Jazz buffs ease into post-party blues

PARKING any talk of belt-tightening, the city down south showed it had the nous to knock the best out of straitened circumstances in a three-day extravaganza of jazz and drink.

Packed pubs, pricey grub and tender heads were tolerated with admirable goodwill by the thousands of revellers for whom the lure of the Guinness Jazz Festival is as potent as the perfect pint.

Both tempo and weekend wound down slowly yesterday as those with a love for improv blew out their final few notes and others laid into some hard-hitting be-bop or hip-hop for the final shakedown.

The Roaring Forties showed no sign of slacking, up and at ‘em by lunchtime, despite three gigs the previous day and the challenge of a final performance close to midnight last night at the Gresham Metropole Hotel.

A Jazz Improv jam session kicked off in Crane Lane at the more respectable hour of 3.30pm while out in Douglas East Village, The Committed proved just how committed they were.

The Swinging Bluecats continued to swing in Scotts Bar where the search was still on for Rob Strong – plugged to appear at 10pm the previous night but who failed to materialise at the promised hour.

Later in the evening, the Cork City Jazz Band gave it up for the jazz hangers-on at the Briar Rose and Bistro on the Douglas Road while back in town, at the Shelbourne Bar on MacCurtain St, Cat Scratch Fever performed their fourth gig in as many days.

Yesterday was mostly mellow or soulful for the hard core who deigned to stay. Don Baker brought a touch of the blues to Mulligans Bar at Parnell Place while An Brog bar on Oliver Plunkett St kept it all together with Candi and the Cubes and an ‘80s night played out by DJ Menace.

The bigger venues such as the Everyman Place, Triskel at the River Lee Hotel, the Pavilion and the Savoy had packed up the brass on Sunday night, but pubs about town continued to pipe out a few demi-semiquavers in tandem with ringing tills.

Sounds at some of the venues had nothing at all to do with jazz but proprietors were happy to cash in and few punters were heard to complain. So last night the curtain came down on what was surely a taxing few days for those whose annual foray into jazz consists of a four-day bender in a variety of venues along the Guinness Jazz Trail.