The Cork Film Festival may have just ended, but the festival season continues unabated on Leeside as jazz fever begins to take hold of our city, in what is, without question, the busiest weekend in Cork’s bank-holiday calendar.  

The festival has, over the course of its 29 year history, attained a special place in the hearts and minds of jazz aficionados the world over, and has come to be regarded as one of the best festivals of its kind, regularly attracting some of the most renowned talent, both old and new to perform each year, in addition to  some 40,000 avid music fans who make the trek in search of visceral musical thrills over four busy days.

Proof of it’s stature among the jazz elite can be seen in some of the enduring acts who have performed down through the years, many of whom embody all that is great about this timeless form of music: Ella Fitzgerald, Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Buddy Rich, Mel Torme, Sonny Rollins, John McLaughlin and Chick Corea to name but a few have threaded the boards right here on our doorstep.

Jazz is its many guises has continued to influence innumerable artists down through the years, even when it the more ‘purer forms’ haven’t always reached the same level of popularity and visibility among the mainstream conscious – but it’s always been there, evolving in new directions, seeking alternative avenues, exploring the possibilities and pushing its own boundaries and the boundaries of music around it.

From the more extreme sounds of free-jazz space rock of Japans Boredoms, the complex, jazz-funk-IDM of Squarepusher, the jazz-tinged post-rock of Tortoise and the jazz-savy hip-hop of De La Soul, to the more visible pop-jazz of Norah Jones, Jamie Cullum and Amy Winehouse, this music has showed remarkable durability and flexibility since originating at the dawn of the 20th century. And with a host of new artists pushing it forward in new directions, dividing purists as to their legitimacy, and, in doing so, drawing new, younger audiences outside the usual spectrum, it shows little sign of halting it’s never-ending progress.

This years line-up for the Guinness Jazz Festival, as ever, attempts to bring the disparate sounds together, with a cross-section of old and new. American artists Gary Burton, Phil Woods, Chico Freeman, Don Byron, Mose Allison, Bobby Watson and Amp Fiddler will join Brazil’s brilliant Eliane Elias, France’s Richard Galliano, Sweden’s crossover successes EST, the Miroslav Vitous Quartet from the Czech Republic and the legendary Blind Boys of Alabama gospel group.