March, 2010

Pete Robbins (NYC, USA) - alto saxophone, compositions

Mikkel Ploug (DK) - guitar

Simon Jermyn (IRL) - bass guitar

Kevin Brow (CAN/DK) - drums

Pete Robbins (age 31) moved to New York in September, 2002, and immediately became “a welcome presence on the creative music scene.”   He has since performed or recorded with John Zorn, Mark Dresser, Craig Taborn, Ben Monder, Mario Pavone, and Kenny Wollesen, and has performed at festivals and clubs in the US, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic.

Robbins’ leads “an ambitious ensemble that combines spacious avant-gardism with the melodic punch of rock” (NY Times).  His studio releases “Waits and Measures” (Playscape) and “Do The Hate Laugh Shimmy” (Fresh Sound/New Talent) were both named as top-10 jazz releases in 2006 and 2008, respectively; his fourth album as a bandleader is scheduled for release in May, 2010 on Robbins’ own Hate Laugh Music label, and a trio album with bassist Mario Pavone and drummer Tyshawn Sorey is also in the works for a 2010 release.

Robbins has been featured in New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Boston Phoenix, JazzTimes, JazzWise, Jazzman, Politikken, andNational Public Radio.  For his compositional achievements, Chamber Music America recently awarded Robbins with their prestigious “New Works: Creation and Presentation” grant, as well as their “New Works: Encore” award on behalf of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.  Robbins was also a 2009 guest panelist at the Brooklyn Arts Council.

GMF are running a summer school in Dunmore East this June.  The courses include jazz and a number of other activities such as poetry, dance and martial arts.  The music faculty includes some very well known names such as Stephen Keogh, Michael and Hugh Buckley, Gilad Atzmon, Jeremy Brown, Mick Coady and Kevin Dean.

More details here

Known for his passionate and driving approach to jazz that swings hard, 24-year-old drummer David Lyttle has been hailed as one of the most significant musicians to have emerged in Ireland in recent years.

He has performed professionally in Ireland, the US, Canada, Britain and Europe, with a wide variety of internationally acclaimed artists, including Greg Osby, David Liebman, JeanToussaint, Tommy Smith, Jaleel Shaw, Soweto Kinch, Jonathan Kreisberg and Louis Stewart. Touring with the David Lyttle Group for the second time is US trumpet great Terell Stafford, with hard-swinging original music by Lyttle and Stafford being featured. Also in the group is leading young Irish guitarist Mark McKnight, and the prominent Dublin residing Australian bassist Damian Evans.

New York trumpet ace Terell Stafford has been hailed as “one of the great players of our time” by piano legend McCoy Tyner. Known for being a gifted and versatile player with a voice all his own, Stafford combines lyricism and a deep love of melody with a spirited, adventurous edge. This uniquely expressive, well-defined musical talent allows Stafford the ability to dance in and around the rich trumpet tradition of his predecessors while making his own inroads.

Stafford has worked in the groups of McCoy Tyner, Bobby Watson, Benny Golson, Jon Faddis, Cedar Walton, Frank Wess, Jimmy Heath, Kenny Barron, Wycliffe Gordon and Matt Wilson. He has also performed with the Mingus Big Band, Wynton Marsalis’ Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and is currently a member of the Grammy-nominated Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, the Clayton Brothers Quintet and Trumpet Summit, with Randy Brecker and Jon Faddis. Stafford appears on over forty albums as a sideman, including Diana Krall’s Grammy-nominated ‘From This Moment On’ (2006), and has released four albums as a leader, featuring musicians of the calibre of Mulgrew Miller, Steve Wilson, Dick Oatts and Derrick Hodge.

The press on David Lyttle:

“…notably assured technique, greased lightning reflexes and an unfailing sense of swing…a prolific composer too.” Jazzwise (UK)

“…a drummer of real talent.” - All About Jazz (USA)

“… such discretion and awareness…with a tonal sense that’s as refreshing as it is creative.” - The Herald (UK)

“…one of the busiest musicians on the island.” - The Sunday Tribune

“…a rapidly maturing talent, who is already highly accomplished both as a musician and as a composer.” - The Irish News

“…one of the most significant and interesting figures on the Belfast music scene…” - Hot Press

Niwel Tsumbu is a native of The Democratic Republic of Congo(ex Zaire) and has been playing music in Cork for the last 6 years.

His love for the guitar began to bloom at the age of 16 when he began to play the music of his homeland~Soukous and Rhumba.

He worked hard at nurturing his talent and soon ran into Crispin Ngoy: a very talented musician who passionately taught Niwel jazz. This became his way of discovering many other types of music.

Niwel moved to Ireland in 2004 where he quickly made friends with the Irish music scene. He began playing with many local bands and formed the groups Sumu, Jazzmu and Motema.

With influences from far and wide, his elegant and fluent guitar playing draws from Niwel’s past excursions with African rhythms, Rumba, Jazz, Classical, Flamenco and much more besides.  Playing electric & acoustic guitars & singing mostly in his native ’Lingala’, Niwel plays a range of music that stretches from contemporary versions of Congolese traditional music from the 1930s & 40s to modern Jazz. Niwel’s love of the Spanish style of guitar playing beautifully exposes Rumba’s Latin roots.

He has played on many stages- from diversity, cultural awareness and charity gigs- to both the Cork and Bray Jazz Festivals, the Festival of World Cultures in Dun Laoghaire 2005, and the Spiegeltent for the last two years in Cork.

Niwel has supported the likes of Kila, The Wailers, Horace Andy from Massive Attack, and Cameroon virtuoso bass player Richard Bona as part of the Bulmers World Music Festival in Cork.

Over the last 50 years Central Africa has built itself an incredible reputation for giving birth to many of the World’s greatest guitarists, and Congolese Niwel Tsumbu is a fitting ambassador to carry that torch forward into the 21st Century with his new album ’Song of The Nation’

Antidotes to the recession don’t come much more potent than this. Niwel Tsumbu’s indomitable, infectious spirit invaded the intimate confines of Whelan’s before his first song had evaporated. Tsumbu takes his audience on a journey of discovery that traverses the peaks and troughs of life’s unpredictable terrain with startling precision. He gives full rein to a sweep of syncopated rhythms that have many punters grasping and gasping to keep up.”

-Irish Times, March 2009

Tsumbu’s guitar playing is nothing short of exceptional and the wall of sound that hits you once you press play is infectious.  If you’re one of the many unfortunate ones who can’t afford a holiday this year, pick up Song of the Nations and experience the world from the comfort of your armchair”

-Hot Press, April 2009    -Irish Times, March 2009

“There’s something about Tsumbu’s native language, Lingala that has infused the Congolese guitarist and singer with a spellbinding fluency….Tsumbu’s confident juxtaposition of clarinet and guitar, insistent percussion and declamatory vocals trace a path that’s all his own…tribal rhythms and transcendent male harmonies declare Tsumbu’s intention to carve a niche nobody else has even dreamt of.

-Irish Times, April 2009

Julian Arguelles – Saxophones
Ronan Guilfoyle – Acoustic Bass Guitar
Jim Black – Drums

An international trio, featuring three of the leading contemporary jazz musicians of their respective countries -  British saxophonist Julian Arguelles, the Irish bassist Ronan Guilfoyle, and the American drummer Jim Black – will undertake a tour of the UK and Ireland in March 2010.

The saxophone trio has a long and important history in jazz and some of the most highly regarded live recordings in jazz have featured this format. Arguelles/Guilfoyle/Black continue this tradition while at the same time reflecting the vibrancy of contemporary jazz. An international trio, featuring three of the leading contemporary jazz musicians of their generation and respective countries -  British saxophonist Julian Arguelles, the Irish
bassist Ronan Guilfoyle, and the American drummer Jim Black – their new recording ‘Live in Dublin’ captures the excitement and ‘in the moment’ feel of live saxophone trio playing, and gives a taste of what is to come in their concert performances.

Playing a programme mixing original compositions and standards, the trio’s music features a free-wheeling spontaneity and powerful rhythmic drive, with each member of the trio showing an almost telepathic response to the playing of the others -  the music unfolds  seamlessly with a great sense of swing and much rhythmic intrigue.

‘This is a fun-filled gem through and through’

Downtown Music Gallery, New York  - reviewing ‘Live in Dublin (Auand 9009)

“It was intense, exhilarating and a credit to all concerned, with Black in particular little short of astonishing in his range of invention. If jazz is the sound of surprises, this was full of them”.

Irish Times

“Julian Arguelles, Ronan Guilfoyle and Jim Black produced a concert of enthralling and frequently breathtaking music. Black in particular was mesmerising, throwing spanner after spanner into the works from a seemingly limitless toolkit of ideas.”

Sunday Tribune