Music

The best jazz this week: Trish Clowes to perform My Iris

Star saxophonist, lo-fi Icelandic group ADHD, and one of Dublin’s finest improv sessions

Trish Clowes: jumps the fences between classical and jazz, between composition and improvisation. Photograph: trishclowes.com

Cormac Larkin's face
Cormac Larkin
Sat Feb 3 2018 - 05:00

Tuesday Feb 6

Trish Clowes: My Iris tour

Sugar Club, Dublin (Feb 6); Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar (Feb 7); Triskel Christchurch, Cork (Feb 8); Mermaid, Bray (Feb 9); The Model, Sligo (Feb 10); National Opera House, Wexford (Feb 11). Details at musicnetwork.ie

Trish Clowes (pronounced “clues”) is one of the rising stars of UK jazz and part of a new generation of European musicians who are redefining the art form in the 21st century. The 30-something saxophonist happily jumps the fences between classical and jazz, between composition and improvisation, writing strongly melodic tunes that provide launch pads for her and her powerful quartet. Guitarist Chris Montague, keyboardist Ross Stanley and drummer James Maddren are all ascending balls of exploding gas in their own rights, but My Iris is much more than just the sum of its parts, an open-minded, conversational quartet that can take Clowes’ music anywhere they fancy.

ADHD: a pleasingly holistic, brotherly sound. Photograph: Spessi

Wednesday Feb 7

ADHD

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Grand Social, Dublin, 8pm, €16, improvisedmusic.ie

That Iceland is a part of the Scandinavian music scene is a fact often overlooked, but the fresh, original music coming out of this tiny island community – the population is just over 330,000 – shares certain virtues with the sounds of their larger continental cousins. ADHD are a close knit, enigmatic group, with brothers Óskar and Ómar Guðjónsson on saxophone and guitar respectively, David Thor Jonsson on organ and Magnus Trygvason Eliassen on drums, and they craft a pleasingly holistic, brotherly sound – as opposed perhaps to the more individualist aesthetic of US jazz – a lo-fi cinematic landscape of quirky melodies, slow burn grooves and ecstatic climaxes.

Daniel Rorke, Cormac  O’Brien, Matthew Jacobson

Music Café, Wellington Quay, Dublin, 7.30pm, No CC, facebook.com/JazzinDublin

The curiously nominated Dwarf Jar Café may have changed its name to the more prosaic Music Café, but the intent is made all the clearer. Perched improbably above the floor of this bustling quayside café is one of the city’s more unusual stages, and over the last year or so, it has become the scene of one of the finest, most exploratory improv sessions the Dublin scene has to offer. Wrangled by Australian-Irish saxophonist Daniel Rorke, the high-quality line-up changes week to week, but climbing the ladder this week are regular bassist Cormac O Brien, making a much-anticipated return from paternity leave (well done there) with inventively disruptive drummer Matthew Jacobson providing the rattles.