The blog is dedicated to Irish Jazz and to the fans, musicians and venues that support it. if you have any content you would like to add to the blog please get in touch.
On this edition I salute one of the Beatles groundbreaking album and celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Sgt.Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band with a selection of tracks from the album covered, rearranged and recorded by Jazz artists. You camn hear Bill Frisell, the Count Basie Orchestra, Django Bates and the Frankfurt Big Band, Collin Towns and the NDR Big Band, Wes Montgomery, Brad Mehldau and David Liebman. Quite a "jazzy" Hearts Club Band.
On this edition you can hear some of the appearing tutors and artists at this years Sligo Jazz Festival, which takes place from 25th to the 30th of July 2017.
Piano special this time with Dominic Reilly guesting. We also paid tribute to the late Brian Smyth who ran JJ Smyths jazz venue for many years prior to it being sold earlier in 2017. Rest in peace Brian.
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On this edition I pay tribute to saxophonist, clarinetist and flutist Eric Dolphy who tragically died in Berlin on the 29th of June 1964 at the young age of 36, his influence still immensely felt in Jazz today. You can hear some of his most important recordings, music recorded in the final days of his life and his influence on a new generation of progressive musicians.
Continuing the epic series on piano players in jazz, Donald has reached the letter E, where he finds one of the most important and influential pianists of all time, Bill Evans. It is probably true that almost all piano players in the modern era have been, to some extent, influenced by Evans.
He was something of a prodigy and began earning money from his music whilst still a teenager, but it wasn’t until he was 30, in 1959, and recorded with Miles Davis on the biggest selling jazz album of all time, Kind of Blue, that he reached beyond a small base of aficionados and found a wider public.
