Ronan Guilfoyle: Blog

So, the day began with a hurried trip for me to the passport office in central Dublin - I'm going to Germany on Monday and this was the only time I could collect it. Still took 45 minutes in the office due to 'industrial action' by the staff.......... Arrived back in Dun Laoghaire and then collected the guys at the hotel, then off to the school to do our workshop.

We decided to do it as an open rehearsal kind of thing, where we ran through the stuff we're going to play (an Ornette tune, a Monk tune, one of mine, one of Julian's, one of Jim's) and tried them out in front of the students. I've seen those kind of open rehearsals before (saw Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - the Blanchard/Toussaint/Mulgrew edition - do it in the same room in 1986!) and always found them interesting as an observer - hopefully the students found it to be interesting. It was good to play again after three years! We took questions too of course . Then it was a quick sandwich and off to Limerick. There’s no doubt that travelling in a car  - or any ‘on the road’ mode of transport gives ample opportunity for musical discussion – and this trip was no exception. I’ve always found jazz musicians to be extraordinary in just how endlessly they are prepared to talk about music – I’ve never found the same obsession with music (generally speaking though of course there are exceptions) among musicians from other genres. I guess if you’re into jazz, you’d BETTER be obsessed by music because you sure aren’t going to get paid much!

We played in Dolan’s in Limerick, which is the best known music pub in Limerick with two differently sized rooms – naturally enough we were in the smaller room – it’s jazz after all! Dolan’s also provides good food, something that looms large in the hierarchy of important details for the travelling musician........... The gig itself was great – at first it looked like there’d be few people there, but just before we were about to play a large contingent came in and the place was quite full by the time we went on stage. And they were very attentive and supportive too (Limerick Jazz Society have done great work in keeping the music alive in Limerick) – all of which makes for a really good atmosphere to play in.

And play we did – we decided on one long set rather than two shorter ones – a format I both enjoy playing and listening to. I think the band sounded great – considering we hadn’t played for so long we just seemed to take off from where we left off so to speak – I just started improvising a groove and Jim and Julian joined  and we were off! Over the course of the set we played some of the tunes we rehearsed at the school in the afternoon and otherwise just played free – grooves, sounds, vibes – it was really fun and very typical of the trio.

So first day over, two jobs done - ‘something attempted, something done has earned a night’s repose’, as they say – so repose I shall...........