Galway Jazz Festival 2008

30 Oct 2008

Eric Vloeimans – Click to enlarge.

Small is beautiful at the 2008 Galway Jazz Festival, which  presents  a compact  but  delectable prospect for  discerning music lovers with four night’s magical music making from right across the jazz spectrum.  Leading musicians from The US, Scandinavia, Japan, Holland and The UK are westward bound for this fourth edition, which runs  from Thursday 20th to Sunday  23rd November with a stylistically adventurous line up that reflects the dynamic creativity of jazz around the globe today.

It begins with a US pianist of seemingly infinite capacity, the grammy nominated Kenny Werner, whose effortless  mastery will be appreciated in full on the concert Steinway in the dramatic environs of The Aula Maxima.  Solo performance is perhaps the highest expression of the jazz musician’s craft,  when player, instrument and audience are as one. In Werner’s hands, it’s a powerful and direct  emotional experience with no impediment to the musical possilbities, from lyrical intimacy to grand orchestral sweep.

At the other end of the musical spectrum lies The Thing, a confrontational  Scandiniavian  trio  with a  sound world entirely their own, and free jazz has seldom sounded as exhilarating and life affirming as within the maelstrom of sonic energy unleashed  here. Songs from diverse sources like PJ Harvey, Don Cherry and  The White Stripes are all grist to The Thing’s mill, and joining them on this dissonant road less travelled is the pioneering Otomo Yoshihide, a formative figure of Japan’s experimental music scene. Using guitar and turntables, Yoshihide explores feedback and sine waves, and staunchly inhabits the margins of electronica, rock and free jazz.

Closer to home, Amsterdam is home to one of Europe’s most creative music scenes, and trumpeter Eric Vloeimans is one of its most celebrated musicians, who beautifully distills the instrument’s colourful history into something personal and engaging. With Gatecrash, he augments the fluid mastery and compositional originality that has garnered four prestigious Dutch Edison Awards with a virtuoso groove band that explores subtly addictive terrain.

One of our finest guitarists brings the festival to a swinging conclusion. Hugh Buckley is among the more unassuming figures on the Irish scene, but his resume of international associations speaks volumes for the esteem in which he's held elsewhere, and this engaging and creative soloist has worked with stellar figures like Georgie Fame. Of late, soul and gospel nuances are increasingly to the fore, idioms with which trumpeter Guy Barker is intimately familiar, gleaned from an extraordinary career that has seen the brilliant Londoner share the stage with everyone from Ornette Coleman to Frank Sinatra.

www.galwayjazzfestival.com

Related Events

• From Scandinavia & Japan, The Thing & Otomo Yoshihide
  21 Nov 2008 @ Nuns Island Arts Centre
• From NYC, Kenny Werner, solo piano
  20 Nov 2008 @ Aula Maxima, NUI Galway
• From Amsterdam, Eric Vloeimans Gatecrash Quartet
  22 Nov 2008 @ The Crane Bar
• From London & Dublin, Guy Barker & Hugh Buckley
  23 Nov 2008 @ The Crane Bar