Jazz Articles about Matthew Jacobson

About Matthew Jacobson

Album Review

Back for even more fun, Irish stalwarts Matthew Jacobson and Sam Comerford follow up their EP Insufficient Funs (Self Produced, 2016) with their debut album, Chunk. Insufficient Funs gigs have been intermittent in the intervening decade. Still, drummer Jacobson and saxophonist Comerford have kept their collaborative fires burning in both Ingo Hipp's AERIE and Chris Guilfoyle's Umbra. That Chunk tops the hour playing time may be par for the course for an album these days, but for a duo of ...

Album Review

Orlando Molina: Autorretrato en tres colores

Read "Autorretrato en tres colores" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
November 10, 2025

Autoretratto en Très Colores--A Portrait in Three Colors--the debut of Venezuelan guitarist and composer Orlando Molina as a leader, and it is a work steeped in experience. Though recorded over two years, these compositions feel like the product of a much longer journey--one shaped by study, migration, and growth. The album traces the emotional arc of Molina's move from Venezuela to Ireland, carrying with it echoes of loss and distance, discovery and renewal. Melancholy and hope coexist throughout, bound by ...

Album Review

Hyperlynx: Rest Energy

Read "Rest Energy" reviewed by Neil Duggan

by Neil Duggan
September 24, 2025

Hyperlynx operates at the fringes of contemporary jazz, where preparation meets improvisation. This Swiss-Irish trio has assembled an eclectic instrumental arsenal: Rhodes piano, prepared zither, electric guitar, synthesizers and drums. This allows them to sculpt soundscapes both alien and familiar. On their album Rest Energy, these elements coalesce into something firmly rooted in the avant-garde, where each instrument's voice contributes to a series of unusual soundscapes. The collaboration brings together Irish musician Matthew Jacobson (who recently made a ...

Album Review

Aengus Hackett Trio: Aengus Hackett Trio

Read "Aengus Hackett Trio" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
August 17, 2024

It was surely a matter of time before Aengus Hackett got around to a contemporary jazz trio recording. The Galway guitarist has been a regular on the Irish jazz scene since graduating from the Conservatory of Amsterdam where he studied with Jesse van Ruller. But like many of his contemporaries, jazz is only one facet of his music making. Whether doubling as an electronica producer, intertwining Irish and Turkish folk music with singer Sanem Kalfa, or embracing anything from gamelan ...

Album Review

Aleka Potinga: Romania: Songs Of Love And Longing

Read "Romania: Songs Of Love And Longing" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
April 15, 2024

You can take singer/cellist Aleka Potinga out of Romania, but you cannot take Romania out of her musical soul. Classically trained in Bucharest, and Dublin-based since 2012, Potinga has slotted into the city's fluid jazz/improvised music scenes, working with Izumi Kimura, Ronan Guilfoyle, Tommy Halferty and Cello Ireland. Her debut album Person I Knew (Self-Produced, 2019) featured imaginative interpretations of modern jazz classics by Wayne Shorter, Thelonious Monk and Bill Evans. Prior to that, her debut EP Aleka (EM, 2016) ...

Album Review

Roamer: Lost Bees

Read "Lost Bees" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
November 11, 2022

Roamer is vocalist Lauren Kinsella, drummer Matthew Jacobson, bassist/guitarist Simon Jermyn and saxophonist/flautist Matthew Halpin--four of Ireland's most lauded creative musicians. Formed in 2016, the quartet's activities have been frustratingly intermittent in the interim, though it is hardly surprising given that its members are based in London, Cologne, Berlin and Dublin. One early highlight came in 2017, when Roamer collaborated with Irish poet Cherry Smyth in an Arts Council-funded project at Bray Jazz Festival. That project has evolved to the ...

Album Review

BigSpoon: The Return Of The Prodigal Son

Read "The Return Of The Prodigal Son" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
September 14, 2022

South African saxophonist Chris Engel has been a ubiquitous figure on the Irish jazz/improvised scene since arriving in Dublin in 2011. Whether in Chris Guilfoyle's modernist Umbra, Cote Calmet's Afro-Peruvian-inspired Phisqa, Italian guitarist Julien Colarossi's quartet or the Weather Report tribute band, Plaza Real, Engel's commitment is total, his fierce technique matched by a fearless improvisatory spirit. Engel has also embraced the world of electronica, notably in the duo Cafolla-Engel, whose DJ/improvised saxophone sets whip up the night owls. Engel, ...