The debut of The Improvised Music Ensemble (TIME), this country's first full-time band of professional jazz musicians, last Thursday marks an exciting development in the idiom here.
Not only does the personnel - Ray Martin (trumpet/flugelhorn), Karl Ronan (trombone), Brendan Doyle (alto/soprano/ clarinet), Michael Buckley (tenor/flute), Gerry Godley (baritone/flute), Justin Carroll (piano), Michael Coady (bass) and Conor Guilfoyle (drums) - represent something like the creme de la creme of the young talent around, but also the group is intended to provide a platform for developing composition and arrangement here. And, not incidentally, it happens to be an exceptional ensemble.
However, the octet's impact was diluted by the disappointing, echoing acoustic of the venue, which made it difficult to get an accurate idea of the band's work on the faster pieces like the opening Backdoor by Brendan Doyle, or Brian Wynne's cryptically titled letter W composition. Almost certainly, it was as difficult for the performers to hear each other as it was for the audience to hear them.
Despite this handicap, enough came through to mark this as a venture to watch and savour. The material, including Hugh Buckley's A Strange Time, David White's attractive Winter Waltz and Michael Buckley's lovely ballad, Indeci- sion Time (superb trombone and piano on this), was impressive in conception and execution; significantly, because of the acoustic, these were slower pieces.
But the most memorable item of the concert was Ronan Guilfoyle's Aspirations, with perhaps the best writing of the night; full of contrasts, rhythmic and tonal, and a lovely sense of line, it impressed as the most cogently developed piece played.
That it also produced two of the evening's finest moments - a lyrical, logical piano excursion and a tenor solo that was among the exuberant Michael Buckley's most disciplined solo contributions, was scarcely coincidental. This is a venture that needs no indulgence and deserves to be nourished and encouraged.
