Sounds best consumed on the spot

American and European definitions of jazz are increasingly different, as the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival showed, writes Ray Comiskey

Asked once to define jazz, the French existentialist writer, Jean-Paul Sartre, reputedly said: "Jazz is like bananas; it's consumed on the spot." It's not recorded whether he also suggested, as did the late great tenor and wit, Ronnie Scott, that those of a modest disposition consumed these phallic symbols sideways. In any case, it's certainly true that this year's Guinness Cork Jazz Festival was, in its way, as much about definitions as anything else.

Jazz has changed enormously since the festival began more than 25 years ago. Mainstream is no longer the music's lingua franca and, particularly during the past decade, it has become clear that jazz in its American homeland and in its European offshoots has been going in somewhat different directions. And the event has gradually come to reflect that.

Take Jan Garbarek's opening headline concert at the Everyman Palace Theatre on Friday night. The great Norwegian tenor and soprano saxophonist and composer had his long-term quartet, completed by Rainer Bruninghaus (piano), Eberhard Weber (bass) and Marilyn Mazur (percussion), to provide a setting for music which, by the definition of "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing", would not have passed the test.

Although it was highly rhythmic, it swung only occasionally. Yet it remained compelling music, performed by a superb band whose focus and interaction during two hours of almost unbroken playing were mesmerising. It was characterised by a strong folk flavour, derived as much from Garbarek's Nordic roots as from the occasional hints of North African and Middle Eastern elements.

It also had a kind of dance-like innocence. There was little or no harmonic movement, except for occasional ventures by Bruninghaus; things were pared down to a concentration on melody, rhythm and sound, with much of the improvisation centred on these elements.

The quartet was particularly favoured by this approach. Mazur is a gifted percussionist, producing her own orchestra of sound from an array of instruments, while Bruninghaus and Weber are rock-solid underpinnings. Garbarek has one of the most piercingly individual saxophone sounds around, and whether or not people accept this as jazz (it doesn't fit as comfortably in any other category), the bottom line is that it makes for magnificent music.

By the same token a fine straight-ahead bop quintet showed the continuing vitality of an American tradition later on Friday in the Guinness Festival Club next door to the Everyman. New York Nights with Jimmy Cobb, to give the show its full title, was led by harmonica and vibes player Hendrik Meurkens, with drummer Jimmy Cobb, at 74 the last surviving member of the great Miles Davis group which made the seminal Kind of Blue album, showing all the fire and taste which have made him a legend.

Cobb was a key part of an excellent rhythm section, with Bruce Barth (piano) and the genial Chris Berger on bass. They had that ineffable American quality of keeping straight time while constantly giving Meurkens and his front-line partner, tenor Tim Armacost, the kind of driving push that takes no prisoners.

Friday night at the Festival Club is invariably relatively civilised, as far as listening to the music is concerned, compared with the crowds which descend on the venue over the subsequent two days. Their consumption is focused more on the sponsor's products than on Sartre's metaphorical bananas and, as the noise levels rise, it's extremely difficult to move from one venue to another in the club and get near enough to the stages to hear the music.

This is the price to be paid for the more positive side of sponsorship, and it has meant that the festival's centre of gravity has shifted to the Everyman and so-called "fringe" venues such as the Triskel Arts Centre, the Firkin Crane Centre and the Granary Theatre. All of these are essentially for listening, not high-decibel conversation - at least not until afterwards, when people can argue about definitions of jazz and how bananas should be consumed.

But they also present a problem of choice. It's simply not possible to get around to all the venues, and while they provide a forum for Irish groups such as the innovative Orpheus and Trouble Penetrator, and a place for established players such as Jim Doherty and Ronan Guilfoyle, they have to compete with headline attractions elsewhere.

This year the Everyman had some very strong names. Apart from Garbarek's first appearance in Cork, also making festival débuts at the Everyman were Carla Bley, Charles Lloyd, Abdullah Ibrahim, Greg Osby, Pharoah Sanders, and the acclaimed Scandinavian singer, Viktoria Tolstoy, with the Jacob Karlzon Trio.

None matched the impact made by Garbarek, although Ibrahim came close. The great South African pianist got a standing ovation after an hour's uninterrupted music, performed with a delicacy which, for all its understatedness, swung powerfully, propelled with utter relaxation by bassist Belden Bullock and a delightful drummer, George Gray.

Ibrahim is a beautiful melodist, with a wonderfully expressive touch and a gentleness that may have surprised anyone acquainted with his earlier, heavily percussive style. Clearly moved by the audience response, his trio came back and gave an encore of nearly half an hour's duration, again uninterrupted; it was almost too much of a good thing.

Another success at the Everyman was the Charles Lloyd Quartet. The legendary tenor saxophonist and flautist made his name in the flower-power, make-love-not-war era of the 1960s, and his style, based on a lovely saxophone sound that recalls Lester Young, is buttressed by the influence of John Coltrane and Joe Henderson.

With him in a fine group were pianist Geri Allen - in far better form than she was on a Dublin visit a year or so ago - plus drummer Eric Harland and bassist Robert Hurst. Harland is an extraordinarily musical percussionist, as he demonstrated in a blues solo in which each 12-bar chorus clearly suggested the shape of the underlying sequence and led in to the next chorus. On the same blues Allen did some remarkably inventive things just on this side of legality, to the obvious pleasure of the leader, whose own playing was energised by the quality behind him.

The Everyman also scored with the attractive, melody-based approach of pianist Lynne Arriale's trio, making a surprise return, after her recent Irish tour for Music Network, as a replacement for another trio, pianist Ethan Iverson's The Bad Plus.

A major disappointment, however, was Carla Bley's quartet. She unveiled a lot of new music and, while her compositions were full of character, interest and surprise, the group's performance was decidedly under-nourished - a considerable surprise given the presence of strong players in saxophonist Andy Sheppard, bassist Steve Swallow and, especially, drummer Billy Drummond. Drummond is such a musical drummer that he can give extra dimensions to any band he is in, yet here he sounded under wraps the whole time.

Nobody could accuse drummer Bobby Previte of ever being kept under wraps, as he demonstrated on Sunday night at the Everyman. He is formidably equipped technically and can, as the saying goes, swing you into bad health. Here he had an astonishing array of electronic effects derived from his drum-kit and he used them to the full.

Sharing the stage with this maelstrom of Sturm und Drang were eight-string guitarist Charlie Hunter and the marvellous altoist, Greg Osby. But Hunter was largely confined to running bass figures and Osby was left to his own devices to find and fill the cracks in the rhythmic and electronic wash. In the short term it was exciting and fun, but an hour-long uninterrupted exhibition of what was virtually a drum solo quickly palled. It swung, but it didn't mean a thing.

Other comparative disappointments at the Everyman included Viktoria Tolstoy. She's a capable singer, with good phrasing and intonation and Karlzon's trio fitted her style well. But she's hardly original, with a nasal quality to her voice and a tendency to lean too hard on the material. A duo rendition, with Karlzon, of Blame it on my Youth could have benefited from simply allowing the lovely song do its work, instead of smothering it with emotion.

The British Jazz Couriers celebration quintet, reviving the music of the late Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott, was the kind of all-been-done-before heritage stuff that left me wishing I had gone to the Triskel instead, where guitarist Pat Martino was playing with long-time colleague, pianist Jim Ridl, on a double-bill with guitarist Tommy Halferty, bassist Ronan Guilfoyle and percussionist Christophe Lavergne.

But at least the Triskel provided a fitting final memory of a festival which touched the heights as well as plumbing the depths. Late on Sunday night the Panamanian pianist, Danilo Perez, showed why he is one of legendary saxophonist Wayne Shorter's favourites, with a beautiful display of the art of the trio, in the company of bassist Ben Street and yet another gifted drummer, Adam Cruz.

Finally, the festival had its own freight of sadness. Not only was drummer John Wadham, who played in Cork so many times, gone to take his place in some celestial rhythm section, but also Honor Heffernan, our finest jazz singer, saw tragedy strike her family just before she was due to perform at the festival. To her goes the deepest sympathy at this time.