IF you chose your concerts wisely this past Cork jazz weekend, your experience would have belied the negative media previews, which focused on the dilution of jazz in favour of a mélange of soul, rock and pop.

The threat of driving winds and torrential rain showers could have given people the blues and kept them away, but the Cork Guinness Jazz festival events were as packed as ever as revellers happily went ‘Singin’ in the Rain’.

Ever since he first walked out onto a Cork Jazz Festival stage alongside, of all things, turntables and mixers, Courtney Pine has been a firm favourite with Leeside audiences. He’s been getting crowds dancing in the aisles during the festival since the late 1990s, placing his muscular, dizzying sax playing in all manner of musical contexts.

Tens of thousands of music fans are already salivating at the prospect of the line up for the forthcoming Cork Guinness Jazz Festival, which will include top acts like English saxophone legend Courtney Pine and the show-stopping Chic.