In the course of their musical partnership, David Friedman and Peter Weniger have developed a kind of intuitive and interactive sense and a love for spontaneous music making. As a result they decided to go into the studio without any preparation or pre-conceived concepts. They used compositions drawn from the great american songbook as a kind of loose framework and turned these pieces into “on the spot”, intimate musical landscapes.

The results of this informal recording turned out to be so compelling, that they decided to release this material as a CD, entitled “Rétro”.

The press response has been nothing short of astounding. “Music of incredible depth and beauty”, said “Jazz Podium. “The best jazz release of 2010!” praised “Jazz Thing”. Rétro has already been nominated for a German Grammy.

Live, this duo is nothing short of spellbinding. Their combined sound has an orchestral quality, way beyond the seeming reality of only two musicians playing together. Their highest priority is, simply, the moment.

Born in Dublin, vocalist Bob Whelan has been in various musical groups since the age of 15. In the 80’s he formed a group called Jazzology which played a number of residencies in Dublin, and also appeared several times at the Cork Jazz Festival. Bob has worked with all the major names on the Irish jazz scene: Louis Stewart, Jim Doherty, Michael Neilsen, Richie Buckley, John Wadham, Noel Kelehan, Myles Drennan, Dave Fleming to name but a few. In 1986 he featured in a tribute to Duke Ellington alongside American stars Pepper Adams, Bobby Shew, Sonny Fortune and a 50 piece orchestra which was broadcast live from the National Concert Hall. Bob has also performed a number of times in the green room in the N.C.H. including a concert featuring the music of Thelonious Monk with lyrics added, many of them written by Whelan himself.

Bob Whelan has broadcast on RTE Radio, East Coast radio and Anna Livia FM, and has appeared twice on RTE’s Late Late Show. Outside this country, he has performed in Portugal, France and England. He is currently working with guitarist Hugh Buckley and bassist Martin Curry and performing regularly around Dublin. In 2001 he sang with U.K. bassist Peter Ind and the Louis Stewart trio at the Davis Gallery jazz week in Dublin. Bob Whelan’s repertoire includes the standards from the great American songbook, the music of Brazilian composer Antonio Carlos Jobim, the jazz classics of Monk, Parker et al, plus an increasing number of original songs.

At 70 yrs young Bob still performs regularly in Dublin and we are delighted at Limerick Jazz to welcome him to perform with the Limerick Jazz Quartet.

Pete Robbins moved to New York in September, 2002, and immediately became “a welcome presence on the creative music scene.” He has since performed and/or recorded with Vijay Iyer, John Hollenbeck, John Zorn, Craig Taborn, Mario Pavone, Tyshawn Sorey, Ben Monder, Dan Weiss, Thomas Morgan, Melvin Sparks, and Kenny Wollesen, and has performed at festivals and clubs in the US and throughout Europe. Robbins’s releases “Waits and Measures” (2006, Playscape), “Do The Hate Laugh Shimmy” (2008, Fresh Sound/New Talent), and “siLENT Z - live” (2010, Hate Laugh Music) were all named as top-10 jazz releases by international media outlets.

Pete’s quartet comprises guitarist Mikkel Ploug from Denmark and Ireland’s Simon Jermyn and Sean Carpio on bass and drums.

Robbins has been featured in Downbeat, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, JazzTimes, JazzWise, Jazzman, Politikken, National Public Radio, and DRS-2 (Swiss public radio). For his compositional achievements, Chamber Music America awarded Robbins with their prestigious “New Works: Creation and Presentation” grant as well as their “New Works: Encore” award. Robbins was also a recently guest panelist with the Brooklyn Arts Council. Robbins’s music is an entertaining and sophisticated mix of jazz and rock that utilizes indepth harmony, odd meters, and catchy grooves.

“Mr. Robbins, an industrious and venturesome alto saxophonist and clarinetist, leads…an ambitious ensemble that combines spacious avant-gardism with the melodic punch of rock…[He has] a cool tone and a thoughtfully off kilter sensibility.…[C]omplex but welcoming… Mr. Robbins plays with coolness as well as confidence. …[H]is compositions seem to breathe according to some collective whim.” (Nate Chinen, New York Times)

“No doubt, Robbins’ third solo outing looms as a logical progression of his spiraling notoriety within global jazz circles….A compelling and irrefutably, entertaining effort…Robbins should win over a horde of admirers with this outing, which conveys asymmetrical parts chops, gusto, funk, fusion and a clear-sighted view of the jazz canon. … Simply stated, Robbins is a style master who sets himself apart from many of his peers. ” (Glen Astarita, AllAboutJazz.com / JazzReview.com)

“As a horn player, Robbins has liquid timbre that can remind just how pretty modern jazz can be.” (Jim Macnie - The Village Voice, The Providence Phoenix)

“Consistently creative and completely satisfying is the new live CD from saxophonist Pete Robbins fabulous band, siLENT Z. They are simply one of the finest working bands in jazz right now, on par with the groups of Dave Holland, Henry Threadgill, Steve Lehman and William Parker. And like those bands, they don’t just play superbly, but play superb, creative music.” (Big City blog)

Jazz singer Emilie Conway launches her debut album “The Secret of a Rose” with an evening of music to celebrate spring as a season of hope, change and new love with jazz standards You Must Believe in Spring, Joy Spring, Aguas de Marco, It Might As Well Be Spring,, But Beautiful, So In Love and many more..

Emilie: “The repertoire for this concert and album developed out of my personal response to the climate of negativity in our country over the past few years. Life has taught me that there is always hope and there is beauty, that this is a beautiful life we have here - where there are dark shadows, there is also light. For me, these songs are about affirmation and acceptance. Well just as it says in You Must Believe in Spring

“Beneath the deepest snows, the secret of a rose, Is merely that it knows, you must believe in spring!”

The evening features the talents of Emilie’s in-demand support musicians: Cian Boylan (piano), Dave Fleming (double bass) and Dominic Mullan (drums) who are among Ireland’s leading musicians, sought after north and south. The Emilie Conway Quartet has been working together for the past six years so that there is a very close musical understanding.

Born in Dublin, Emilie has won scholarships to Berklee College of Music, Boston, The Vermont Jazz Centre, and Souza Lima, Brazil, She has studied with Sheila Jordan, Jay Clayton in the US, Fionna Duncan UK and Dorothy Murphy here in Dublin. Her influences are Billie Holiday, Elis Regina, Edith Piaf, Abbey Lincoln, Kurt Elling and Joni Mitchell but also include Prokofiev, Satie, Chopin, Ravel, and Mahler. As a singer, Emilie’s strength and uniqueness lie in her simple and sensitive interpretation of the music.

Strong ties with jazz musicians and audiences outside of Ireland see Emilie a welcome guest vocalist in Vermont, Boston, Chicago and throughout Europe. In 2010 she was invited to perform at The Copenhagen Jazz Festival and at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. At home “Emilie Sings Billie”, a Tribute to Billie Holiday, won an Arts Council award and was presented at the Linenhall Arts Centre, the Galway Jazz Club and Bewley’s Café Theatre. Not afraid to take risks, Emilie has made interesting choices in interpreting and bringing the music of less obvious artists, Elis Regina and Abbey Lincoln to Irish audiences with “Emilie Sings Abbey” and “Emilie Sings Elis” which won festival invitations to The Ranelagh Arts Festival, and The Flatlake’s Festival. ”Emilie Sings Elis” has been particularly well received by Ireland’s Brazilian community. .She has made several radio appearances on the Arena Arts show on RTE 1 radio, last October as part of RTE’s Big Music week. The Emilie Conway Quartet perform regularly at their musical home: Bewley’s Café Theatre, Grafton St, Dublin.

Certainly England’s and arguably Europe’s finest jazz singer, Norma Winstone has saved the very best work of a four-decade career until now. Recent recordings for ECM have drawn forth something special and here she reunites with guitarist Tommy Halferty, a perfect foil for her lissome voice and forthright delivery. It’s a style all the more affecting for its absence of histrionics and melodrama, attesting to the power of time, experience and musical refinement.The pair worked together successfully in the early 1990’s, but the occasions when they have shared a stage since then have been rare - but much talked of events in jazz circles. Norma Winstone was born in London and first attracted attention in the late sixties when she shared the bill at Ronnie Scott’s club with Roland Kirk. In 1971 she was voted top singer in the Melody Maker Jazz Poll, and over the years she has played and recorded with many of the great jazz legends. Norma Winstone continues to be at the forefront of British jazz - being nominated again in the 2007 BBC Jazz Awards for best vocalist, as well as being awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List in the same year.

Tommy Halferty is from Derry, and one of that city’s proudest musical exports. Since the late 70s, he’s been an irrepressible voice, always lyrical and animated, and a generous mentor to a new generation of guitarists.

With a brace of cds together, drummer Kevin Brady here reconvenes his acclaimed trio with Dublin bassist David Redmond and Michigan pianist Bill Carrothers. One of the most lyrical and individual voices in jazz today, Carrothers is a pianist who stands apart from the crowd, and his impressive back catalogue includes the elegiac Armistice and Civil War Diaries, CDs that stand as powerful statements on the human dimension in all conflicts. Distilled over many nights as rhythm section of choice for Dublin’s leading pianists, Brady and Redmond play with all the nuance and dynamics that the idiom demands, alive to the invention and sophistication of one of the finest pianists in the US today.

Dr Louis Stewart, the recipient of an honorary doctorate from Trinity College Dublin, began his international career in 1968 when he was awarded the special jury prize at The Montreaux International Jazz Festival. Shortly thereafter he began working with Benny Goodman, an association that lasted three years, and gave way to an extended and prominent period with the late, great, English saxophonist/flautist Tubby Hayes.

As a member of Ronnie Scott’s quartet and quintet for several years, Louis began recording as leader in the mid-’70s, making albums with Sam Jones and Billy Higgins, with Peter Ind, and later, with Red Mitchell, saxophonist Spike Robinson, pianist Bill Charlap, and now, more recently again, a new CD, recorded in Venice with alto great Peter King (”Angel Eyes”).

On the occasion of his very welcome return to Limerick Louis is supported by Len McCarthy on saxophone, Peter Hanagan on bass and John Daly on drums.

In the 70s Louis began his lengthy association with George Shearing (with whom he has toured America, Brazil and all of Europe; and recorded eight albums - several in trio with Danish bass master Niels-Henning Orsted-Pedersen, and in quintet with vibist Steve Nelson and drummer Dennis Mackrel). He began working with Canadian genius-orchestrator and arranger, Robert Farnon in 1976, and at least ten albums resulted: with singers Joe Williams and Eileen Farrell, with Shearing and with trombone legend J.J. Johnson, on all of which he is a prominently featured soloist.

In 1994, as a member of the Shearing trio, Louis featured for a week opposite Tommy Flanagan’s trio in The Blue Note, New York. This led to an association - still active - with Peter Washington and Lewis Nash which has included a week-long engagement, as leader, at the legendary Village Vanguard, NYC (with the masterful Richard Wyands in the piano chair, and, for that particular week, Kenny Washington, drums, substituting for Lewis Nash).

Continuing to make Dublin his home, Louis performs regularly in Germany and Norway, where, in the national theatre, Oslo, his James Joyce/Ulysses inspired concert piece “JoyceNotes” has been produced to acclaim.

Pat Martino: “It’s a pleasure to even be reminded of Louis Stewart. I met Louis the first time I performed in Ireland. He’s not only a formidable artist, but also one of the warmest people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, with no exception. As a true jazz-guitarist he’s played an important role in the instruments evolution, especially in Europe. And as far as his playing being under-appreciated, it’s only due to his performance not being as available as some of us would like it to be here in the ‘States.” If by any chance Louis comes across this conversation let me add this: “Louis, I send you all my love, and really look forward to seeing you again, hopefully sometime soon!. Until then, ….. CHEERS!”

• February 22 Louis Stewart Quartet
• March 8 Norma Winstone and Tommy Halferty / Kevin Brady Trio featuring Bill Carrothers
• March 21 Emilie Conway
• April 4 Pete Robbins Quartet
• April 25 Bob Whelan with Limerick Jazz Quartet
• May 2 Duo Elegance (David Friedman and Peter Weniger)
• May 9 Limerick Jazz Workshop

Joe is mainly self-taught, although he has attended various classes over the years with Tommy Halferty and Ronan Guilfoyle. Joe has played with most leading Irish jazz musicians including Tommy Halferty, Louis Stewart, Ronan Guilfoyle, Richie Buckley, Michael Buckley and Justin Carroll.

He has also played with international musicians such as Julian Arguelles, Vincent Courtois, Dave Liebman, Tom Rainey, Martin Speake, Tanya Kalmanovitch, Paul Williamson, Nils Wogram and Dominique Pifalry. Joe is currently a member of the groups Metier, Fuzzy Logic Ensemble and Microclimate.

John Daly

John studied at Berklee College of Music Boston in 1979. He teaches and plays drums professionally in Limerick as well as touring when the need arises. He also studies vibes with Tony Miceli from Philadelphia.

John is chair of Limerick Jazz Society and a long-standing member of the society’s House Trio. The trio provides backing for leading Irish and international artists visiting Limerick. These have recently included Hugh Buckley, Michael Buckley, Myles Drennan, Linley Hamilton, Derek O’Connor, Guy Barker and Tony Miceli.

Steve Hanks

Steve is originally from Yorkshire and studied at Leeds College of Music. His main instruments are saxophone, flute and percussion.He moved to Ireland to further his interest in Irish traditional music and is based in Co. Galway. His recent jazz activities include leading the Steve Hanks Quintet which recorded for Lyric FM, and a spell as music director for the Black Magic Big Band.

Peter Hanagan

Bass player Peter Hanagan has over twenty five years experience with the ‘lowest form of music.’  He is an alumnus of the renowned UNT Jazz Studies program, and since 1999 has worked exclusively as a freelance bass guitar and double bass player, as well as a music educator.

Peter is a native of the American Southwest, but has made ….Ireland…. his home since 2001. He is a veteran of a myriad of diverse genres: East Texas blues to West African percussion music, ..Caribbean.. folk to Twentieth-century art music.

Dorota Konczewska

Dorota Konczewska is a Polish composer, jazz singer and multimedia artist living in Ireland. She comes from a background in visual arts and holds an MA in Music Technology from the University of Limerick. Her recent work includes video art, mixed media installations and cross-audiovisual genre projects. Dorota just finished recording her first jazz album with an international band in Perugia, Italy, called “Nina project” a tribute to Nina Simone. The album is expected to be presented in Ireland early next year. The ‘Nina Project’ first derived from a concert she did in Dolans last year for Limerick Jazz Society which packed the house.

Steve McFarlane

Guitar player Steve McFarlane was one of the first students to graduate from Newpark Music Centre’s jazz degree programme. He subsequently completed an H. Dip in Music Education at the University of Limerick.  He now works as music teacher at Coláiste Chiaráin, Croom, Co. Limerick. He has played professionally in Ireland in a number of musical settings ranging from jazz to popular music, and has taught at both senior and junior LJW sessions.

Jazz education has been going for over 40 years and it works.  I’ve uploaded some very useful videos to the LJW myspace page that show the well-known jazz teacher JB Dyas of the Thelonious Monk Institute giving a seminar on Teaching Jazz Fundamentals To High School And College Musicians.  There are 10 videos which take around 90 minutes to view in their entirety and some include a supervised performance by a group of students:

1.  Jazz History
2.  Syncopation

3.  Jazz Instruments and Sounds

4.  Improvisation

5.  Rhythm
6.  Form

7.  Song Structure
8.  Tune Learning - The Definitive Version

9.  Getting Inside the Head
10.Improvising Based On the Head

I found the videos at www.artistshousemusic.org. This is a great site that also has videos of masterclasses by Kenny Werner (pianist and author of Effortless Mastery), Benny Golson (saxophone), Hank Jones (piano), Jesse McBride (piano), Larry Baione (guitar), Kirk Whalum (saxophone) and Jimmy and Percy Heath (saxophone, bass).

SOFTWARE

It can be a bit confusing working out what software can best support jazz education, so here are some personal views based on experience.

You will need a recording program or Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) and this costs nothing.  If you have a Mac you will have Garage Band for free.  If you have a PC you can download Audacity at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/.  There are obviously much sexier products for both machines but these are not really necessary for practicing.  Using either of these programs you can record yourself playing along with either a backing track from the likes of a Jamey Aebersold CD, or you can use an original version if you feel like it.  There’s nothing like hearing yourself as you really sound although it can be a bit of a shock at first!

Next up is transcribing.  Transcribing is the academic term for copying material from records, and it’s relevant whether you want to be John Coltrane or Keith Richards.  The Amazing Slowdowner from http://www.ronimusic.com/ costs about $50 plus VAT and allows you to change the pitch and/or tempo of an audio file with very little loss of sound quality, and to loop particular sections.  This will make trancsribing solos as painless as is realistically possible, and transcribing is a vital tool in ear training and the development of jazz vocabulary.  There is an alternative program called Transcribe! which is also very popular and a bit cheaper can be found at http://www.seventhstring.com/.  A sign of the times is that a new iPhone app called Robick has just come out, offering the same functionality for €2.99!  I’ve just bought it and it seems to work fine, although I haven’t mastered looping yet.

In previous versions of this post I didn’t discuss notation software, because the products (Finale, Sibelius) were expensive and there was similar functionality in Band In A Box (see below).  However, there is a new free product called MuseScore at http://musescore.org/ which seems to be worth checking out.  I’ve just started using it; the good news is that entering notes is very intuitive and easy, but I’m still not sure how it works for transposing lead sheets - if this can be done it’s a great option.  If you are still wondering why you might want to use notation software as A you don’t write music and/or B you are not a singer who needs to produce tailored parts in concert and other pitches, it is very useful as part of transcription.  This is because if you enter the solo you are working on into the program instead of writing it down on paper the program will play it back, which can really help resolve any worries about whether you have got the transcription correct.

Last but not least is Band In A Box from http://www.pgmusic.com/, which costs $129 for the basic version.  BIAB allows you to create your own backing tracks very easily, and to record yourself playing along with them.  If you don’t like the idea of all that inputting you can download a huge number of well known tunes in BIAB file format for free at http://phillipsmusic.net/realbook.htm.  You can change key and tempo with a mouse click.  BIAB is particularly handy for singers who need to produce charts in a key that suits them if it’s not the regular key for instrumental versions.  Once again there is an iPhone app worth considering as an alternative called iRealB (details at http://irealb.com/).  It does not have nearly as many features as BIAB (see below) but it does the basic accompanying function and has hundreds of songs and costs only €15.99.

As well as backing tracks BIAB has some other very useful features such as ear training drills and a function that can supposedly work out the chords of a song from an audio file (only tried it once and wasn’t too impressed, but that’ll be some cheat when it eventually works!).  Just one warning - if you have a choice of BIAB for Mac or Windows the Mac version has significantly FEWER features although PG Music say this will be rectified fairly soon.

So there you are.  Really meaningful support for your jazz studies for less than euro 140!

BOOKS

This could obviously be a very long section so I’ll limit its scope to books of a general nature plus one piano book, seeing as how we’re all meant to play a bit of piano.  I can vouch for all of these from experience and they are all recommended by some of the educators I’ve studied with.  I’ve put links to Amazon below the titles so you can find out more but you might want to use Ireland’s own http://www.paulryanmusic.com/ if you buy.

Improvisation

How To Improvise and Ready, Aim, Improvise by Hal Crook.
http://www.amazon.com/How-Improvise-Hal-Crook/dp/B000M1ADP4/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Theory

The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine
http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Theory-Book-Mark-Levine/dp/1883217040/ref=pd_sim_b_3

Mental Approach (this matters!)

Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner
http://www.amazon.com/Effortless-Mastery-Liberating-Master-Musician/dp/156224003X/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Play-Improvisation-Life-Art/dp/0874776317/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Piano

Jazz Piano From Scratch by Charles Beale
http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Piano-Scratch-How-Students/dp/0634033115/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243554220&sr=1-10
This author wanted to fill a gap in the market for beginner jazz pianists and did it.  It’s also the course book for the ABRSM jazz piano exams.

WEBSITES

http://www.jazzimprov.com/ is the website of the magazine of the same name and the article archive is really worth a look.

http://www.allaboutjazz.com/ will shortly hit 8,000 articles in its archive and is a more general jazz website.

http://www.jazzinamerica.org is designed as a resource for seconadary school education and is run by JB Dyas (see Jazz Education Videos blog).

http://www.aebersold.com is the site for the doyen of jazz play-along recordings and has a reasonable amount of free material

GRADED JAZZ EXAMS

ABRSM provides Grade 1 to 5 examinations in jazz piano and most wind and brass instruments.  They also provide ensemble examinations at beginner, intermediate and advanced levels.

London College of Music provides Grade 1 to 8 examinations in jazz piano and most wind and brass instruments.  They also provide Grade 1 to 8 examinations in electric guitar, bass and drums – these are not specifically jazz exams but cover a lot of relevant subjects such as harmony and improvisation.

LJW is happy to put interested students in contact with teachers who can prepare them for these examinations.

JAZZ DEGREES

There is full jazz performance degree course at Newpark Music Centre in Blackrock, Dublin (www.newparkmusic.com), and numerous similar courses in the UK and elsewhere.

www.jazzservices.org.uk provides a useful course search facility.