Cork Jazz Fest reviews: Triskel delights with Daniel Herskedal, Mas Exodus, and James Holden
Daniel Herskedal and his band at Triskel Arts Centre during the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival. Picture: Darragh Kane
In a year when the ever-present tension between what’s jazz and what isn’t in the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival lineup appeared to reach breaking point, with few jazz acts at all among the headliners, Triskel Arts Center has once more provided a haven for improvised music and deep listening amid the festival fever in the surrounding streets.
Whatever complaints jazz aficionados might have about the broader programme, Saturday at the Christchurch venue provided a satisfying day’s music, with three distinctive acts representing the kind of broad scope a modern jazz festival should always aim for.
First up, it was the here as part of a five-date Music Network tour. Herskedal draws an astonishing array of sounds from what could be considered unwieldy jazz instruments: the tuba and the bass trumpet, supported by pianist Helge Lien and percussionist Helge Andreas Norbakken. They deliver what you’d expect with expansive Nordic jazz tunes, but at other times range into folk, classical and even world music, as Herskedal’s brass sounds like something from the Middle East, or even a didgeridoo. It’s novel all right, but certainly no novelty act.
Together, the trio are formidable, their 10 years playing together obvious from the control and understanding they share. Herskedal has written much for theatre and film too, and it’s easy to see why: the best moments here see them combining to create breathtakingly dramatic, propulsive explorations of melody, each instrument in perfect balance. A crescendo always seems lurking as they build up a raucous energy that seems to have the whole church vibrating, only for the resolution to come instead like a break in the clouds on a stormy day, a shift in register after a veritable storm of music. It’s elemental, soul-stirring stuff.
Following that at Triskel, the perhaps more simple pleasures of were just the thing. That was the mid-evening gig, so honorable mention should go to sax player Yuzuha O'Halloran, who was at O’Sho on Barrack Street with local stalwarts Dan Walsh on drums and Neil O’Loclainn on bass for a superb residency gig.
But back at Christchurch, the enigmatic frontman Max Zaska led a group of Irish talents for a set of music stemming from their jamming sessions together in covid days. The group, brainchild of Zaska and festival director Mark Murphy, deliver a set of soulful, jammed-out tunes that feature beautiful brass lines on saxophone and trumpet, or bluesy guitar solos from bandleader Zaska. There’s even a bit of synthy drum‘n’bass, if you like that sort of thing.
It’s a good look for an Irish festival to bring together talented Irish instrumentalists like Dylan Lynch (drums), Matthew Halpin (saxophone), Eamonn Cagney (percussion), Luke Howard (keys), and there was a noticeably young crowd at this show. Maybe, if you build it, they will come support this sort of thing, the youngsters. “Dreamy” and “joyful” were two overheard verdicts from this cohort, and it was hard to disagree.
The final show on Saturday provided something completely different, in the shape of British electronic artist The pair take the stage facing each other, atop two elevated platforms. Each sits in the lotus position, Holden a little crouched and grooving as he works his various gadgets, Zimple straight-backed as he adds the clarinet to this sound world. The combination is a hypnotic electro improv, as looped sounds and beats meet clarinet.
The effect is mesmerising, and challenging too. It was clearly not everyone’s cup of tea, but it was a journey worth persisting with as the two explored some astounding, mind-expanding aural landscapes. It was the kind of music that had one struggling for comparisons.
At one moment it sounded like a repetitive Steve Reich piece mashed up with a 90s DJ mixtape. At others like the start of an offbeat sci-fi movie, or maybe something fans of Underworld would recognise. But at its best it attained its own unique qualities, the human and electronic sounds combining in a weird and wonderful way, especially when Holden produced a violin. It’s properly odd and jagged, but utterly compelling too, unsettling and absorbing at the same time.
