A taste of soul, rock hip-hop and... jazz

IN ITS 35 years, the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival has grown and broadened so far beyond its roots that it’s possible most years to preview it on two fronts: from the point of view of the jazz aficionado, and the perspective of the general music fan.

You could even throw in a third outlook: the revellers who pack the music-filled pubs — ‘going jazzing’, in the local parlance. But sticking with the first two criteria, it seems that, this year, the general music fan is doing a little better than the jazz aficionado.

Take the Opera House, in previous decades a barometer for how well, or not, the festival serves the jazzheads. In vintage years, you could find the likes of a Chick Corea or a McCoy Tyner in the Opera House — straight-up jazz legends.