Articles by Ian Patterson
Joel Frahm Trio At Magy's Farm
by Ian Patterson
Joel Frahm Trio Magy's Farm Dromara, N. Ireland October 17, 2025 After 30 years in New York and then Nashville, tenor saxophonist Joel Frahm has swapped the year-round blur of club dates and tours for the relative security of the teaching faculty at Texas State University. It is undoubtedly great news for that renowned institution's music students, but a loss for jazz fans around the world who are not going to see Frahm with ...
Continue ReadingChristy Doran's May 95 Sextet: Same But Different
by Ian Patterson
Curse or blessing? A festival handing a musician carte blanche for a one-off adventure sounds liberating, but the allure of artistic freedom can be tempered by pressure: what if the personalities do not gel? What if it bombs? Christy Doran, the Ireland-born Lucerne-based guitarist, has never been one to dodge a challenge. His entire career has been marked by adventure and innovation. From jazz-rock fusioneers OM in the early '70s to his later groups New Bag, Sound Fountain, ...
Continue ReadingEuropean Jazz Conference 2025: Italian Showcases
by Ian Patterson
Italian Jazz Showcase Various venues European Jazz Conference Bari, Italy September 26-27, 2025 Jazz rang out in Bari for four days during the Europe Jazz Network's annual European Jazz Conference. It rang out in Bari's streets, piazzas and theatres, and in ancient church and castle too. It may have been an event of note in Bari's cultural calendar, but in a sense this wonderful celebration of jazz was just business as usual for the ...
Continue ReadingRemembering Hermeto Pascoal: The Sorcerer's Spell
by Ian Patterson
Hermeto Pascoal, the one-of-a-kind Brazilian multi-instrumentalist and composer, has gone to the great gig in the sky. Known affectionately as Bruxo (Sorcerer), Pascoal passed away on September 13, 2025. He was 89. Few musicians have traversed as many styles of Brazilian music as Pascoal. His first commercial recording, in 1956, was with Clóvis Pereira--the renowned composer of folkloric, choral and orchestral works; Pascoal plays sanfona (button accordion) on two tracks. Over the next 65 years, Pascoal contributed to ...
Continue ReadingHermeto Pascoal: Gaio da Roseira
by Ian Patterson
Hermeto Pascoal (June 22, 1936--September 13, 2025), the internationally renowned Brazilian multi-instrumentalist and composer, spent sixty years seamlessly fusing Brazilian music with jazz. From the album A música livre de Hermeto Pascoal (Sinter, 1973) the 14-minute track “Gaio da Roseira" captures the vocal lyricism, percussive colors, dancing rhythms, melodic lilt and avant-garde eclecticism that were some of the hallmarks of his music. In the music's most outré passages it is hard to believe that loops and effects are entirely absent. ...
Continue ReadingRami Atallah At Dock Street Jazz Club
by Ian Patterson
Rami Attallah Dock Street Jazz Club Belfast, N. Ireland September 7, 2025 It was an auspicious day in the old docks area of Belfast, for on this day a new jazz club was born. Dock Street Jazz Club, nestled upstairs in The American Bar, swung into life with a gratifying Sold Out sign on its website. Dock Street Jazz Club is tucked down a side-street of an area known as Sailortown. In ...
Continue ReadingDreams And Dust: Two From Pianist Izumi Kimura
by Ian Patterson
2025 will go down as a busy year for Ireland-based, Japanese pianist Izumi Kimura. The first half of the year served up the solo album Butterfly Effect (Codama Records) and Glacial Voyage (Between The Lines)--the latter a free-form duo collaboration with guitarist Christy Doran. Both albums favored explorations of mood and textures over virtuosity. Two further collaborative albums once again find Kimura on improvisational terrain, though they are quite different in character. Taken together, these albums are windows onto Kimura ...
Continue ReadingDave Redmond: The Next In Line
by Ian Patterson
Ireland probably has more good jazz bassists than at any time before but ask who the most in-demand bassist in the country is and the answer is most likely Dave Redmond. The Dubliner has been a key player on the Irish jazz scene since the early 2000s, playing with Irish guitar greats Louis Stewart and Tommy Halferty. He has forged an enduring musical partnership with Kevin Brady in the drummer's piano trio as well as his electric quartet. Redmond and ...
Continue ReadingDave Redmond: All In Motion
by Ian Patterson
There is not too much down time for your average hard-working musician. Between scuffling for gigs wherever and whenever they fall, studio sessions and the inevitable teaching bag, it is often a struggle to keep all the balls in the air. Irish bassist Dave Redmond has managed better than many since the turn of the millennium. A bass teacher at Dublin City University, Redmond is first-call bassist for Kevin Brady, Tommy Halferty and the late Larry Coryell--with whom he recorded ...
Continue ReadingHayley Kavanagh Quartet At Scott's Jazz Club
by Ian Patterson
Hayley Kavanagh Quartet Scott's Jazz Club Belfast, N. Ireland August 29, 2025 “Welcome to the Upper East Side." Variations on this phrase--delivered by Scott's Jazz Club co-founder Cormac O'Kane--have greeted visitors to Belfast's award-winning jazz venue every Friday night since 2020. Hard to believe that half a decade has whizzed by just like that. So much has happened--global pandemic, devastating wars, mass migration, worldwide floods and fires on an unprecedented scale, Trump again... and ...
Continue Reading
