Jazzing up Dublin

It has been a good opening half for the ESB Dublin Jazz Week; plenty of action, flashes of brilliance from both sides (of the Atlantic, that is), and enough cultural diversity to make the English Premiership look like an exercise in parochialism. And despite a slight threat of a yellow card or two, nobody has waved a red one; the players are still out there, with more to join in for the second half; and the punters showing disturbing signs of enjoying it all.

One of the biggest ovations of the week so far was for Elvin Jones at Vicar Street on Monday. In an extraordinary welling of affection and emotion, the audience clapped and cheered until it seemed palms would hurt and voices grow hoarse - and that was before he started playing. Visibly moved, the great drummer made a short, simple speech in which his warmth and generosity of spirit were palpable.

There was, however, nothing short and little simple about what followed. In a concert prefaced by a brief set from some up and coming young Irish jazz musicians - Ray Martin (trumpet/ flugelhorn), Rob Geraghty (tenor), John Moriarty (guitar), Rory O'Donovan (bass) and brother Shane (drums), with the already established Myles Drennan on piano - Jones gave a remarkable demonstration of the art of the jazz drummer, moulding and shaping the performances around him as much as responding to the stimulation they provided and the ideas they suggested to him.

It was epitomised in what amounted to virtual duets, firstly with the bass solo on the made-for-drums angularities of pianist Eric Lewis's It's Monk, and then an almost orgasmic dialogue with Lewis, with bassist Steve Kirby providing a fulcrum, on The Doll Of The Bride. Throughout, as was true of everything Jones did, there was a sense of rightness to his work - utterly simple when this was needed, or laying on a complex of polyrhythms as he sensed the solos required. At the drums he is a force of nature, with an intuitive feel for drama and contrast ordering each group performance.

The most impressive of his Jazz Machine sidemen were Lewis and Kirby. Stefano di Batista is a good alto in the Phil Woods mould, but, like Woods, there's nothing particularly expressive about his tone, so his solos stand or fall by their qualities of line. And while trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis, of the famous New Orleans family, had a big, burry, old-fashioned tone that added a tangy colour to the group, his solos were the least interesting of the night.

The capacity attendance was given a joyously swinging It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing as an encore, with a dazzling, unaccompanied introduction by Lewis which ran the gamut from pastiche 1920s French classical jazzy forays to Harlem stride. And, by the way, Jones did get a sustained, standing ovation at the end. No wonder it was standing room only at his masterclass the following day.

Dazzling, too, was Martial Solal at Vicar Street on Tuesday, his first visit to Dublin. The great Algerian-born French pianist is, in terms of technique and kaleidoscopic harmonic imagination, an heir of Art Tatum, but in truth there is nobody quite like him nowadays; Solal has raised the bar too high for anyone short of a genius to follow.

Mind you, he had two marvellous musicians with him - the outstanding veteran Swiss drummer and longtime colleague, Daniel Humair, and an extravagantly gifted young bassist, Francois Moutin. Given Solal's considerable - and undeservedly overlooked - prowess as a composer and arranger, going back to the 1950s and the music for Godard's A bout de souffle (which made icons of Jean-Paul Belmondo and the late Jean Seberg), there was much that was highly organised about the trio's performance.

The process of turning everything into a "Solaloquy" may have been a bit too organised for some, but it was undeniably brilliant and sophisticated. Its virtuosity leavened by flashes of wit, such an approach was perhaps most readily appreciated on the familiar, in the radical overlay of Solal's thoughts on standards like Night and Day and Body and Soul. But there was also the astonishing sight-reading of a fiendishly intricate original, appropriately called Zig Zag, to attest the trio's skill.

The opening set that night also had a flavour of la belle France, featuring one of our best guitarists, Tommy Halferty, in good form, leading a trio completed by Jean Philippe Lavergne (Hammond organ) and the excellent Christophe Lavergne (drums).

It was the turn of what the French sometimes call les rosbifs in St Annes Church, Dawson Street the following night, when the accomplished British composer/pianist, Mike Westbrook, unveiled his settings of William Blake's poetry to Dublin. Using an octet of voices, reeds, tenor horn, piccolo and rhythm, along with the Piccolo Lasso Children's Choir under the direction of Ite O'Donovan, he gave a typically robust and individual response to the combination of the spiritual, political and vernacular that characterises Blake's work.

While the first six settings yielded some arresting moments, notably Kate Westbrook's beautiful tenor horn on Let The Slave and some of the solo work of saxophonists Peter Whyman, Alan Wakeman and Chris Biscoe, collectively the impact was repetitive and underwhelming. However, beginning with the affecting setting for The Tyger And The Lamb, with its beautiful use of the choir, the final six pieces offered much more absorbing music.

It was electrified by the setting and, especially, the remarkable singing of the extraordinary Phil Minton on Long John Brown And Little Mary Bell, a rage against sexual repression that could have come from the visceral Gothic of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy. That, The Fields and the closing I See Thy Form, to these ears, married text and music to the most persuasive effect, using both the choir - which sang superbly throughout - and the instrumental resources with clarity and a greater sense of drama and contrast than had been evident earlier in the concert.

Whatever its shortcomings, real or debatable, its presence underlines the widening scope of a festival which now embraces hip-hop and techno influences joined, if not at the hip, at least somewhere else on their joint anatomies, to jazz. It's not my bag, but it is distinguished on this programme by some excellent, thoughtful musicians, still to be heard at the time of writing at the late-night Project events.

THAT description applies with equal force to those who have performed so far at the lunchtime concerts in the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre. British pianist Phil Ware, with bassist Dave Fleming and the excellent Kieran Phillips on drums, offered a considered, enjoyable taste of bop trio style on Monday, and guitarist Mike Nielsen was brilliant in solo performance on Tuesday, especially on his Innocence, inspired by Yeats's The Stolen Child, which offered a lovely response to the emotional climate of the poem.

Finally, raising anticipation of what is still to come this weekend, when his own writing will be played by the RTE Concert Orchestra at the NCH on Sunday, pianist Jim McNeely gave a superbly crafted lunchtime recital on Wednesday; his interpretation of Close Enough For Love alone was worth the concert. If this had been wine, it would have been a rare vintage.

The ESB Dublin Jazz Week continues until Sunday. Hightlights include the Claudia Acuna Quartet tonight at Vicar Street, the legendary saxophonist Joe Lovano and the Guilfoyle/Nielsen Trio plus Eric Vloeimans & The Jarmo Savolainen Trio tomorrow night at Vicar Street, and Jim McNeely and the RTECO with Joe Lovano and special guests Kristina Fuchs and Florian Ross at the National Concert Hall on Sunday at 8 p.m. To book phone 01-6725666