Last Monday's IMC concert produced an immensely satisfying night of what might loosely be called hard bop, served up by a quintet whose front line featured two musicians of international calibre in Gerald Presencer on flugelhorn and Michael Buckley on tenor soprano and flute. They were ably backed by a trio of the most promising young jazzmen here - pianist Justin Carroll, bassist Michael Coady and the multi-talented Myles Drennan, on drums.
Nevertheless, it took a couple of tunes for the group to settle. The opening Solar was busy but not really together, and though things improved with Little B's Poem, notable for a fine soprano solo, and were better still on the up-tempo Voyage that followed, evidence of uncertainty remained. That disappeared with the next, appropriately called You've Changed.
From then on there were few, if any problems. A Wayne Shorter piece which closed the first set continued the high standard - a standard surpassed in the second set with two performances which were the highlights of the evening. Alone Together was a group effort par excellence, in which they stretched the harmonic fabric of the piece almost to bursting point, while another ballad, You Go To My Head, with exquisite flugelhorn, flute and very distinctive piano, was in the same class. A similarly thoughtful, if more ebullient, take on the blues, in Charlie Parker's Billie's Bounce, closed an excellent night's music.
