With three days still to go, the indications are that the second Dublin Jazz Week is already a success. Musically, that's hardly in doubt and, with most concert events either full or close to capacity, the audience response has largely vindicated the open-minded policies that have shaped the programme. Embracing, as it does, the various dialects of mainstream jazz and the cross-fertilisation between jazz and Brazilian, Cuban and classical music, along with contemporary big band jazz, the festival is proving a remarkable affirmation of the ongoing vitality and diversity of the music.
There's plenty to support that contention, notably Tuesday night's concert in the Temple Bar Music Centre devoted to the music of composer and bass guitarist Ronan Guilfoyle. A personal triumph for Guilfoyle, it also introduced two virtuoso musicians to Irish audiences, clarinettist John Ruocco and trombonist Nils Wogram, in a fruitful mixture of improvised and written music that was more marriage than merely peaceful co-existence.
Guilfoyle's opening Music for Clarinet and String Trio epitomised this. Composed in 1996, it's a well-focused piece, especially in the first and third movements. Beautifully played by Ruocco and the Hibernia String Trio, it was also distinguished by an astonishing clarinet cadenza in the final movement, a stunning series of elaborations based on a simple recurring figure.
The main feature was the premiere of Avian, an eight-movement piece based, as the composer wrote, "on the behaviour patterns and movements of birds". In a sense this is irrelevant; the music is sufficiently strong to stand on its own, with several very attractive themes which could be used in other contexts - the fourth, In The Air, for example.
It was written for four strings (the Hibernia was joined by violinist Michael d'Arcy) trombone, guitar (Mike Nielsen), bass guitar, Ruocco doubling clarinet and bass clarinet, Michael Buckley on tenor, soprano and flute, and Conor Guilfoyle on drums. In an intelligent and effective mix of jazz and classical elements, both were combined rather than simply juxtaposed - and, given the work's shifts of tempo and rhythm, there must have been some anxious bar counting going on throughout, especially for the classical players!
Apart from the quality of performance - notably Conor Guilfoyle's key role, which was a sustained and concentrated display of musicianship - Avian showed, yet again, the composer's outstanding ability to draw a surprising range of texture and colour from smaller ensembles, while at the same time accommodating improvisation and keeping the whole focused.
The evening's "pure" jazz offerings, T'cha, A.K.A. and Obsessive from the composer's acclaimed Devsirme album, along with a bow to Parker, From The Apple, underlined this. Wogram, Nielsen and Buckley got plenty of opportunity to show their worth in a stimulating context.
The week's only relative disappointment so far was the opening concert by drummer Al Foster's quartet. A packed and appreciative audience at Whelan's heard what was,for me, a lacklustre performance; despite Foster's beautiful drumming, pushing and supportive, he got no more than high-level competence from the rest of the quartet. Perhaps the group's delicate chemistry was upset by the last minute defection - with tendonitis - of pianist Kevin Hays; his accomplished replacement, Manuel Rocheman, obviously needed time to settle.
There was plenty to compensate elsewhere, including two enormously satisfying and enjoyable lunchtime concerts in the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre. Both showed the value of musicians who are, so to speak, on song together. The first launched young pianist Justin Carroll's Trio debut CD, with the leader, Michael Coady (bass) and Kieran Phillips (drums).
This was a real trio, thinking and feeling virtually as one, and the music was correspondingly vibrant and alive. Their programme included a splendid Our Love Is Here To Stay and, from the album, Cheek To Cheek, Quirk and, if memory serves, Lunar Landing, Tree D and Too Cold For Snow, all handled with imagination and taste.
Even more impressive was a gorgeous example of the jazz arts of singing and accompaniment served up by Norma Winstone and Tommy Halferty there the following day. This was music of the most delicate intimacy and rapport. With Halferty's guitar almost telepathically responsive, Winstone laid sublime versions of Sometime Ago, You Don't Know What Love Is, Ladies In Mercedes, Angel Eyes and Sing Me Softly Of The Blues on a rapt audience. Duo recitals don't get much better than this.
The rapport wasn't quite so clear-cut at the concert in HQ on Wednesday night, which featured pianist Gordon Beck's trio - completed by Jeremy Brown (bass) and Stephen Keogh (drums) - with Louis Stewart. Both sets opened with the trio, which was then joined by the guitarist. Individually, all involved played well - Beck and, especially, Stewart, were at times magnificent - but the overall impact was somehow less than the sum of its considerable parts.
That old Ducal piece was in any event a blues, while Beck's was not, but the pianist had preceded it with a marvellous take on the minor blues form. And among the high points of the recital was a total reassessment, in terms of line and harmony, of When You Wish Upon A Star, turning that banal little piece into a superbly cut gem of the highest quality.
ESB Dublin Jazz Week runs until Sunday (credit card bookings on 01 6725862)
