SUNDAY 3rd
JOIN THE CLUB
Nigel Mooney & Johnny Taylor Trio
United Arts Club, FitzWilliam St, Dublin 4pm, €10, dublinarts.com
Guitarist and singer Nigel Mooney’s residency at the oh so salubrious United Arts club starts up again this week after a summer hiatus. Mooney’s defiantly old-school approach, channelling Grant Green, Ray Charles and Les McCann, finds many’s a sympathetic ear in the stately surroundings of the club’s upstairs assembly rooms, and in silky pianist Johnny Taylor, the guitarist has an accomplice more than equal to the task. Open to non-members.
TUESDAY 5th
GO WEST YOUNG MEN
Umbra: West
Crane Lane, Cork (Tuesday 5th); Central Arts, Waterford (Wednesday 6th); Sofa Sessions at Billy Byrnes, Kilkenny (Thursday 7th); Black Gate, Galway (Friday 8th); Grand Social, Dublin (Saturday 9th); details at facebook.com/umbradublin
A couple of years ago, guitarist Chris Guilfoyle travelled the length of America's west coast alone, entirely by public transport, with his guitar on his back, writing music as he went. The result is West, a set of fresh-as-a-daisy compositions which the uber-talented Guilfoyle has put in front of his similarly-talented band, Umbra. Individually, each member of this exhilarating five-piece is a rising star of the Irish jazz scene; collectively, they may well be one of the most original and forward-looking jazz ensembles in Europe, blending math-metal intricacy and punk attitude with the freedom-in-the-groove of Dave Holland and Kurt Rosenwinkel. Also the title of Umbra's debut album, West is the direction music is headed in the 21st century.
WEDNESDAY 6th
SOUNDS OF THE EARTH
Beatroot: Sue Rynhart
Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast, 8pm, £10, movingonmusic.com
Moving on Music's annual Beatroot festival offers the chance to get down with some high quality roots music without all the mud, over-priced water and dubious sanitary arrangements. Four days of post-genre music kicks off with Dublin vocalist and composer (a very different thing to a singer-songwriter, you understand) Sue Rynhart performing material from her excellent second album Signals, with instrumental support from long-time collaborator, bassist Dan Bodwell and New York-based keyboard wiz Justin Carroll. Also on the four-day bill are much-lauded folkster Daoirí Farrell, London world groovers Hejira and electro-folk explorer Joshua Burnside.
BETWEEN A JAZZ-ROCK AND A HARD PLACE
Michael Buckley’s House of Horns
Whelans, Dublin, 8pm, €10, facebook.com/buckleysax
Scion of a noble jazz dynasty, saxophonist Michael Buckley was already regarded as one of the Dublin scene's most talented musicians – with only his brother Richie a serious challenger in the saxophone stakes – when he branched out into studio production and became the go-to guy for horn sections on other people's records. House of Horns is Buckley's calling card, a hard grooving Brecker Brothers-inspired nine-piece with Margot Daly on vocals, and a muscular team of session musicians, including trumpeter Ronan Dooney, keyboardist Paul Finlay and drummer Jason Duffy. As the band's 2013 debut put it, It Is What It Is, and what it is is damn good.
