Jazz festival hit all the right notes
De La Soul enjoying a new lease of life at the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival.
From a personal view, it started as early as last Tuesday when I attended a very special Cyprus Avenue rehearsal of Brian Jackson’s one-off ‘We Almost Lost Detroit’ tribute to his musical partner Gil Scott Heron.
The show, which took place in Cork Opera House on the following evening, also featured the influential Detroit DJ and producer Theo Parrish and regular visitors to Cork, the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. They were ed by their mum, Aquilla Sadalla, and it was a very special show that spanned three or four generations of music.
I attended the whole rehearsal, which was mind blowing, and it was great watching Brian Jackson up close and personal, chopping it up with fellow musicians.
Brian spent the whole week in Cork, and he was unbelievably generous with his time, patiently attending every media obligation and speaking with everyone he met.
Musically, the guy is on another level. It was great watching him play an array of shows with a number of different musicians.
Brian Jackson is one of those massively influential music figures who is really respected by all of the music heads, and he made a lot of new friends in Cork.
His body of work and musicianship is immense, and it’s always a great relief when the person behind the music is a true gentleman too.
By Thursday, the weekend was already brewing up nicely, and I welcomed an all Cork based line-up to the Kino — which was a new addition to the official Guinness Cork Jazz Festival this year.
AbbieLee, Catherine, DeCarteret, and Projective were all incredible and showed that the South has something to say!
This was the phrase I borrowed from Outkast for a late night club gig in the same venue on Saturday.
Over the weekend, the Kino proved that music in this country is in a great place. The Washington St venue also hosted sold out shows by the likes of Cook’s but we’re Chefs and the X Collective, plus a Soft Boy Records night that featured Kean Kavanagh DJing with Kojaque after his own solo live set. The Kino was great this weekend!
Thursday also saw the opening of the stunning Blue Note 85 exhibition in St Peter’s, and the North main St venue was busy all weekend hosting a pop-up shop which sold lots of vinyl and merch.
On Friday, I checked out Qbanna and Maya Delihah in St Lukes, the Alice Coltrane celebration in the Triskel, and the Fox Gluv all girls DJ set in the Kino, before visiting a packed Cyprus Avenue for the amazing Theo Parrish.
By Sunday, I was in the mood for some of the big Cork Opera House gigs, and I was happy to have a bird’s eye stage view of some epic shows as I was on warm-up DJ duty for the evening.
First up was De La Soul and special guest Talib Kweli, and what a show this was. I’ve DJ’d at many De La Soul shows over the years, but this was probably the best one yet. Talib Kweli is a legendary MC in his own right, and he performed loads of his own tracks to a hyped up energetic crowd.
De La Soul are enjoying a new lease of life and are now free from the legal wrangles which kept their songs off digital platforms until recently. The sad death of Trugoy the Dove was a big loss, but it seems to have spurred the Pos and Maseo into a new era where the outpouring of love seems more universal than ever. This was a show to .
I snuck up to the Everyman to catch a little Seun Kuti, who delivered the goods, before returning to the Cork Opera House for a Bricknasty all-star session that saw the Dublin group welcome some of Ireland’s finest musicians to the stage. Khakikid, Curtisy, Shiv, and F3miii were the guest vocalists and all delivered amazing performances, before the Bricknasty crew themselves took it all home in style. This was another sold out show in the Cork Opera House that showed that Ireland’s finest can go toe-to-toe with anyone else, and it was a perfect way to end an amazing week of music!
