Irish Times writers review the Lynne Ariale Trio at the Coach House, Dublin Castle and Mixing it on the Mountain at the Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin
Lynne Arriale Trio
Coach House, Dublin Castle
According to a doubtless tongue-in-cheek Oscar Wilde, consistency is the infirmity of lesser minds. When the Lynne Arriale Trio opened their Music Network Irish tour , they demonstrated, yet again, that consistency is one of their virtues, and that it's not accompanied by infirmity or any evidence of diminished mental faculties.
Poised, polished and professional, they offered the kind of bop-influenced mainstream piano trio music that, in the hands of musicians as good as this, wears its age well.
It was also, as anyone who knows Arriale's music will recognise, highly melodic and suffused with concern for structured development. It's based on a repertoire of a few familiar standards, laced with some not so familiar, one or two jazz staples, some originals by the leader and even a Lennon/McCartney song, Blackbird.
The group's emotional range extended from beautifully played ballads, on which it was possible to savour the pianist's exquisite touch and sense of note placement, to almost euphoric latin pieces and uncompromisingly driven uptempo performances.
The music was also carefully and thoughtfully structured; just how much is not altogether easy to say, because the kind of empathy displayed by the leader, bassist Jay Anderson and drummer Steve Davis was breathtaking at times. And they have also developed little cues which they use individually to tip off the others about solo endings and arranged passages.
The first set was notable for the trio's impressively nuanced control of dynamics, especially on the outchoruses. Standouts included a rapturous performance of the gorgeous Estaté, a savoury exploration of the seldom played Beautiful Love, an ingratiatingly witty It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing, and a deceptively simple, heartfelt exposition of her own ballad, Arise, whose lovely harmonies sounded like they were suggested by the melody, not the other way round, as too often happens with jazz originals.
The best, however, was reserved for the second set. Thelonious Monk's Bemsha Swing had an exhilarating sense of discovery about it as they shook some seasoning of their own over this thoroughly idiosyncratic composition; and despite what they added to it, the original flavour stubbornly refused to go away - a compliment to both the piece and the trio's inventiveness and sensitivity.
But if anything caught another dimension of the group - the sheer poetry that Arriale and her colleagues are capable of - it was a moving exploration of The Nearness Of You, with one of Anderson's best solos of the night. Arriale, following on, gave a classic example of her ability to use motivic development to sustain a solo which was, in effect, a piece of storytelling with a beginning, middle and end. One to savour.
Lynne Arriale Trio tours toDrogheda, Wicklow, Portlaoise, Waterford, Cork, Galway and Limerick. www.jazzcorner.com/arriale
Ray Comiskey
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Mixing it on the Mountain
Samuel Beckett Theatre, Dublin
A spirited feat of mythological revisionism, Calypso's multicultural musical may not take itself too seriously, but its intentions are unquestionably sincere. Patrons searching for committed dramaturgy behind Benetton-bright depictions of fifth-century Ireland, pagan pageantry and genre-bending musical routines, are advised to look elsewhere. Patron saints, on the other hand, have rarely been so cheerfully accommodated.
In this lively reinterpretation of a Nigerian St Patrick's teenage years, the slave narrative takes a backseat to Maeve Ingoldsby's tales of star-crossed lovers, cross-cultural lovers and, more frequently, very cross lovers indeed.
As pagan lass Fionnula falls for Solomon Ijigade's handsome Christian against an oddly idyllic design, there are more tentative flirtations, sheepish icebreakers and smouldering jealousies than at a school disco.
The music is more liberated, thankfully, with David Boyd's slave-song compositions flitting from atmospheric (beautifully served by Lisa Lambe's Fionnuala), angular Macedonian laments, patchy hip-hop and rousing gospel. However, is that the tone can feel troublingly inconsistent.
'Mixing' is the operative word here. Comprising professional actors, school students and refugee children, the cast is strikingly integrated and characters suggestively segregated: African and Eastern European slaves toil on Slemish mountain for tattooed Celtic folk, while musical, cultural and religious references are caught in a non-stop whirl.
One consequence of not allowing the different elements to settle, however, is that the tone can feel troublingly inconsistent.
Conversely, between rich exhortations, giddy showstoppers and delicate harmonies, uniformly stereotypical characters hit only one note. Moses Mudasiru's zany get-free-quick schemes do help to set broadly comic parameters, where political potency drifts wisely below the surface.
For all the bright enthusiasm of the ensemble, the production's greatest success lies in its simplest moments. In one instance, director Bairbre Ní Chaoimh achieves a humorous physical integration, fusing together two characters of different gender, skin colour and language. Here, song and spectacle challenge fixed boundaries, integrating thought-provoking subtlety with irreverent entertainment.
Runs to Saturday
Phantom and the Opera
Civic Theatre, Tallaght
Gerry Colgan
An entertainment that aims to incorporate all the genres that have led to today's musicals had better choose the material well, and have the kind of singers who can do justice to it. The three showing their paces here are Maria Kesselman (soprano), Ian McLarnon (tenor) and Annette Yeo (alto), a classy trio backed by four musicians on piano, keyboards, guitar and drums.
They do, indeed, dip into musicals old and relatively new, with more emphasis on the latter. Old is, of course, a relative term, that here covers pieces by Lehar, Bizet, Puccini, Gilbert & Sullivan and a few others. New may be applied to Sondheim, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lloyd Webber, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon and plenty of others. Wherever the line may be drawn, the songs and the singing are delivered memorably.
The show's format is simple; everything is on stage, and the singers take it in turn to do individual numbers, and to combine in delicious harmonies.
There are more than 40 songs, and to pick favourites is near-impossible. But I did like McLarnon's Not While I'm Around, Kesselman's I Love You Porgy and anything by Yeo, and they bring matters to a rocking finale with Rhythm of Life.
It might have been possible to achieve greater coverage, as it were, of old composers, who shone here whenever they appeared. What about Victor Herbert, Sigmund Romberg, Vernon Duke, Ivor Novello, Noel Coward and their peers? An extended show, say of three hours or more, would fit a lot of these in.
But really, I'm not trying to influence their programme (although I wouldn't mind) - merely expressing my enjoyment obliquely by asking for more. Maybe if enough people followed my lead?
Runs to Saturday, then to Mullingar Sunday and Limerick Monday
Peter Crawley
