SATURDAY 18 APRIL, HAWKS WELL THEATRE 8pm – EBB & FLOW – A musical voyage through lands and seas, €22

“Ebb & Flow” is a travelling musical show presented on the format of a small festival that will help audiences experience the rich musical heritage of different cultures from both sides of the Atlantic. With three acts and a total of eight musicians on stage, “Ebb & Flow” is a powerful 2 ½ hours show of music from the Appalachians to the Andes, from Portugal to Finland and from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean, a blend of traditional tunes and original material.

Sarah McQuaid

Sarah McQuaid has two CDs, ‘When Two Lovers Meet’ and ‘I Won’t Go Home ’Til Morning’. Her music is sublime and compelling, characterised by warm, velvety vocals and a distinctive acoustic guitar style. www.sarahmcquaid.com

The Unwanted have just released their first album, in February 2009, but their experience as solo artists as well as their work with other bands is broadly recognized. Rick Epping, Seamie O’Dowd and Cathy Jordan are broadly regarded as three of Ireland’s premiere folk musicians and have all performed at major festival events worldwide for many years now.

NoCrows

Finally, the talents of Steve Wickham, Anna Houston, Eddie Lee and Felip Carbonell have shined in NoCrows’ two acclaimed albums ‘Live at the Strand’ and ‘Magpie’. Their energy and their vast repertoire give them a magnetic touch on stage, which has seen them attract bookings from some of Europe’s top festivals including Dranouter on Sea in Belgium, where they will share a stage with Orquestra Buena Vista later this month. www.nocrows.net for audio: www.myspace.com/nocrows

Eddie Lee announced here the launch of The Penthouse Jazz Club during the St. Patrick’s Jazz Fest in Sligo. Below is the poster. Everyone is invited. The full Festival Programme is listed here. See you there.

The Penthouse Jazz Club

It’s a ST. PATRICK’S JAZZ FEST!

At Tobergal Lane Café, 14-17 MARCH 2009

Featuring:

• The Gay McIntyre Quartet
• The Odd Couple
  & special guests:
• Phil Ware
• Sinead Conway

PADDYJAZZFEST

Sligo Jazz Project and Tobergal Lane Café have teamed up to present a St Patrick’s weekend entertainment line-up with a difference. This year some of Ireland’s finest jazz musicians will perform at the venue over 4 days between March 14 and 17. The line-up includes Irish saxophone legend Gay McIntyre, his pianist son Paul and Phil Ware, another of Ireland’s premiere jazz pianists, who visits to perform with Sligo’s own trio The Odd Couple. As the Odd Couple’s pianist Kieran Quinn takes a well earned sabbatical in the Antipodes, his group, rather than go into hibernation, have enlisted the services of one of the country’s finest pianists to step into his shoes and look forward to a new and intriguing mix of TV Themes and original arrangements of pop classics, as well as fine renditions of some jazz standards.

Add to this mix the dulcet tones of Sligo’s most versatile singer Sinead Conway and its certain, Sligo is in for a musical treat this Patrick’s weekend.

PaddyJazzFest Schedule:

Saturday 14 March, 9.30pm till late:
Launch of Penthouse Jazz Club
upstairs @ Tobergal Lane Café
Featuring The Odd Couple – Eddie Lee, double bass, Ken McDonald drums and special guests Phil Ware, piano, Sinead Conway, vocals.

Sunday 15 March, Jazz Brunch 2pm-5pm Adm. FREE:
Jazz Brunch with The Odd Couple, Phil Ware, piano and Sinead Conway

Monday 16 March 9pm:
Gay McIntyre Quartet: Gay McIntyre, saxophone, clarinet, flute, Paul McIntyre, piano, Eddie Lee, double bass, Ken McDonald, drums

Tuesday 17 March,
St Patricks Day Jazz Buffet Brunch 2pm
Adm €15 (children under 12 €5)
Gay McIntyre Quartet: Gay McIntyre, saxophone, clarinet, flute, Paul McIntyre, piano, Eddie Lee, double bass, Ken McDonald, drums
Booking is advisable for this Buffet Brunch as places are limited.

The Gay McIntyre Quartet

GAY MCINTYRE is nothing less than an Irish jazz saxophone legend. He has performed with many international jazz greats over a career spanning no less than six decades. His formative period was during the height of the jazz era and his precocious talent was spotted by Nat King Cole during a concert in Belfast. Story has it that Gay was asked to join Cole’s big band but declined the job as the then young McIntyre was nervous of flying following the death of a close friend in a plane crash.

Gay was there at the birth of the showband era, during which he performed with several bands from the age of 15 and in the process he became a well known Irish showbiz personality. As he matured, his first love, jazz, became his main musical outlet and he has been performing ever since with the cream of Irish and international jazz musicians.

Gay has retained a great connection with Sligo, first with the jazz lads and more recently with the new crop of Sligo jazz musicians, two of whom, Eddie Lee and Ken McDonald, will provide the rhythm section for his Sligo dates. The quartet is completed by Gay’s son Paul McIntyre, who, on piano, is showing the same precocious talent as his father did (and still does) on saxophone. Paul has continued in his father’s musical footsteps and has carved out a very successful career. He has performed at numerous jazz festivals nationally and internationally, and is a regular at both the Cork and Derry annual jazz festivals. His trio has featured on live BBC radio programmes on many occasions, and he has accompanied world-renowned jazz singers and instrumentalists such as Jacqui Dankworth, Norma Winstone, Gay McIntyre, Louis Stewart and Michael Nielsen.

The Odd Couple

The Odd Couple began plying their hideous trade in 2007 with the aim of becoming LOUNGE LEGENDS before they became too old to play, and perhaps during that time too. Consisting of an unlikely of Connacht GAA Champion Kieran Quinn, Maximus to his friends, on piano, Ken McDonald (AKA Dr Tonto Rodriguez) on drums and bass ace Eddie Lee (Beadly Nedrick in Odd Couple terminology), The Odd Couple has matured into a no-respect, no-shame, no-compromise, no-nonsense nonsemble which holds nothing sacred whilst seeing almost every piece of music, from “Rehab” to “Bohemian Rhapsody” in a divine light… are we clear? While Maximus takes a well-earned sabbatical in the antipodes, (March and April 2009), in steps none other than one of Ireland’s premiere jazz pianists, Phil Ware, to take his place.

Phil Ware

Born in London but raised in the wilds of Lincolnshire in England, Phil started learning classical piano at the less-than-tender age of 12, and developed a passion for boogie-woogie shortly afterwards. Following a disastrous spell at film school, his jazz epiphany occurred in his early twenties, after seeing a documentary on saxophonist John Coltrane.

Initially inspired by such pianists as Wynton Kelly and Bobby Timmons, he began to teach himself the style through trial and (mostly) error. Within a few years, he was playing alongside British luminaries like Bobby Wellins, Tina May and Jim Mullen, and was twice a finalist in the Young Jazz Musician of the Year.

Phil uprooted himself in 2000 to continue his career in Ireland, one of the few sensible things he has done in his life. Apart from working in groups led by major Irish jazz musicians, he has found himself in such musically diverse situations as the Brazilian-informed Tudo Bem, Zrazy, the Night In Havana Orchestra, and has acted as accompanist and musical director for vocalists Honor Heffernan, Cormac Kenevey, and Maria Tecce.

In addition to gigging, making radio and television appearances, producing, and playing on numerous albums, he also teaches extensively. Along with Ronan and Conor Guilfoyle, he is a coordinator for Newpark Music Centre’s prestigious BA in Jazz Performance, a degree course that has the honour of being the first of its kind in Ireland. Luckily, he is able to get away from it all at his home on a secluded leafy lane in Dublin, for which he is very grateful.

Sinead Conway

If six degrees of separation was to come into play here, then Sligo’s little jazz scene is just one degree away from Simon Cowell. We have talented songstress Sinead Conway to thank for this strange phenomenon, since her shared X-Factor experience with her sisters, when they collectively reached the X-Factor finals a few years back. Sinead continues to sing pop, rock, soul and jazz while studying classical singing in DIT and is a regular guest with The Odd Couple. Such musical diversity sits well with Sligo’s most versatile female vocalist, especially when performing such an eclectic set with one of Ireland’s slickest groups.