Cartoon on a high after sweating on deportation

Cork house music groovers Cartoon feared they would without their saxophone player Gary Baus for the launch of their debut album tonight.

The American musician came close to being deported having been initially refused a visa by the Irish Government.

“He finally got his visa sorted last Thursday,” said keyboardist/producer Darragh O’Connor. “It was looking increasingly likely he would be deported and it would have been very embarrassing had he been refused one only a few weeks after Bertie was over in the White House making the case for 30,000 illegal Paddies!”

Their debut album ‘Ban the Use of Jazz Music’, a culmination of two years work for the group, follows the international success of their four vinyl EPs on fashionable Parisian label Brique Rouge.

“The title refers to a movement set up by Conradh na Gaelige and the Gaelic League in 1933 which wanted to ban jazz music in Ireland and all related products on the grounds that the music was irreligious,” says O’Connor.

“Their philosophy was that it was internationalising and corrupting Ireland and Irish Catholic values.

“They succeeded briefly in having jazz banned from the airwaves in the 1940s - just when jazz was getting really good!

“As a band with two Americans and an Estonian playing music with a jazz influence, we found this whole thing very interesting.”

After the album launch tonight in the Imperial Hotel, Cork, the band are touring the album around Ireland, culminating in a prestigious spot playing at the Garden Party festival in Meath with Nightmares on Wax, 2manyDJs, Toots and the Maytals and Andy Cato from Groove Armada.

Cartoon tour dates:

April 15: Imperial Hotel, Cork

April 16: Crawdaddy, Dublin with Kerri Chandler

May 12: Sandinos, Derry

May 13: Dolans, Limerick

May 19: The Barge Rooms, Ennis (TBC)

May 19: Live on ‘The Síle Show’ TG4

May 20: Ten, Waterford with Kerri Candler

June 4: The Garden Party, Ballinlough Castle, Co Meath.