If only a few more investment bankers engaged in this kind of lateral thinking. Grammy award winner Alison Brown chose to forsake a burgeoning career in high finance when she could no longer resist the lure of the banjo.
She has taken that much-maligned instrument to places where bluegrass and jazz don't so much co-exist as coalesce, and her long-overdue return to Ireland was the ultimate treat for fans of either musical genre, but most of all for punters who like their music shaken, stirred and stretched until its joints ache gloriously.
Brown brings the best of ensemble playing from jazz and marries it with the keenest bluegrass sensibilities, many of them rooted in the music of players such as Doc Watson and Earl Scruggs. Her band plays it as they live it too, as though none could exist without the inhalation and exhalation of the others. Joe Craven, fiddler and mandolinist of supreme talent, joined Alison & Co here, bringing a curious mix of crazed delirium and deceptively-disciplined structure to the mix.
Brown's repertoire has been lately embellished by a fine collection of tunes from her latest CD, Stolen Moments. Tearing headlong into The Magnificent Seven (co-written with Dublin guitarist, John Doyle), she wasted no time in showing her audience how to simultaneously honour and break every rule in bluegrass music. With pianist John R Burr conjuring cinematic vistas, Brown launched headlong into such delights as My Favourite Marsha, The Pirate Queen (a tribute to Granuaile) and The Wonderful Sea Voyage (Of Holy St Brendan), which was truly Atlantean in reach and breadth.
Garry West's subtle basslines were the pivot on which Brown and her quintet circled, and with surprise guests Paul Brady and Altan's Ciaran Tourish joining for a ramble across common ground, it was obvious that Brown's appetite for creating great music hasn't waned. A great start to the musical new year. - Siobhán Long
Lir, Damien Dempsey, Republic of Loose - Vicar St, Dublin
The reunion gig is a long-standing rock 'n' roll tradition, a chance for musicians to relive the glory days in the company of their loyal fans. But how many of us get dewy-eyed over a band that never even made it big in the first place? Quite a few, it would seem, judging from the turnout at Vicar St on Sunday night for a gig by former local heroes Lir. But it wasn't just nostalgia that brought Dublin's rocknoscenti out when they should have been getting ready for work; a solid support line-up ensured that even if Lir forgot all the old songs, at least Damien Dempsey and Republic of Loose would have a few current favourites.
Republic of Loose had the job of jigging up the crowd with such dirty funk-rock anthems as Comeback Girl, You Know It and Lies. Mick Pyro must be one of the few Dubliners who can rap like he's straight outta Compton, and his six-strong musical crew have more than enough moves to get the floor hopping.
Damien Dempsey divides opinion like the Liffey divides the city; some find his gritty Dubbalin tones grating, but the crowd plainly love the Donaghmede man's homegrown folk-reggae anthems about smackheads, sinners and fallen saints. He's joined by Wayne Sheehy on percussion and Rob Malone on bass for a rabble-rousing set that confirms Dempsey's status as Man of the People.
Lir take the stage like returning conquerors, and not also-rans of 1990s rock. Malone is now playing with David Gray, while guitarist Colm Quearney is fronting his own band, Q; guitarist Ronan Byrne, singer Dave McGuinness and drummer Johnny Boyle complete the line-up, and keyboard player David Hopkins, now a solo artist, joins them for two numbers.
No one has forgotten the old songs, of course, even the ones with the odd time-signatures, but though they're delivered with energy and verve, there's no getting away from the feeling that Temple Child, In a Day, Traveller, Railroad and Halcyon Days are prog-rock relics best viewed through a rose-tinted microscope. - Kevin Courtney
