Jazz fest aiming to be streets ahead of the rest

By Eoin English and Olivia Kelleher

The director of the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival would like to see the city centre become a designated festival zone next year, with key streets pedestrianised for the four-day music event.

Sinead Dunphy was speaking after an estimated 60,000 revellers attended this year’s rejuvenated event, generating some €35m for the local economy.

Unseasonably good weather right across the event helped attract thousands of people onto the streets, with hoteliers and publicans reporting one of the busiest October bank holidays in several years.

Ms Dunphy said: “We set out to infect the city with jazz, in the best possible way, and I think we did that. And the audiences have spoken.

“We are planning already for next year and I would like to see the city centre become a festival site.

I think Cork could follow Montreal’s example and give over the city centre for next year’s festival. We have the right kind of city centre for that to happen. Cork City Council has been hugely supportive of this year’s event and I can’t wait to have those conversations.

Just nine months into her role, Ms Dunphy, who previously headed the Cork Choral Festival, delivered one of the most successful jazz festivals in recent years, featuring headline performers Laura Mvula, Billy Childs All-Star Quartet, Blind Boys of Alabama, the Stanley Clarke Band, Billy Cobham Band, Maria Schneider Orchestra, and Nnenna Freelon Trio.

The wider city was engaged with the festival thanks to the Dia De Los Muertos’ jazz parade last Thursday night, thanks to a doubling in the number of marching bands booked to perform on the streets and the jazz stage and food market on Emmet Place, which staged acts every half-hour.

Thousands of people enjoyed impromptu on-street gigs and followed marching bands through city-centre streets, which in some cases on Saturday brought pedestrians into conflict with traffic.

Ms Dunphy said such issues will be a key part of the debrief as planning starts for next year’s festival. But she said the success of the weekend has proved it can get bigger and better.

Her three-year rolling contract will see her plan the next two festivals at least.

“I had nine months to work on this year’s festival. Can you imagine what we can do with 12 months of planning for next year’s festival?” she said.

This is only going to get bigger and better. I think we can reclaim from Montreal the Guinness World Record title for the largest jazzfestival.

The festival opened with Dia De Los Muertos and included several other festival firsts, including a specially commissioned immersive audio-visual experience, Unity with the David Duffy Quartet, at St Luke’s.

City Hall also became a jazz venue for the first time with two of Europe’s biggest jazz dance bands, Meschya Lake and the Dizzy Birds and Gentlemen & Gangsters performing alongside international dancers and members of the Irish Swing Community.

Emmett Place, near Cork Opera House, played host to food stalls and brass bands that tuned up every half-hour over the weekend for the Jazz Festival.

More than 1,000 musicians from 20 countries performed at venues across the city.

A photographic exhibition drawn from the Irish Examiner archive showing the early days of the jazz festival continues at the Triskel Arts Centre runs until Friday.

Gardaí made several arrests across the weekend, mainly due to public order offences, with the cells in all four city stations — the Bridewell, Togher, Mayfield, and Gurranabraher — full on Sunday night.