The hugely successful ESB Dublin Jazz Week had a fitting conclusion with Sunday night's concert by Finland's UMO Jazz Orchestra, which arrived bearing the reputation of being the finest big band in Europe. It lived up to it emphatically, with remarkable arrangements matched by section playing of such precision, in terms of intonation and time, that few big bands have ever mastered so completely.
This and the writing were at the core of the band's considerable virtues. The range of orchestral colour was a constant delight, all delivered with a remarkable control of nuance, dynamics and internal balance. If any single piece epitomised this, it was Popp, a gem of writing and playing performed without a rhythm section - and graced, not incidentally, by a lovely soprano solo from baritone saxist Pertti Paivinen.
If the group's overall solo strength did not match its great ensemble playing, it has fine soloists in Manuel Dunkel, Jouni Jarvela, Mikko Makinen and Paivinen from the reeds. And though none of the players in the superb brass sections was featured in the first set, they got their chance in the second, when the band was a little more unbuttoned without sacrificing precision. Trumpeter Esko Heikkinen and bass trombonist Mikael Langbacka were good on the slow blues, Hard Weekend, trumpeter Mikko Pettineni and pianist Kirmo Lintinen impressed on a kaleidoscopic What Is This, and trumpeter Tero Sarti on the lovely Tarkovski. They were preceded by guitarist Hugh Buckley's quartet, with Myles Drennan, Dave Fleming and John Wadham, in an excellent opener for the concert.
