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Down With Jazz Den Of Vice Returns To Haunt Catholic Church

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Down With Jazz, the festival that reels back the decades to the anti-jazz movement of the 1930’s, is back for a third edition; this time over the June Bank Holiday weekend.

Who knows what class of devilment Dublin's citizens will get up if the sun comes out, with hip swiveling music and decadent improvising from the country’s finest jazz musicians, and the trading of oysters and porter to boot?

If that weren’t enough, the festival coincides with the premiere of Ken Loach’s new movie Jimmy’s Hall, documenting the life of agrarian communist Jimmy Gralton, deported from Co. Leitrim in 1933 after church and state colluded to shut down his jazzy parish dances. There was disorder on the border aplenty, but this murky episode from history, with its culturally oppressive overtones, now provides the context in which to consider the place of Irish jazz today.

And there is plenty to celebrate. Contemporary and inclusive, Down With Jazz is a big tent that welcomes musicians and music lovers of all persuasions, from funk and electronica, to chamber pop and free improv, with a line up that reflects our diversity today. If Jimmy was around, he’d surely approve and would encourage you to get down to Meeting House Square, because when you free your behind, your mind will follow.

Down With Jazz Line-Up

Saturday May 31

Tommy Halferty Trio: Since the late 70s, Derry native Tommy Halferty has been an irrepressible voice, always lyrical and animated, and a formative influence on many Irish guitarists. Burkina is the new album with bassist Dave Redmond and drummer Kevin Brady and the trio gives it a vigorous work out for Down With Jazz.

OKO: Guitarist Shane Latimer leads this gutsy quartet that runs the gamut from delicately sculpted electro acoustic shapes to gritty streetwise funk. Drummer Shane O’Donovan provides the pulse, Darragh O’Kelly brings the splashes of dark keyboard colour, and Djackulate is the free agent with the turntables, riffing on a creative consensus that draws on Krautrock, vintage TV shows, noise, musak and IDM, like a fluctuating soundtrack to a typical Saturday night in Dublin town.

DFF: bring us a seductive cocktail through the African filter of Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu, the chamber pop of cellist Vyvienne Long and the trad affiliations of composer Dave Flynn. The debut album Pouric Songs freewheels across the genres, an upbeat antidote for the times we live in with gutsy playing, lovely harmonies and grooves that summon up the elusive Irish summer.

Alarmist: craft a very personal music that embraces jazz, math rock, electronica and formal composition, offering further proof that the next generation of musicians are untethering themselves from the old stylistic dogma. Genres are harvested and manipulated, and multi instrumentalists Neil Crowley, Elis Czerniak, Osgar Dukes and Barry O'Halpin take a quasi orchestral approach that allows their music to hover in its own instrumental space, gravitationally pulled toward a rock aesthetic but constantly implying other philosophies in a way that excites

Sunday June 1

Umbra: might be the wild geese of the Irish jazz scene, with members returning home from Switerland, Belgium and the US to make this rare Dublin gig. At the helm is guitarist Chris Guilfoyle, whose tunes form an intriguing bridgehead between the rich harmonic world of contemporary jazz and the cyclical grooves of Aphex Twin, put through their paces by saxophonists Chris Engel and Sam Comerford, keyboardist Darragh O’Kelly, bassist Barry O’Donoghue and drummer Matt Jacobsen.

Blue Eyed Hawk: Welcome home singer Lauren Kinsella, who’s made quite an impression since moving to London a few years back. Named for a line in Yeats’ Under the Moon, Blue-Eyed Hawk features serious London talent in trumpeter Laura Jurd, guitarist Alex Roth and drummer Corrie Dick. A debut CD on influential label Edition is slated for later this year, but they’re already making waves on the UK festival scene with wide eyed, panoramic music anchored by Kinsella’s exhilarating way with words, squeezing the improvisational juice out of every syllable.

Ensemble Eriu: Slowly, and then all of a sudden, the landscape of Irish traditional music seems to be shifting, with bands like The Gloaming and This Is How We Fly opening up an exhilarating world of textural and improvisational possibility to our old dance forms. Now comes the adventurous Ensemble Eriu, beautifully poised between jazz, trad and classical, with no sense of stylistic hierarchy or compromise. Co-led by bassist Neil O'Loghlen and box player Jack Talty, Ériu draws on an ambient, chamber palette of seven players, and the debut album has drawn effusive praise from discerning ears Like John Kelly, Jim Carroll and Nialler 9.

Toot Sweet: Bayou Funk on the Liffey banks, courtesy of this latest outfit from piano man Cian Boylan, invoking the spirit of The Big Easy and the music of Dr John, Professor Longhair, Rebirth and Dirty Dozen Brass Bands. With swampy Hammond grooves and a take-no-prisoners horn section, Toot Sweet pack some real punch with Cormac Kenevey (vcl), Conor Brady(gtr), Brendan Doyle (sax), Mark Adams (tpt), Karl Ronan (tbn), with bassist Dan Bodwell and drummer John Wilde in the engine room.

Manden Express: If Ireland has become a melting pot, Manden Express might be the band to provide its soundtrack. African, Latin and Irish musicians convene here in service of the good groove, predominantly West African as the name suggests, but sociable in its embrace of flamenco, jazz and funk too. They’re festival fit too, with previous shows at Body & Soul and Drogheda Samba Fest, and a dance friendly formula that is winning admirers at venues across Dublin from Sweeney’s to the Grand Social. Paul McElhatton introduces you to the Kamele n’goni, cousin to the West African kora, percussionist Brian Lynch has the djembe chops, and also inviting you to shake it are vocalist Emma Garnett, bassist Manuel Oliviencia, drummer Cote Calmet, guitarists Paddy Groenland and Jose Dominguez.

For full details visit the Down With Jazz Website

“For music lovers who want to catch some outstanding sounds in relaxed and pleasant surroundings… kick back and bask in some of the finest jazz and grooves Ireland has to offer” – A Year of Festivals in Ireland, The Irish Times, 2013

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