Ronan Guilfoyle

At Swing, Two Birds

By Ronan Guilfoyle

Label: Livia Records
Released: 2025
Track listing: Diversionary Tactics; Lenniesphere; At Swing Two Birds; Two Blues; Dulcetta; Langorous: Blue Angels.

Ronan Guilfoyle's Bemusement Arcade: At Swing, Two Birds

by Ian Patterson
May 13, 2025

If there were Grammys for the most punning name for a jazz band, or for the most enigmatic album title, then Irish bassist Ronan Guilfoyle could well bag a brace. The title of the wonderfully coined Bemusement Arcade's debut album is a wordplay on Irish humorist Flann O'Brien's At Swim Two Birds (Longman Green & Co., ...

New Releases Plus A Focus On Yells At Eels And Ivo Perelman

by Bob Osborne
May 8, 2025

Trombonists kick off a show packed with new releases which are followed by a focus on the work of Yells At Eels on Ayler Records and more from the massive set of releases from Leo Records featuring Ivo Perelman.Playlist Reggie Watkins “Rivers" from Rivers (Bynk Records) 00:00 Altin Sencalar “17 West" from Unleashed (Posi-tone ...

Michael Buckley: Blowing Hot

by Ian Patterson
April 28, 2025

An early spring vacation to New York saw Michael Buckley and his wife take in what he describes as “the usual sights." But for the Dublin saxophonist that also meant trips to “three or four saxophone shops." Once a tenor saxophonist, always a tenor saxophonist. Buckley, in fact, started out on the flute, playing ...

Louis Stewart & Jim Hall: The Dublin Concert

by Ian Patterson
September 8, 2024

When Jim Hall decided to spend the 1982 Christmas holidays in Ireland, did he really think that one of the most influential jazz guitarists in history could pass through incognito? The master of modern jazz guitar who had played with Chico Hamilton, Jimmy Giuffre, Ben Webster, Ella Fitzgerald, Sonny Rollins and Art Farmer, who was celebrated ...

Aleka Potinga: Romania: Songs Of Love And Longing

by Ian Patterson
April 15, 2024

You can take singer/cellist Aleka Potinga out of Romania, but you cannot take Romania out of her musical soul. Classically trained in Bucharest, and Dublin-based since 2012, Potinga has slotted into the city's fluid jazz/improvised music scenes, working with Izumi Kimura, Ronan Guilfoyle, Tommy Halferty and Cello Ireland. Her debut album Person I Knew (Self-Produced, 2019) ...

Brilliant Corners 2024

by Ian Patterson
March 20, 2024

Brilliant Corners 2024 Black Box/Accidental Theatre Belfast, N. Ireland March 1-9, 2024 At a time when veteran rock acts on their last legs are asking cash-strapped punters to part with hundreds of pounds to stand in a stadium to hear the same hits as the last tour, and the tour ...

Louis Stewart & Noel Kelehan: Some Other Blues

by Ian Patterson
July 10, 2023

Hot on the heels of the reissue of Louis Stewart's seminal 1977 album Out On His Own (Liva Records, 2023)--one of the great solo jazz guitar albums--the revitalized label inspired by the Dublin guitarist launches another gem from its treasure trove of archival recordings. Previously unreleased, Some Other Blues captures Stewart in a duo setting with ...

Cote Calmet: Cultivating Afro-Peruvian Rhythms

by Ian Patterson
May 17, 2021

What do a dead donkey, a Seat Alhambra and Led Zeppelin's John Bonham all have in common? Whatever images your mind's eye may conjure, these three clues, in fact, all lead to Phisqa, the contemporary jazz band of Afro-Peruvian bent, formed by drummer Cote Calmet in Dublin, Ireland, in 2010. But let's not get ...