Now aged 20, the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival is staging one of its most impressive line-ups in recent years. The spirit of Art Blakey, high priest of hard bop, pervades this year's festival with no fewer than five Jazz Messengers alumni - Jackie McLean, Johnny Griffin, Cedar Walton, Bobby Watson and Benny Green - appearing over the weekend.
Festival showcase events this year are at the more intimate 600-seat Everyman Palace Theatre. Tenorist Griffin's date on Saturday with the Peter King quartet (featuring British young lions Gerard Presencer, Jason Rebello and Jeremy Brown) plus string section, promises to be a treat. Hard bop legend Griffin should exhibit his considerable lyrical side in a celebration of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane.
On the same bill, Roots, a star-studded repertory septet based around reed players Arthur Blythe and Chico Freeman with pianist Kirk Lightsey, will play the music of Dizzy Gillespie and Parker. This impressive band also features superb reedsman Jerome Richardson and swinging drummer Ed Thigpen.
Sunday at the Everyman sees the impressive Irish Jazz Orchestra with trombonist and big band supremo Slide Hampton, playing Ellington, Mingus and Gillespie compositions. For guitar fans, the other line-up on Sunday of axemen Larry Coryell and Bireli Lagrene, who first appeared in Cork as a brash teen in 1985, promises to be an exceptional one. Coryell, one of jazz's most impressive modern innovators, leads a straight-ahead quartet, which includes seminal jazz-rock drummer Billy Cobham, in a re-exploration of his defining 1970 album Spaces.
Highlights at the Metropole Festival Club include the hard-driving Bobby Watson Sextet, featuring powerful trumpeter Terell Stafford, brilliant pianist Benny Green's trio, the welcome reunion of Sphere, which includes master pianist Kenny Barron and driving altoist Gary Bartz, Hammond Orgasm - the trio led by Irish keyboard sensation Justin Carroll, Irish pianist Fintan O'Neill's quintet featuring the adventurous James Spaulding on alto, Peter King's quartet plus Irish guitar virtuoso Louis Stewart, the exceptional Hammond organ playing of Joey de Francesco and, gig of gigs, Jackie McLean with the Cedar Walton Quartet. This pair's bop credentials are legendary and, with Irish guitarist David O'Rourke, plus David Williams and Kenny Washington on bass and drums, expect kick-ass jazz from this five.
At the Triskel, late nighters from the bold and innovative Dave Liebman Quartet plus a solo performance on Saturday afternoon from virtuoso pianist Oliver Jones, shouldn't be missed. And in a novel move this year, the Opera House has been given over to two dance club nights on Saturday and Sunday of top acid jazz, ambient, groove, jungle and trip hop sounds, under the G-Club Mix banner. Featured DJs include Bentley Rhythm Ace, the Ballistic Brothers and Dublin's Claire Moloney.