VIDEO: Cork Jazz Festival - Mix of all kinds of jazzmatazz hits the right notes

An eclectic mix of music at this year’s Guinness Jazz Festival is drawing in the crowds and making the festival a hit with fans of all genres of music.

From hip hop legends Blackalicious in The Pavilion to acts like Gary Numan, Aslan and The Drifters, who play on Monday night in Cork Opera House, the jazz estival is catering to a wider audience than ever.

The Coronas, who played the Opera House on Saturday night, are about as far from jazz as you can get, but that didn’t deter pleased punters. “They were fantastic, I absolutely love them,” Nancy Mooring, a Cork native and dedicated Jazz Festival attendee, said. “I know they’re not jazz, but then, ‘The Jazz’ has never been just about jazz, has it?”

Ms Mooring’s brother, Nigel, came all the way from Oxford and they were hurrying from The Coronas to another gig. “I’ll definitely be telling all my UK friends to come over,” he said. “Oliver Plunkett St was like New Orleans earlier, with all the bands out on the street. It’s absolutely brilliant.”

“When you have over 40,000 people coming to a festival, they’re not all going to be jazz fans,” long-time festival programmer Jack McCouran said. “An eclectic line-up makes for a thriving festival. But even though there’s so much on, the heart and soul of this festival is still jazz and always will be.

“It’s also a door-opener for people who may think they don’t like jazz. The festival cements Cork’s primary position as the best Jazz Festival in Ireland, and probably one of the best in Europe. There are loads of overseas people here, and everybody from Cork is out too.”

The festival club at The Metropole Hotel, with five rooms of everything from Dixie to a Blues Brothers tribute band, was as glamourous and colourful as ever as ladies bedecked in sequins and gents in every type of headgear from trilby hats to straw boaters flirted, danced and laughed the nights away; a real taste of ‘The Jazz’ in Cork.

There was a decided absence of straw boaters in The Triskel, where the Dan Walsh trio — drums, sax and double bass — were knocking out a more high-brow, arty jazz, while upstairs, according to one inebriated punter, there was “some kind of avant-garde post-natal depression” in progress. The Triskel and The Everyman have played host to music for the heavyweight jazz aficionados, with jazz composer and bassist Marcus Miller and Alto Sax virtuoso Grace Kelly playing dazzling sets in The Everyman on Friday and Saturday night and UK trio Go Go Penguin in the atmospheric surroundings of Triskel Christchurch on Sunday night.

Off the official trail, the Hot 8 Brass Band played Saturday night to a packed Bodega, it may not be jazz but at least it’s brass. New Orleans-style brass bands proved real crowd-pleasers at this year’s festival, with the New York Brass Band ( from York in England) playing the stage at Emmett’s Place and Dublin’s perennial festival favourites The Booka Brass Band, drawing large queues for their sold out Opera House appearance on Saturday night.