Reviews

A look at what is happening in the arts.

Jay-Z

The Point Depot

Apparently, rappers are suffering from a disease that inflates their ego to the point of absurdity. Jay-Z is undoubtedly the artist worst hit by this affliction.

In an industry increasing obsessed with braggadocio, Jay is the most cocksure of them all. The self-proclaimed hip-hop mogul bounced onstage sporting shades, a sparkling diamond chain and matching watch. He proceeded to rap mostly about women, money and cars for the next 90 minutes which left 5,000 mostly teenage fans screaming for more.

Jay-Z sees himself as the ultimate self-made man and his drug-dealer-turned-CEO-rags-to-riches story as his bragging rights. Current president and CEO of Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella Records, the man they call Jigga is worth more than a quarter of a billion dollars but still releases music about his hard-knock life.

With an array of radio hits, Jay got the crowd on their feet. After professing himself ahead of his time, he demanded some recognition. "What's my muthaf**king name?" A united scream of "Ji-gga" came fast and furious.

With buckets of respect from the hip-hop community, Jay-Z has achieved superstar status and in his heyday was the best freestyle rapper out there. But nowadays he seems solely concerned with making commercial hits and collaborating with fiancée Beyonce Knowles. Although she sang with him in London, the queen of R&B didn't grace the Dublin stage to duet with her beau.

Known for crafting lyrics from memory without the use of pen and paper, Jay claims his 2001 Blueprint album was written in just two days. Whether or not that's a reflection of its quality is open to interpretation.

Hip-hop doesn't need a mogul named Jay-Z any more. But it does need Def Jam and Roc-A-Fella Records, home to Kanye West, Nas and The Roots.

In 2004, Jay Z announced his retirement amid much hype and fanfare. He's since made an overly-hyped comeback (despite never going away) and you get the impression he might just bust meaningless raps forever.

Ali Bracken

Maighréad and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill/Tony McManus

Coach House, Dublin Castle

It was a match that might have been made in heaven: sublime harmony singing, calculus-like acoustic guitar in the cosy Coach House. Maighréad Ní Dhomhnaill took a while to take flight. As she moved gingerly from her opening salvo of The False Fly to Love Song From Donegal, her voice relaxed perceptibly, cossetted and buffed by Tríona's magnificent harmonies.

Scottish guitar genius Tony McManus struggled to connect with the audience in his own opener: a pair of Québecois tunes. Later, he picked his way through impeccably-delivered Breton gavottes and Scots lullabies with an almost painterly attention to detail, but he never managed to lift the tunes beyond the ordinary. Surprisingly, for one who has stilled many an audience, his technical wizardry overwhelmed whatever emotional existence of their own the tunes might have had.

Maighread and Tríona ambled gamely through their eclectic repertoire, alighting on Kitty From Ballinamore, Níl Sé Ina Lá, Amhrán Hiúdaí Phaidí Éamoinn and a gorgeous Breton borrowing of Tríona's, whose title continues to escape this reviewer.

Both singers have an ability to sing sean-nós songs with the care and attention of the flamekeepers that they are, and yet, never burden their material with a wealth of ornamentation.

Ultimately though, as the set progressed, a certain air of predictability set in. It's true that nobody sings Dónall Óg quite like Maighréad, and Tríona's piano and vocal harmonies fit her sister's voice like a glove, but must every performance finish with The Spanish Lady? Whatever their ambitions to reacquaint the Donegal tradition with its Scots brethren, they failed to connect fully as a trio. McManus's skeletal accompaniments of the Ní Dhomhnaill songs never passed pedestrian, and all the while, a chasm separated them musically. An initially satisfying but ultimately disappointing night of music.

Siobhán Long

Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble

National Concert Hall

The return of the acclaimed early music vocal group, the Hilliard Ensemble - David James (countertenor), Rogers Covey-Crump and Steven Harrold (tenors) and Gordon Jones (baritone) - and the great Norwegian jazz saxophonist, Jan Garbarek, gave this reviewer an opportunity to hear live, for the first time, this phenomenally-selling musical marriage of classical rigour and jazz improvising. It was an underwhelming experience.

They opened with a bit of "business". With Garbarek already on stage, they entered behind the audience and, singing, made their way with measured solemnity down the auditorium to the stage; shades of Anúna, minus the candles and the comely maidens.

The "business", which later included James exiting and reappearing, ghost-like, to sing on the choir balcony, seemed to reflect an awareness of the static nature of much of the music. This was particularly true of the first 30-40 minutes, whose monochrome mood was more like that of a religious service. That was reinforced by the fact that chants used were in Gregorian modes.

More variety was introduced as the concert went on. Several pieces with rhythmic movement were performed, folk-like and charming, with simple, repetitive vocal phrases over which the saxophonist could improvise.

The concert, for which the audience was given no programme list, also ranged over North American Native, Scottish folk and what sounded, to these ears, to be music from the era of the great British lutenist, John Dowland. More modern material was contributed by Garbarek, one of which, a setting of a Swedish poem, "All ting fins", provided some of the most interesting harmonic writing of the evening.

There were also moments of great beauty. Particularly impressive was the Hilliard's precision of execution, superb control of the dynamics of expression and the sheer vocal balance which allowed one to hear their voicings with crystal clarity.Garbarek inserted his playing, mostly on soprano but also occasionally on tenor, with great sensitivity, either accompanying and commenting, or, in effect, soloing. His expressive range is enormous, and if it was more contained in this context than usual, he was still able to bring in suggestions of Nordic chill and even a Middle Eastern touch, paradoxically sounding like a muezzin's call to prayer on a pair of Armenian pieces.

It didn't prevent the now seemingly inevitable standing ovation at such events, a gesture of which this reviewer remains, generally speaking, cynical. Who, exactly, is congratulating whom?

Ray Comiskey