Live music review: Kamasi Washington at Beatyard, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin

By Ed Power

Four stars

The sun was setting over Dun Laoghaire harbour as jazz sorcerer Kamasi Washington embarked on his umpteenth dazzling solo of the evening.

The saxophone player wore a one-piece dashiki – a traditional West African garment – and led his band through a series of sci-fi jazzscapes. It was hypnotic and phantasmagorical – pop music from deep space refracted by an artist with the conjurer’s knack.

Washington was one of the biggest names at Beatyard, the Dun Laoghaire three-dayer that has evolved into one of the most smartly curated festivals on the circuit.

His prominence on the bill is at least partly due to his association with rapper Kendrick Lamar. The jazz doyen’s wizardry elevated Lamar’s 2015 album, To Pimp A Butterfly, drawing a line between Lamar’s political hip hop and the Afro-futurist movement that for decades served as a safe space in which African-American musicians could explore and play with concepts of identity and freedom.

On day two of Beatyard Washington was flanked by an ensemble that included his father, Rickey, and by vocalist Patrice Quinn, who arrived on the Los Angeles jazz circuit after a spell on Broadway. Her thespian instincts chimed with the band leader’s off-the-cuff showmanship, as they proceeded through highlights from 2015’s double-disc sprawl, The Epic, and this year’s Heaven and Earth.

Beatyard is pitched at foodies and families as much as at hardcore festival-goers. An Eatyard area offered vegan burgers and Korean Bao buns while a kids zone featured crazy golf and CoderDojo classes. The same omnivorous instincts informed the bill. Opening night was headlined by The Jacksons, playing Ireland for the first time (and on the 30th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s Páirc Uí Chaoimh show).

Saturday saw a rare Irish turn by Little Dragon, whose front woman Yukimi Nagano brought theatricality with red gloves stretching to her elbows, a green veil and an extravagantly bonkers dancing style. Watching was a laid-back crowd many of whom had wandered over from the Hidden Agenda dance tent, where David Kitt was taking time out from not being able to afford to live in Dublin to DJ under his New Jackson alias.

He was followed by Catalan house professor John Talabot and, later, teutonic tune-spinners Modeselektor. Back on the main stage, Washington eventually made way for Scottish-Irish indie quarter Django Django who pinged their way through a energetic set (they would later take to twitter to apologise that technical issues had forced the the cutting short of the performance). But for many the lingering memory will be of Washington and his band, owning the twilight and setting the night ablaze. Ed Power