Keith Tippett

The ESB Dublin Jazz Festival, shorn of veteran drummer Roy Haynes and his group by travel difficulties caused by the bitter harvest of murder in the United States, received its official opening in the small-scale, muted surroundings of the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre.

Keith Tippett, among the finest pianists in Europe and blessed with immense technical and imaginative resources, did the honours with a solo concert.

It was an hour of uninterrupted, largely free playing. There was no introduction; he simply sat at the piano and explored a landscape of sounds and dramatic contrasts, using the full resources of the keyboard.

Dense foreboding clusters, sometimes of repeated figures subtly varied, yielded to lighter moments of extreme delicacy, as he took his playing through sometimes abrupt changes of mood.

Fresh and unusual textures were created by placing and moving various objects inside the piano to deaden or distort the instrument's sounds, always with an ear for contrast and effect.

What was most impressive about his work, however - apart from the awe induced by some of his technique and stamina - was the sense of control he exhibited at all times. This was risk-taking, certainly, but one was conscious of a firmly directed intelligence behind it.

Did I enjoy it? Ultimately, no. At an hour's duration, it proved an occasionally tasty but cumulatively somewhat indigestible entrΘe to the festival.