The Jazz Festival Part 2-People Under the Stairs and Giant Panda

More from my piece in da Echo!

The Festival was hit by the
cancellation of Freddie Hubbard a few weeks ago and it was also
unfortunate that another jazz legend was unable to travle to Cork
because of illness. Lou Donaldson was missed on Sunday but at least
Dr Lonnie Smith capably stepped in and he was joined later on that
day by the Mingus Dynasty Band who performed some fine Charlie Mingus
numbers. The hip-hop double bill of Giant Panda and People Under the
Stairs brought to an end my weekend in the Savoy and both acts
demonstrated once again that there's a world of qulaity hip-hop music
that never gets played on MTV. All in all, it was a busy few days,
roll on next year!

The Jazz Festival Part 1-Hiromi, Laura Izibor and much more

Here's my personal review taken from my column in today's Evening Echo!
It was another rocking Guinness Jazz Festival in Cork and there was a
top class international line-up to our City. I checked out gigs from
Branford Marsalis, Hiromi, Dr Lonnie Smith, The Mingus Dynasty Band,
People Under the Stairs and Giant Panda; just a few of the diverse
artists on offer in Cork!
Friday night saw a great double bill
at the Everyman featuring Branford Marsalis and Hiromi. Hiromi was
presented with an Award for being best emerging talent (see pic) after her gig
and it’s no surprise why, the young pianist was absolutely
superb as she displayed a stunning versatility and exuberance with a
fiery display of piano playing. She glided effortlessly between both
mellow ballads and harder numbers in a set that will live long in the
memory. I see no reason why she can’t emulate a previous winner
of this award, E.S.T, and proceed to set herself up as one of the big
names in cutting edge jazz. Branford's band featured the incredible
Joey Calderazzo aswell aswell as one of the best drummers i've ever
seen in Cork, Jeff Watts, aswell as Eric Revis on bass. I've been a
fan of Branford for many years and while this was hardly the best gig
he ever did, it was still a quality finish to a good night on Friday.
On Saturday Laura
Izibor returned to the Savoy for her biggest gig in yet. Normaly only
accompanied by a piano, this time Laura had a full band, but there
was no doubt who was the star of the show. Her music sounds really
familiar already despite it all being written by Laura herself
(except the covers of "Killing Me Softly" and Crazy") The crowd was
certainly apprciating the soul vibes and she has the voice, the
attitude and the talent to be a very big artist in the next few
years. I'll have exclusive news about her debut album on my blog
in the next few weeks.