Jazz breaking news: Countdown To The Cork Jazz Festival
Thursday, October 21, 2010
With an extraordinary line-up this year, the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival stands tall in the company of the big city European jazz festivals running this autumn with the main Barcelona jazz fest concerts on the horizon and preceding Jazz Fest Berlin and the London Jazz Festival next month.
“The clash of the titans”, is how the Irish Independent has dubbed this year’s festival and it’s easy to see why.
The icing on the cake for the festival which begins tomorrow and runs through the Irish bank holiday weekend until Monday, is an appearance by the great Herbie Hancock who turned 70 earlier this year, celebrating in style with the release of an all-star populist vocals-led album The Imagine Project.
Hancock actually recorded one of the tracks of his new album, a version of Bob Dylan’s ‘The Times They Are A' Changin’’ in Ireland with the Chieftains, and singer Lisa Hannigan who he worked with previously on the album Possibilities. Hancock appears at the Everyman Palace Theatre on Saturday night, in a double bill with Jason Moran and the Bandwagon. Moran, who has just been awarded a prestigious MacArthur “genius” award in the States and is currently touring his album Ten which marks a decade of the Bandwagon, the trio that also features highly rated bassist Tarus Mateen and superb drummer Nasheet Waits.
One of Hancock’s chief disciples who is moving the music forward by reaching out to the hip hop generation, pianist Robert Glasper, the most imaginative pianist Blue Note records has signed in years who shone last year with his album Double Booked, also appears in Cork. He features in a double bill on Friday at the Everyman Palace with the Neil Cowley Trio, the award winning Brit Jazz trio that harnesses the energy of rock and chill-out and has built a big club and festival following since debuting with Displaced four years ago.
Also a major highlight and fresh from his Roundhouse gig in London earlier this week is the great Steve Winwood of Traffic and Spencer Davis Group renown who plays the Everyman Palace Theatre on Sunday night in a double bill with the innovative saxophonist Yuri Honing’s band Wired Paradise. Honing in the 1990s, particularly with the album Star Tracks, led the way for bands such as The Bad Plus to rip up the rock songbook and put it back together again via the discipline of creative jazz improvisation.
Another highlight of Cork this year is the Vijay Iyer Trio, which has already won major awards in Germany and the States for their album Historicity, featuring the cerebral US/South Indian pianist with bassist Stephan Crump and Roy Haynes’ grandson, the sparkling Marcus Gilmore on drums. As likely to deconstruct M.I.A. as interpret Duke Ellington, the trio is a must-hear if their extraordinary performance in the summer at London’s Vortex jazz club is anything to go by.
The Cork Jazz Festival line-up is extensive and takes over Ireland’s third biggest city for the duration. According to The Irish Examiner more than 1,000 musicians are to perform over the weekend in some 80 venues, with 20,000 visitors expected for the festival.
Other main highlights include Charlie Haden’s Quartet West (Everyman Palace Theatre, Saturday, 2pm); The Brand New Heavies plus Apes and Babes (Savoy Theatre, Saturday evening); Omar Sosa’s Afreecanos Quartet plus Tord Gustavsen Ensemble (Everyman Palace, Sunday, 2pm); Maceo Parker plus Creamy Goodness (Savoy Theatre, Sunday evening); Norma Winstone with David Linx and Maria Pia De Vito (Triskel at the River Lee Hotel, Sunday evening); Irish rising drum star David Lyttle (Triskel at the River Lee Hotel, Sunday, 2pm); the classy veteran Irish guitarist Louis Stewart (Triskel at the River Lee Hotel, Saturday evening); and the Jason Yarde Quartet (Crane Lane Theatre, Sunday evening).
– Stephen Graham
For more go to www.guinnessjazzfestival.com