Sun 16
Cadillac Quartet feat David Lyttle
The Quay, Carrick-on-Shannon, 11.45am, €20, thedock.ie
Belfast drummer David Lyttle is a man on the move. This year, the Mobo-nominated percussionist, record producer and label boss has already completed a wacky road trip across the US, finding out what ordinary Americans think of jazz (check out his vlogs on YouTube), and later this year he travels to China for the British Council's artist-in-residence programme. Before that, he joins his friends, pianist Scott Flanigan, bassist Eddie Lee and saxophonist Ciaran Wilde, for a water-borne concert as part of the Carrick Water Music Festival. Show up on time, or you'll, y'know, miss the boat.
Wed 19
Daniel Rorke Trio
Dwarf Jar Café, Wellington quay, Dublin, 7.30pm, No CC, danielrorke.com
The Dwarf Jar stage is hung so precariously above this groovy little independent café on the quays that the city fathers, in their infinite concern for jazz musicians, thought they really should install a bannister. Now all bannistered up and fully compliant, the stage is set for Australian saxophonist Daniel Rorke, who has been working up a repertoire of originals and reworked standards with a band of local heavy-hitters, this week including gjuitarist Chris Guilfoyle, bassist Cormac O’Brien and drummer Shane O’Donovan.
Ronan Guilfoyle: Things We Like
Arthurs, Thomas St, Dublin, 9pm, €10, arthurspub.ie
Bassist Ronan Guilfoyle grew up in an unusually cultured musical household in Dun Laoghaire where rock and pop had to take a seat. Pere Guilfoyle's record collection was more about Stravinsky and Bartok, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk, and that certainly explains why he sired a dynasty of jazz musicians, including Ronan's brother Conor and his son Chris. But if it was his father, the subject of Guilfoyle's excellent 2012 release Renaissance Man, that made him a musician, it was Jack Bruce, bassist with Cream, that made Guilfoyle a bassist. Things We Like is the Dun Laoghaire man's tribute to his first inspiration, a typically gnarly reinterpretation of classic Cream material, with a group that packs a serious musical punch, featuring saxophonist Michael Buckley, guitarist Joe O'Callaghan, pianist Izumi Kimura, vocalist Margot Daly and drummer Brendan Doherty.
Thurs 20
Nicholas Canny: Real Human
Anseo, Camden st., Dublin, 9pm, No CC, facebook.com/NicholasKCanny
Now, don't take this the wrong way, but technology is increasingly enabling a new generation of jazz musicians to play with themselves. As an improvised, interactive art form, jazz used to be a music that required the participation of others, but Dublin guitarist Nicholas Canny is part of a generation who are adapting a jazz approach to electronics, using software and bits of hardware to create the sort of random, in-the-moment interactions that improvisers thrive on. Canny is launching his debut album, Real Human, with a solo performance that is mysteriously described as without 'physically using his laptop'. Steady.
