sung marvellously by John Elwes, with Siobhán Armstrong on a Downhill Harp, a copy of the harp reputedly played by William Hempson, had the languid beauty of a ship under sail. Armstrong soloed on ‘Cailín ó chois tSiúire mé,’ a song mentioned by a character in Shakespeare’s Henry V, matched up with the haunting ‘Eilioniór a Rúin,’ rounding on the merry dance song, ‘Thugamar Féin an Samhradh Linn.’

The familiar ‘Pastime with good company’ attributed to Henry VIII, was no trouble at all to Elwes, with Laoise O’Brien on descant recorder and Armstrong on the buzz-stringed Gothic harp, and O’Brien’s playing of the bass recorder on Dowland’s ‘O sweet woods,’ words attributed to Sir Philip Sydney, against the extraordinary echoing triple harp playing of Armstrong and the soulful tones of Elwes was a joy to hear. Michael Coady read a solemn translation by James Clarence Mangan of Eochaidh Ó hEoghusa’s lamenting ‘Ode to the Maguire,’ the Fermanagh chieftain who marched in winter to Kinsale, ghosted by Armstrong’s gorgeously-pitched reiteration of ‘Felix Hiberniam’. Perhaps, Coady suggested, it would now be historically fitting and right to invite the second Queen Elizabeth to the country of Grace O’Malley! Elwes, with his uncanny ability to read the emotional intention of a piece and invest it with just the right amount of colour, concluded with ‘Come heavy sleep’ again by Dowland, with triple harp and tenor recorder. A bright, engaging performances overall, with works by, among others, Cowper, Morley and Cornysh.

It’s not Red Priest’s first prancingly irreverent performance for the festival at St Nicholas Collegiate Church, as mediaeval a setting as Galway can provide. But from the outset there were gremlins. The harpsichord, a copy of a mid-eighteenth century Franco-Flemish instrument on loan from Cork, developed engine trouble before the performance even started, requiring, among other things, a complete re-tuning. Come the end of the concert, the great double doors of the church burst open by themselves with a furious clatter of wind and leaves.

The theme of the concert was the notion of musical and artistic piracy, most Early and Renaissance composers, even those of considerable renown, having nicked whole parts of their compositions from someone else. Red Priest added to this tradition by employing intriguing and imaginative ‘recompositions’ of their own. Perhaps all that door-clattering and harpsichord failure was a sign that some ancient composers didn’t like the practice. But if it was good enough for Handel, who blatantly pinched his ‘Aria Amorosa’ from his old employer, Wilhelm Kaiser, it was clearly good enough. As some sort of salute, perhaps, to the wily old boy, harpsichordist Howard Beach played at least one note in this piece with his nose. Cocking a snook, perhaps? Red Priest, naturally, were suitably attired in black and red as pirates.

The first half proffered Bach and lively Preludio, from the Partita in E Major BWV 1006, whacking in to Giovanni Paulo Simonetti’s Sonata in C Minor Opus 5 No 2, ‘La Burrasca’, styled to suit themselves, ending raucously with a Piers Adams upwards pheep. Albinoni’s familiar Adagio may or may not have been written in 1940 by musicologist Remo Giazotto, but it opened here on Angela East’s puckishly plucked base solo, with gathering feline flourishes from Julia Bishop and a smattering of Argentinian tango. Jean-Marie Leclair’s ‘Tambourin’ involved prestidigious changes of recorder in mid-tune, while Vivalidi’s Concerto Gross in D minor, RV 565, began with a tasty, fiesty duel between violin and recorder, chaperoned by the base. This was all about showmanship, music-as-theatre. And music as fun.

Howard Beach did some neat conjuring with Francois Couperin in the second half, creating a non-existent ‘Jour des Pirates’ from several Couperin clavichord pieces. No doubt by coincidence, in the amorous seduction section in ‘Le Soir,’ the recorders grew in size as the piece progressed. ‘Burdo’ was, apparently, a lively Irish tune of the seventeenth century, belted out on the recorder; Tommaso Vitali’s ‘Chaconne,’ taken as a fake for years, turns out not to have been and it too was re-arranged for four instruments. Vivaldi’s ‘La Tempesta di Mare’, from the G Major Concerto, rounded the evening off, with some hinted references to the movie, Pirates of the Carribbean, and Howard Beach shouting ‘Shiver me timbers!’ It was around this point that the great church doors walloped open like a special effect. A wonderful evening’s musical entertainment, illustrating not only the incredible musical talent and co-ordination of Red Priest, but the sheer fun to be had from good music exquisitely performed.