18-piece New York orchestra led by composer Maria Schneider delight Cork Jazz Fest crowd

By Philip Watson

At one point during the vibrant Dia De Los Muertos street parade that opened the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival, the corpse of a woman lying in a coffin in an old black carriage-style hearse sprang suddenly to life and began clawing desperately at the glass windows.

It was part macabre theatre and part ghoulish comedy, but it was wholly tempting to see the rebirth as symbolic of this year’s festival. After several years in the programming doldrums, Ireland’s leading jazz festival seemed revived and raring to be set free.

Nowhere was that more evident than at City Hall on Sunday night, which saw the spirited debut appearance in Ireland of the crack 18-piece New York orchestra led and conducted by

American composer Maria Schneider.

Schneider presented a wide and varied selection of her panoramic music, from the more traditional big band sound of the early piece ‘Gumba Blue’ from 1992, to several compositions from her pastoral and symphonic landmark 2015 album The Thompson Fields, to two new darker and unsettling scores, ‘Don’t Be Evil’ and ‘Data Lords’, that are yet to be released.

Each work was a story unto itself, a soundtrack to a theme or idea, played by absolute first-rank musicians with the ability to both harmonise into one unified and organic whole and stand out as expressive individual soloists.

It was something of a one-off, a Cork Jazz Festival coup, and the standing ovation at the end was suitably loud and long. Loud enough even to wake the dead.