The Bray Jazz festival, Laurie Anderson at Vicar Street, the National Concert Orchestra and Fando & Lis at Project Cube.

Bray Jazz festival

By Ray Comiskey

It says much for the quality of Irish jazz that in a field which included such creative movers and shakers as saxophonist Steve Coleman and pianist George Colligan, some of the most interesting music was played by the Guilfoyle-Nielsen Trio on Friday night at the Mermaid.

The trio - Mike Nielsen (guitar), and the Guilfoyles, Ronan (bass) and Conor (drums) - have reached inspirational levels of interaction, handling both standard material (Caravan, You Don't Know What Love Is, Falling In Love With Love) and originals (Ronan Guilfoyle's Causeway and Nielsen's Ornette) with immense rhythmic and harmonic freedom.

Their control of group dynamics was impressive, with Conor Guilfoyle weaving effective patterns around the work of bass and guitar. And Nielsen's use of electronics provided him with options, including a pan-pipes sound and highly vocalised lines, which were always put to musical ends by this gifted musician.

They shared the bill with Colligan's quartet, completed by saxophonist Gary Thomas, bassist Drew Gress and drummer Ralph Peterson Jr. Despite the well-earned reputations of the quartet's members, much of the group's performance was lacklustre, the probable product of jetlag, with the anonymous Thomas seemingly most affected. It was not until the final quarter that, lashed by Peterson's uncompromising and remarkable drumming, they began to give some idea of their capabilities, most evident in the time-honoured format of piano-bass-drums.

Altoist Steve Coleman,led an unusual line-up at the Mermaid on Saturday night; Jonathon Finlayson (trumpet), Gregoire Maret (harmonica), Anthony Tidd (bass), Ramon Garcia Perez (percussion), Dafnis Prieto (drums) and Vera Passos Santos (dance).

The music they produced was communal in the way it echoed ritual and celebration. Based almost entirely on the brilliant rhythmic foundation supplied by Prieto and Perez, and with virtually no harmonic movement to speak of, it continued almost without interruption for close on two hours. And there were, too, things to savour besides the unflagging polyrhythms of Prieto and Perez. With several astonishing solos, remarkable for their sustained invention, originality of line and absence of clichés, personal or otherwise, Coleman showed why he is regarded as the finest living alto saxophonist in the music.

The downside of the group's marathon performance was that, although it wasn't devoid of contrast, there wasn't enough light and shade to prevent it being, personally, an ultimately long and at times somewhat self-indulgent, haul.

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Laurie Anderson

Vicar Street, Dublin

By Peter Crawley

Detached, curious and fluently ironic, one suspects that Laurie Anderson approaches life with a permanently raised eyebrow. Such aloofness can be alluring, even riveting. It can also nurture baffling convictions. A week after September 11th, for instance, Anderson's description of the attacks as a "great opportunity to live in a completely new world" begged the question: do real life concerns even impinge on experimental art? Anderson's solo performance Happiness almost provides an answer, combining stand-offish violin, glassy electronica and hermetic ambience with reportage of what Anderson considers situations: US foreign policy, jury duty, employment in McDonald's.

Through her disconnected, continuous monologues (often as amusing and accessible as stand-up comedy), Anderson sees tourists at Ground Zero photographing the clear sky with digital cameras, a parrot acquire self-awareness and Amish farmers arguing in perfect silence. She sits on a jury that determines the dollar-value of sexual encounters ($40), suffers the charity of hospital volunteers and infiltrates a McDonald's to better understand team-work and mass-production. With counter-culture acquiescing to over-the-counter culture, it seems Anderson will try anything with dispassionate superiority.

The seductive solipsism of her art form and content reaches its zenith when a headband microphone brings us literally inside her skull - each amplified snap of her jaw rumbling the entire venue. Entrancing, compelling and utterly elitist, if Hell is other people, Happiness has no time for them.

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NCH

Dublin

By Martin Adams

Messiaen -- Chronochromie. Bruckner -- Symphony No 7.

Last Friday's concert at the National Concert Hall continued the series which combines all Bruckner's symphonies with French music.

It's choice of works was effective, not just for their contrasting character -- each work represented the composer at his best.

Messiaen's Chronochromie was completed in 1960. As its title implies, it manipulates colour and time; and its structure, based on the patterns of strophe and antistrophe from Greek tragedy, is an unusually effective translation into music of a literary concept. Of all the composer's works inspired by birdsong, this is surely the most accomplished.

One understood why Chronochromie is widely regarded as one of the best French orchestral works of the last 50 years. Its progress is driven less by its calculated, uneven rhythmic durations than by its contrasts of colour. It requires strong control in balancing demanding orchestral textures, defined by layered patterning between strings, wind, brass, and a large percussion section.

That was one of the strengths of this performance by the National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Gerhard Markson. It was confident, each section knew its stuff, and timing was impeccable. Music which can merely dazzle, was expressive and consistently engaging.

Bruckner's Symphony No. 7 was the first of his symphonies to achieve international recognition in the composer's lifetime. The opening tremolando, so hushed you could hardly tell it was there, and the spacious unfolding of the endless first melody, suggested that this was going to be Bruckner in ample panorama.

So it proved, but not in the ways one might expect. It was full of surprises, all made purposeful through excellent timing and command of orchestral detail. Impressive.

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Fando & Lis

Project Cube

By Susan Conley

Part post-apocalyptic absurdist fairy tale (think the Wizard of Oz meets Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome), part violent and abusive co-dependency fable, Siren Productions's adaptation of this Fernando Arrabal story is less than the sum of its parts.

The audience is greeted with the arresting image of Ned Dennehy sporting a turban, flowered dressing gown, and glittering, open-toed, high-heel sandals, frozen in the act of hoovering the lawn. The astroturf glistens under the lights, and the bright skeleton of a faithful hound crouches expectantly in the centre of the traverse setting, leaving us in no doubt that we are about to enter the looking glass. Dennehy and Donncha Crowley, in alternating roles as Fando's parents and a Beckettian pair of apparent itinerants, provide a welcome respite from the abusiveness of Fando (Tadhg Murphy) and Lis's (Fiona O'Shaughnessy) relationship. He beats her with a leather strap; she tortures him with silence.

Paralysed, Lis is at Fando's mercy as they journey to the mythical, magical city of Tar. Based on a fantasy that becomes increasingly difficult to sustain, the sadomasochism that might have added that little bit of spice to their sex lives results in the destruction of both. And all the while, a fly (Ella Clarke) hovers as witness.

Fairytales ask us to suspend disbelief, but the level to which director Selina Cartmell asks us to do this is unreachable.

Runs until May 10th