In the mid-1970s, when I first lived in Dublin, I was an inquisitive teenager with a hunger for new musical experiences and a raw but intense interest in jazz. Looking back, there was a surprising amount of music to keep me going: a world-class guitarist in Louis Stewart, who stayed in Ireland despite international stature and quickly became a touchstone for quality; local bands like Keith Donald’s Jump and Jim Doherty’s Spon, which drew on talent from the showband tradition and played in the Abbey Mooney and Slattery’s on Capel Street; and more visiting North American stars than you might suspect, including Oscar Peterson, Buddy Rich, Gary Burton, and even Duke Ellington, who brought his orchestra to the Carlton Cinema in 1974, just a few months before he...