Wild Youth @ Cyprus Avenue (7.30pm, €20) Notable for being the first of the official festival headliners to get underway, Dublin pop-rock boyos Wild Youth kick it off for the weekend on Caroline Street.
Ophelia McCabe @ Crane Lane Theatre (9pm, free) Heritage Jazz kicks off at Cork Heritage Pub Trail premises across the city, with Irish hip-hop/spoken-word veteran Ophelia and collaborators making with jazzy, soulful hip-hop.
Aslan @ Cork Opera House (7pm, €35) Yeah, it’s not really your writer’s thing either, but (hot take) the original version of ‘This Is’ more than goes pound-for-pound with any other pop-rock offering to emanate from this island in the eighties, and easily outdoes the slew of subsequent remixes, etc.
Willie Watson @ Coughlan’s (7.30pm, SOLD OUT) Applachia, delta blues and fiddle-led Irish-Americana is the order of the day for Southern song collector Willie Watson, touring new album ‘Folksinger Vol. 2’.
Tunnel of Bees and Fleece x Black Beacon Sound @ The Roundy/PLUGD (8pm, €8) Cork beats collective Fleece curates a special night for the Jazz weekend upstairs on Castle Street: prog-rockers Tunnel of Bees kick things off, before Fleece and Black Beacon DJs go back-to-back til late. Steal the physical poster for this one, after the gig, obviously.
Bantum & Bon Voyage @ The Kino (9pm, €10) Ruairí Lynch is joined at the former arthouse on Washington Street by transatlantic acid-hip-house outfit Bon Voyage, with erstwhile Dublin selector Arveene on the decks afterward ’til late.
Mother DJs @ Dali (9pm, €15) Kicking off the Carey’s Lane venue’s October Bank Holiday proceedings are the Mother residents out of Dublin, bringing disco and electronica, foregoing the main festival and pursuing their own #CorkJizzFest.
ZASKA @ The Oliver Plunkett (9.30pm, free) Amid all the rock covers and crowd-pleasers at the former Scott’s Bar on Oliver Plunkett Street is the annual Leeside excursion from Dublin soulman and former Hozier collaborator Max Zaska. Also appearing tomorrow night at 10.30 in the same venue.
One Horse Pony @ Barbarossa (10pm, free) Roots, folk and Americana from the Leeside-based genre specialists, keeping the momentum up after record launches and festival appearances throughout the year. Also appearing at 2.30pm tomorrow in the same venue, as well as weekend evenings at its sister premises, Barbarella, on Barrack Street.
Arjuna’s Eye and more @ Fred Zeppelin’s (10pm, €7) Night one of the Paranoid Beast’s weekender at the home of metal in the city serves as a Leeside album launch for Cork psych-metallers Arjuna’s Eye, with support from Slacker’s Symphony and Dirty Casuals.
Joel Corry @ Cyprus Avenue (11pm, €15) House-pop chart-botherer, superstar deejay and one-time Geordie Shore luvvie provides the commercial house hits ’til late on Caroline Street.
Booka Brass Band and Toucan @ Cork Opera House (11.30pm, €22.50) A double-bill of festival faves leads off the Opera House’s Bank Holiday weekend pop offering that’s now custom on Jazz Weekend: New Orleans-style outfit Booka Brass are joined by trad/folk upstarts Toucan, fresh off recent gigs at Coughlan’s.
Tudo Bem! @ Cork Opera House Green Room (midnight, €10) Composer Ronan Guilfoyle leads a crew of Brazil’s finest musicians on an odyssey through the history and depth of Brazilian music, a passion project if ever there was, with native dancing and percussive musics meeting jazz and traditional rhythms.
SATURDAY OCTOBER 26TH
Blue Note @ The Kino (1pm, free) One of very few solely covers/standards gigs we can endorse given the weekend and all that entails: Cork cosmonaut Dan Walsh and other local heads celebrate eighty years of the legendary Blue Note jazz label.
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble @ Cyprus Avenue (2pm/7pm, €20) The bad-boys of jazz continue their worldwide touring with a pair of shows on the first of a two-day stint on Caroline Street. Eight-piece brass ahoy, and the afternoon show is ALL AGES.
Mary Coughlan @ Coughlan’s (2.30pm/5.30pm, SOLD OUT) …and that is a triple sellout (including tomorrow’s afterno0n matinee) at the Douglas Street venue for a world-travelled, genre-straddling songstress that can be rightly counted as a national treasure.
EndUp @ The Brú (4pm, free) House. And plenty of it. An all-day session for the Jazz and the Bank Holiday at the far end of McCurtain Street for the EndUp residents, as part of the weekend’s proceedings for the venue.
The Skatuesques @ The Kino (4pm, free) All-female five-piece ska band packing its own originals? Put your braces together and your boots on your feet. Also at the Crane Lane tomorrow night at 7, if you miss them here.
Under the Rose: All Day & Night @ Dali (4pm, €20) Ayarcana and Bas Mooy head up the second annual instalment of the Carey’s Lane all-day techno marathon, also featuring a slew of local genre specialists.
Regroovanation @ Crane Lane Theatre (4.30pm, free) Irish funk-fusion five-piece bring their theatrical set and genre-traversing stylings to the back room of the Crane for Heritage Jazz, launching new single ‘All That Money’.
The Council for the Dark Arts Orchestra @ The Roundy/PLUGD (6pm, €5) If there’s one gig you absolutely must see this entire weekend for a flavour of what makes this city special the other 51 weeks of the year, an eighteen-piece supergroup culled from Cork’s psychedelic, drone, shoegaze, punk and psych scenes, improvising and generally making racket for the sake of doing so together, is it. Buckle up.
Jimmy Smyth Trio @ Coughlan’s (8.30pm, free) While jazz and no-nonsense roots rockin’ might be the order of the evening here, videogame soundtrack and fantasy-lit nerds alike might want to pop their heads in: among Smyth’s scoring credits are the 2003 adaptation of Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring.
Stomptown Brass @ The Kino (9pm, €20) The Washington Street venue’s maiden Jazz voyage under The Good Room’s guidance continues with a headlining set from the brass-toting festival faves.
Spyro Gyra @ The Everyman (9pm, €37) Buffalo, NY jazz veterans mark over forty years on the road with European touring for their 31st (!) album, ‘Vinyl Tap’.
zhOra and more @ Fred Zeppelin’s (10.30pm, €8) Night two of the Paranoid Beast’s weekend engagement at the red room on Parliament Street, as Tipperary/Cork sludge-metal titans zhOra are joined by UK metal outfits Everest Queen and Sail.
Aoife O’Neill @ The Kino (11pm, €10) Out of Space collective head and DDR music maestra takes the ones and twos after the Elaine/Fixity gig, to bring a busy Saturday at the Kino to a close.
Leftfield (Neil Barnes) @ Cyprus Avenue (11pm, €26) One half of the original trail-blazing electronic duo, and its current custodian, Neil Barnes unleashes selections from his personal stash for discerning clubbers.
Jenny Greene & Generic People @ Cork Opera House (midnight, €21) 2FM dance expert-turned-daytime jock returns to the old job for the first of two nights in the city. Floor-filling faves assured, but no orchestra this time around. Visuals by Ant and Ronan of Generic People.
SUNDAY OCTOBER 27TH
Eve Clague @ The Kino (1pm, free) Clonakilty singer-songwriter continues a recent run of brisk business, including joint headliners with fellow West Corkonian Míde Houlihan, with a free gig at the Washington Street multipurpose venue.
Jim Comet @ The Kingsley Hotel (1pm, free) While much of the hotel entertainment this year is festival-club covers-and-standards action, a certifiable Cork legend and record collector getting behind the decks for an increasingly-rare appearance is a treat indeed.
Fonn & Trá Phaidín @ The Roundy/PLUGD (3pm, €5) A double-dose of intricate improvisation with marked folk influences, featuring the cream of Leeside jazz and psychedelia across an all-afternoon session.
Five to Two @ The Kino (4pm, free) Soft Boy Records’ resident jazz-heads make a live excursion down south, after releasing their debut full-length via the internationally-fancied Dubland collective.
Future-soul five-piece (pictured) head to the back room on Douglas Street for an intimate performance amid the chaos of the weekend.
Vinyl Below @ Dali (8pm, €tbc) Paul T. and young Déise lads SX2 head up a night of techno and house at the Carey’s Lane venue for Vinyl Below, after a collaborative excursion to Connolly’s went down well a few months back.
Fixity and Elaine Howley @ The Kino (8pm, €15) Dan Walsh and his psych/jazz/rock collaborators continue exploring new directions in music after dropping jaws at the Poora during last year’s Jazz, while Elaine Howley (Altered Hours, Crevice, etc.) continues to define her solo sound with a live excursion.
Elina Duni & Arild Andersen @ Triskel Christchurch (8pm, €35) The double-headlining finale of the Triskel’s ECM Records jazz-weekend special, as Swiss singer Duni shares a stage with rising guitarist Rob Luft, while double-bass legend Arild Andersen leads a folk-inflected odyssey through his body of jazz work.
Martha Reeves and the Vandellas @ City Hall (8pm, SOLD OUT) Living legends and breathing connections to American sonic/social history, Motown alumni Martha and the Vandellas are arguably the main festival’s headlining act, as they celebrate 60 years of the legendary soul label’s songbook.
Evolution D’n’B @ An Spailpín Fánach (9pm, €tbc) Cork’s drum-n-bass family gets together for its annual Jazz Weekend showdown, including a headline b2b set from Jubei and Tyrone of Goldie-affliated stable Metalheadz, plus sets from national guests and Evolution residents.
Dónal Dineen @ The Kino (11pm, €12) No Disco presenter, disc-jock and bona fide Irish music legend, Dónal Dineen goes cratediving and presents us with another Backstory session to close out the Kino’s big weekend.
Jenny Greene @ Cyprus Avenue (11pm, SOLD OUT) Night two in the city for 2FM’s mainstream dance selector and daytime DJ, this time playing upstairs on Caroline Street after the venue’s recent expansion. Support from the bauld Cork City Samba Band, playing acoustic house/d’n’b-inspired samba rhythms.
