A look at what is happening in the world of the arts.

Tord Gustavsen Trio

Vicar Street

Presented by The Improvised Music Company and KMD Architecture, the visit of the Tord Gustavsen Trio to Vicar Street produced music of haunting beauty and profound emotion.

This was a group that simply began at a high level and remained there. Clearly recognising it was witnessing something special, a rapt audience was held spellbound from start to finish, even to the extent of refraining from applauding until the end of each performance; individual solos were greeted with silence, a mark of respect which I have never experienced at a jazz concert before.

So superbly integrated is the work of this trio - Gustavsen (piano), Harald Johnsen (bass) and Jarle Vespestad (drums) have been together for several years now - that the word "solo" seems out of place; it does scant justice to the unity of each performance.

Although each member of the group has enough technique to dazzle, everything is subsumed into an ego-free whole where the music itself, stripped of gesture and anything superfluous, is the master and they are the servants.

This is something that comes only where there is musical maturity. It was evident immediately, when they opened with a lovely new piece of Gustavsen's, At Home, in which the pianist's exquisite touch and expressive pedalling were matched by the trio's superb dynamics and sense of drama and contrast. But that does little to convey the sheer beauty of the performance.

What's also remarkable about the trio is its freshness. Even when doing older compositions by Gustavsen, such as Graceful Touch (which has been in their repertoire for about four years), or the more recent Tears Transforming, Twins and Colours Of Mercy, the performances both opened up the material in surprising ways while somehow respecting the innate character of each individual piece. And it remained true even when, as happened from time to time, the group found a euphoric collective groove and went with it.

In fact, their treatment of material they have already recorded was particularly illuminating in this respect. It's clear that, with time, the trio seems to have become more assertive and even more prepared to live on the edge of each performance. Tempo changes, suspended harmonies, unexpected segues, all carried off with seamless aplomb, were part of this willingness not to succumb to the comfort of the familiar.

For all its undeniable quality and variety of mood, method and content, however, the trio's music is accessible in a way that few groups are brave enough to follow. It's melodic, graceful, spacious and subtle, with a harmonic language that owes as much to European classical music as it does to gospel music and hymns, yet it remains discrete and uncompromisingly of itself. The result is indisputably jazz. It was a privilege to be there to hear it.

Ray Comiskey

Basil Blackshaw

Fenton Gallery, Cork

Success in the arts is notoriously elusive for all but the most persistent, talented or just plain lucky of people. So when an artist such as Basil Blackshaw, now 73, strives to develop and refine his style, then we get a clearer picture of why success has been anything but elusive for this most esteemed of Irish artists.

Inspiration comes from the most unexpected sources, with the artist finding beauty in the most mundane and ordinary of places, such as a whitewashed window in a closed-down shop front.

In this collection of new work we see Blackshaw paring his imagery back to a point that hovers tantalisingly close to pure abstraction. A lexicon of simple images - including a child-like rendition of a car, flowers, a featureless head and his studio door - seem to be wrenched from his memory in a purging of his sub-consciousness.

This range of imagery is unified further in the form of his chosen palette, which is predominately low-key in temperament, leaning heavily toward warm hues of ochre and Naples yellow. The surfaces are energetic explorations of texture where fluid flourishes of his brush do battle with energised line created using pastel.

The highpoints of a show that has many include the hauntingly introspective Self Heal, where an outline of a head - possibly that of the artist - is stamped indelibly with the image of a flower in a beautifully tense and fragile piece.

Wall II is a symphony of surface exploration, considered tonal organisation and strong evocation of actual form and space - all integrated into a perfect whole. The words "the wall" are inscribed onto the surface in such a way as to give the impression that the letters are freestanding structures within this desolate space. Intriguing and arresting in equal measure.

Until Oct 14

Mark Ewart