Razzmatazz woos Cork Jazz Festival fans despite weather

Whether or not you found that whoopee spot where the gin is cold and the piano hot, Cork City still had plenty to sate the musical tastes of bank holiday revellers who came in search of jazz and razzmatazz.

Organisers of the Cork Guinness Jazz Festival were last night optimistic that numbers were up on last year, a not inconsiderable feat on a weekend when St Jude and his weather depression threatened to rain on everyone’s parade.

Guesstimates put visitor numbers at around 70,000 over the duration of the festival which kicked off in it’s spiritual home — the Festival Club at the Metropole Hotel — on Friday evening, having spent the previous five years spinning between a variety of launch venues.

The fact that Friday night at the Met was free and Saturday rates weren’t exorbitant was a definite pull. Taxi drivers were upbeat and hotels and B&Bs overwhelmed, while food venues, such as The Fish Wife on McCurtain St, across the road from the Met, reported the “busiest weekend ever”.

Monday afternoon at the Met was a bit hit with toddlers with a couple of swinging big bands keeping everyone happy. One Corkonian, home from London for the festival with two children, remarked that it was like “a really weird Sir Henry’s after party”. She met people she hadn’t seen since her rave days and now they were responsible parents bringing kids to jazz sessions.

Next door in the Everyman Palace Theatre, billed as ‘Jazz Central’ for the weekend, things had quietened down last night after the amazing sounds of the Mingus Big Band pulled in the crowds on Sunday.

The band was one of the festival’s headline acts, along with seminal disco band Chic who went down a treat with the crowds in the Opera House on Saturday.

The New York Brassband from North Yorkshire were a big hit with shoppers, while the Berlin-based Beat ‘N’ Blow marching nine-piece entertained with a fusion of jazz, funk, hip hop and world music.

Genre-crunching Primal Scream played the Opera House last night, winding down the festival on the kind of note that left audiences hoping for more. And all that jazz.