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While I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my recent books Profiles inJazz: Writings on Jazz and Its Makers Volume 1 and Jazz Drummers Volume 1 [scroll down along the blog sidebar on your right as you face this], Dermot Rogers, the proprietor and owner of Livia Records, has been busy with the release of four splendid new CDs.
In addition to his continuing series on the Irish native son, guitarist Louis Stewart, most recently I Thought About You on which the guitarist is accompanied by a brilliant rhythm section made up of pianist John Taylor, bassist Sam Jones and drummer Billy Higgins, he’s also branched out with new releases featuring the music of other Eire Jazz artists including tenor saxophonist Michael Buckley, bassist Ronan Guilfoyle, and pianist Jim Doherty [a close associate of Stewart’s who also features on Jim’s Spondance].
Individually and collectively, this new music from Livia is well-worth looking into if you are a fan of Jazz played in what is sometimes referred to as a straight ahead style.
I’m bringing this music to your attention in this feature in what amounts to an unabashed plug for Dermot and his hard work on behalf of Livia Records and the musicians whose music it represents.
In an age of streaming apps, it’s almost an anomaly to have the music represented on a CD and yet think about the control this represents as you are able to listen to the music when and where you like. The purchase of the CDs not only subsidizes the time and expense associated with making them but the royalties paid to the musicians or their estates is much more substantial than the pittance paid by streaming apps. Of course, the revenue stream from the sold recordings also helps to keep Livia Records in business, without which, none of this would be happening.
An additional bonus is the remixed and master sound and the booklet notes which you can peruse while listening, many of which are replete with photographs of the artists.
So what follows are annotations based on the media release information that Dermot sent along with each album which includes some commentary by me along with relevant video clips where available on YouTube to better familiarize you about what’s on hand in each of these new releases. Hopefully this will entice you to purchase them.
Michael Buckley - Ebb and Flow Livia Records LRCD2405
Michael Buckley is an accomplished musician both as a Coltrane-Brecker inspired tenor saxophonist and as a composer of the nine original compositions that populate his first offering on Livia.
Or as the pianist on the alum Greg Felton describes it:
"Michael is the composer, the band leader, the studio engineer and the producer. He's doing four jobs at the same time! As if by some kind of magic he does not complain, he keeps us motivated, enthusiastic, and striving (or our best, leading by example. You get to make a record with Michael Buckley playing his own compositions, you know you're going to want to play your best, and we more or less do.”
And Dermot’s press release offers the following annotation:
Livia Records welcomes Michael Buckley and his EBB and FLOW album, the label's first new contemporary release in nearly 40 years.
EBB and FLOW is the new and entirely original project from the Dublin saxophonist and his wonderful trio of: Greg Felton (piano), Barry Donohue (bass) and Shane O'Donovan (drums). Its nine titles are modern, tender, and exciting, featuring daring up-tempo post-bop tunes, beautiful ballads, and free improvisations.
Michael is recognised as the leading contemporary Irish jazz musician and a phenomenal tenor player who is also in demand as producer and arranger.
He has also collaborated and toured with The Mingus Big Band and Septet,
saxophonists Dave Liebman, Lee Konitz, and George Coleman; guitarists Kurt
Rosenwinkel and John Abercrombie, pianists Jason Moran, Edward Simon and Jason Rebello, drummers Joey Baron, Lewis Nash and Jim Black, trumpeter Colin Steele, percussionist Badal Roy, bassist Ronan Guilfoyle and many more.
Recorded in Michael's House of Horns Studio in 2024, EBB and FLOW captures Michael's masterful saxophone playing backed by an excellent empathetic trio.
This brand-new release includes an 8-page booklet with detailed sleeve notes and great photographs.
Catalog #: LRCD2405 Format: Download and CD Release Date: 27th February '25
Michael Buckley and his band are leading players in the current generation of Irish musicians. They are well schooled with strong local and international experience and have moved beyond the environment they first developed in. They have formed their own sound and sensibility, composing, and performing at a new level. EBB and FLOW was developed collaboratively, drawing on their individual experiences and strong musical empathy. The performances deliver at a high level, reflecting the time made for workshopping and rehearsal.
Dublin-born, Michael Buckley is regarded as one of the most important and influential musicians on the Irish jazz scene. A second-generation saxophonist (his father played with guitarist Louis Stewart), flautist and composer, Michael has been playing professionally since childhood, when he worked in theatre, and dueted with US saxophone master George Coleman, aged nine. His virtuosity and musicality have given him "first call" status, performing and touring regularly with major international figures.
Michael regularly works on film and television scores, and collaborates with mainstream artists including Glen Hansard, Paul Brady, The Corrs, Donovan, and The Cranberries. He runs his own House of Horns Studio, and has built a strong music production reputation, recording, mixing and mastering.
Michael's debut album as leader, THE PENDULUM (IMC) featured bassist Wayne Batchelor and drummer Darren Beckett. It was followed by THE TOURIST (Urban Beauty) featuring San Francisco-based pianist Edward Simon, drummer Stephen Keogh and bassist Jeremy Brown. On IT IS WHAT IT IS (Lyte) he showed his talent as a pop/R&B songwriter.
With a master's degree from TU Dublin, Michael has been a faculty member for Dublin City University's Jazz Program including performing and collaborating with Berklee personnel.
""The creativity and internationality of Michael Buckley's music will reach around the world, bringing him and his music into prominence within the ever growing jazz community. " Benny Golson
SPONDANCE - Jim Doherty Livia Records LRCD2403
Although not intended to be so, SPONDANCE serves as an excellent example of two of the Emerald Isle’s home grown Jazz musicians - Jim Doherty and Louis Stewart - holding their own in an ensemble made up of American colleagues which was a rare occurrence back when this music was recorded in 1986.
Here again, all six compositions are originals, in this case, penned by pianist Doherty, and they reflect a unique melodic and harmonic sensibility not often heard in stateside based, large-group Jazz.
This may have something to do with the origins of the music as explained in this segment of Ray Comiskey’s sleeve notes:
“Nowadays recording collaborations between Irish and American (and European) jazz players, while hardly a daily occurrence, are not at all unusual. A generation ago, however, they were almost unheard of. So, when Jim Doherty took his Spondance scores to Hollywood to record them with an octet that included himself, Louis Stewart, and six outstanding West Coast jazz musicians, it was a venture as unique as it was musically successful. But what also made it unique was the fact that the music was composed for a jazz ballet attended for what was then the Irish National Ballet.”
And here are excerpts from Dermot’s media release:
“SPONDANCE is the 1986 octet album of pianist Jim Doherty's jazz suite, recorded with close friends Louis Stewart and Bobby Shew, and the cream of Los Angeles musicians (Bob Sheppard: alto, Gordon Brisker: tenor, Randy Aldcroft: trombone, Tom Warrington: bass, and Billy Mintz: drums). The six tracks deliver a fine example of modern jazz ensemble playing, including ballads, jazz-blues, Latin, bop, and swing, with great solos.
The compositions are based on a strong narrative, linking the brass, woodwind and guitar with specific characters and scenarios, which in particular, influence the solos.
Though recorded nearly 40 years ago, the suite maintains its vibrancy and relevance. The release will be marked by a Dublin concert on 28th February 2025
About Jim Doherty -
Jim Doherty is a veteran of the Irish jazz scene, who also worked extensively as a session musician and composer/arranger for both TV and theatre. He led numerous bands of his own, from duets to big bands. His trio was a first of choice for countless visiting jazz musicians, along with his contemporary, pianist, Noel Kelehan.
He proudly takes the credit for identifying the exceptional talents of a teenage Louis Stewart at an audition in 1960. This ultimately led Louis to New York, where he decided to return to Ireland and dedicate himself to playing jazz. Then, in 1968, while playing in a quartet led by Jim, Louis's supreme talents were rewarded with the best European soloist award at the Montreux jazz festival.
While Louis's international profile and jazz career took off from then, Jim and Louis remained close friends and often performed together. SPONDANCE was the first jazz recording featuring both musicians, though Jim and Louis later recorded a duet album, TUNES, in 2013.
Jim is still performing today. SPONDANCE is his proudest jazz recording and he is delighted to have it performed again, coinciding with the album reissue.
Jim's legendary quick wit, and his love of comedy, is reflected in the use of "SPON" which recurs in Jim's band names, reflecting his love of the Goons, featuring Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan et al. Coincidentally, one of his sons, David O'Doherty, is now a successful stage and TV comedian.
You can listen to the opening track Nordic Maiden via by clicking on the following https://liviarecords.bandcamp.com/album/jim-dohertys-spondance
Ronan Guilfoyle’s Bemusement Arcade - At Swing, Two Birds Livia Records LRCD2502
It’s nice to see bass guitarists getting some exposure as leaders and not only does Ronan get that with his own album on Livia, the added bonus is that he composed all of the seven compositions which make up the recording.
It’s been said that “You don’t find the instrument, the instrument finds you" and I’ve always thought that given its quiet and relatively unobtrusive nature that nowhere is that axiom more apparent than with bass guitarists.
The difficulty in playing it and playing it well are often overlooked and/or underappreciated. However, when it’s not played well, you feel it before you hear it because the music loses its steady “heartbeat.”
No need to worry about a lost pulse when Ronan is on the date as his virtuosity on the bass guitar sensitively powers all of the music on this recording.
Here’s more about Ronan and “the bemused boys in the band” from Dermot’s media release.
“AT SWING, TWO BIRDS, from innovative bassist Ronan Guilfoyle with seven original compositions. Completing the quartet are alto saxophonist Sam Morris, guitarist Chris Guilfoyle (Ronan's son) and highly experienced drummer Darren Beckett.
The compositions feature typical jazz characteristics - swing, groove, blues, standard form, chord changes, solos, drum trades, shout choruses etc. within atypical rhythmic shapes, showing that innovation and jazz tradition are compatible, and the music can swing with non-standard time signatures and structures. The album title references Irish humourist Flann O'Brien's classic book, At Swim Two Birds, while blending rhythmic and harmonic ideas from two Charlie Parker tunes.
About RONAN GUILFOYLE
Ronan Guilfoyle is a major figure on the Irish jazz scene with an international reputation as a performer, teacher and composer. He began his career in the early 1980's with Louis Stewart, then studied at the Banff Centre for the Arts with guitarist John Abercrombie, bassist Dave Holland, and saxophonist Steve Coleman. Ronan is one of the acoustic bass guitar's leading exponents, and is in demand as a jazz bassist, both in Ireland and internationally.
He has performed with saxophonists Dave Liebman, Joe Lovano, Benny Golson, and Sonny Fortune, pianists Kenny Werner, Brad Mehldau, Jim McNeely, and Richie Beirach, guitarists John Abercrombie, Larry Coryell and Emily Remler, trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, and drummers Tom Rainey and Keith Copeland. He has led his own groups since the mid-1980s, and has toured widely in Europe, Asia, and North America.
He has recorded extensively both as a sideman and as a leader, including the award winning "Devsirme" in 1997, for which he won a Julius Hemphill Jazz Composition award.
Ronan composes for classical ensembles too, specialising in compositions featuring both improvised and written music. His large body of work ranges from solo piano to chamber works, to orchestral compositions. He has had commissions from ensembles and organisations ranging from the RTE Concert Orchestra, The Opus 20 String Orchestra in London, and the European Jazz Youth Orchestra. He has written commissioned works for many soloists including saxophonist Dave Liebman, violinist Michael d'Arcy and virtuoso accordionist Dermot Dunne.
A formidable jazz composer, his music has been performed by jazz luminaries like Dave Liebman, Kenny Werner, Kenny Wheeler, Keith Copeland, John Abercrombie, Andy Laster, Simon Nabatov, Richie Beirach, Tom Rainey, Julian Arguelles, Rick Peckham, and Sonny Fortune.
He is well known for teaching advanced rhythmic techniques for jazz improvisation and his book, "Creative Rhythmic Concepts for Jazz Improvisation" is seen as the standard text for this. He has taught at many schools including Berklee College of Music, The New School, the International Music Congress (UNESCO) in Copenhagen and is an associate Artist of the Royal Academy of Music in London. Ronan founded the jazz department at Newpark Music Centre in Dublin before it transferred to Dublin City University as a BA in Jazz performance, for which he is the course director.”
Louis Stewart - I Thought About You Livia Records LRCD2501
And just when you thought that Dermot couldn’t top this three course feast with the new music by Buckley, Doherty and Guilfoyle [not a law firm], he turns it into a four course banquet with the CD issue of master guitarist Louis Stewart’s I Thought About You using the original London sessions remixed, remastered with extra tracks.
To give you some idea of the depth of Louis’s roots in the music, and the importance of his voice before his passing in 2016 check out this background information as excerpted from Simon Spillett’s The Long Shadow of the Little Giant: The Life Work and Legacy of Tubby Hayes:
“ … [Tubby] cannot have helped but feel the loss of Pyne, Mathewson and Levin. The quartet had undoubtedly been his best unit yet, and had brought him closer than ever to the kind of group empathy he'd witnessed in bands such as Miles Davis's and John Coltrane's….. [A]lthough he now faced a situation unimaginable just a few years before - that of a positive glut of young, gifted players - his next group began with the altogether more cautious recruitment of two former colleagues, Phil Bates and Bill Eyden, This time round, he had chosen just one new face, "a wonderful guitarist called Louis Stewart from Dublin."
Wonderful was certainly the word. After cutting his teeth on the provincial Irish jazz scene, Stewart had gone on to win the prestigious soloist award at the 1968 Montreux Jazz Festival. Following the victory, he had opted to base his career in London, but the right kind of work was proving frustratingly elusive. At the time of his recruitment by Hayes, … [a]lthough only twenty-four years of age, the guitarist already had plenty of jazz experience behind him, and clearly had the ability to stand out in a crowd, but being asked to become a member of the Tubby Hayes quartet was tantamount to receiving a musical knighthood - the honour amplified when one considers that Hayes cancelled a scheduled audition for John McLaughlin after hearing Stewart just once. "I haven't played anything like this before," the Irishman told Tony Wilson of Melody Maker shortly after joining. "I'd been working with organ and tenor playing ordinary kind of things but Tubby has been very helpful and patient. Some of Tubby's compositions are quite unusual with different bar lengths and things like that. If Tubby wants to keep me I'll be happy to stay."51
Regardless of Stewart's reservations, his leader seemed happy enough, praising him unstintingly in the press. "He handles the difficult comping' role unobtrusively and with taste in the absence of a piano," Hayes wrote soon after the band's formation. "In this role he follows Terry Shannon, Gordon Beck and Mike Pyne and when I say that I do not miss the piano, it is meant as the highest compliment."
Following these bona fides, Dermot continues with more insights into Louis and his music, as well as, the attention to detail involved with making the recording into a compact disc in the following from his press release:
“I THOUGHT ABOUT YOU is a major remixed, remastered, and extended release of Irish jazz guitar master Louis Stewart's 1977 quartet album with the English pianist John Taylor and the American rhythm team of bassist Sam Jones and drummer Billy Higgins.
Recorded when Louis was working with Ronnie Scott's house band (as was John Taylor), the session coincided with pianist Cedar Walton's quartet's stint at Scott's London club. Walton's sidemen Sam Jones and Billy Higgins so impressed Louis, that he invited them to record with him and John Taylor.
Originally released in 1980 with some edits and overdubs, this enhanced re-issue uses the original London masters and adds two extra tracks.
The tunes are mainly by then contemporary artists (Miles Davis, Chick Corea,
Thelonious Monk, Sam Jones, Jimmy Heath etc.) plus one standard. With superb trio accompaniment, the result is possibly Louis Stewart's best studio recording.
I THOUGHT ABOUT YOU was recorded on 18th March 1977 in London's Olympic Studios on 2" tape, which captured tracks for each of the instruments. In 1978, Louis Stewart brought a 1/4" copy of the tapes back to Dublin and decided to record some alternate solos on some tracks, which were used with the first release of the album in 1980, though the reason for doing this remains unclear. This hybrid's combination of two tape sources didn't work well.
Restoring the album, nearly 50 years after it was recorded, required digitisation of the original two-inch studio tapes, which had been in a lock-up for 20 years. Digitization by FX Labs in London revealed an alternate version of November Girl and Miles Davis's All Blues. The 1/4" overdub tapes were also digitised but not used due to their poorer quality sound and the impossible task of making them work well with the original 2" masters. Sean Mac Erlaine remixed and remastered to create the best version of the album for re-release.
Louis Stewart (1942-2016), known simply as Louis, and revered by a loyal Irish jazz fan base, was better known and admired abroad. From his award winning 1968 Montreux festival debut, he was soon playing with major names. Over the course of a long career, Louis Stewart would appear on over seventy albums, and tour the world in the company of some of the foundational stars of the music he loved, including Benny Goodman, JJ Johnson, George Shearing, Ronnie Scott, Tubby Hayes etc. Though mainly London-based in the late 60s and 1970s, he was a regular visitor back to Dublin to play sell out shows. Gerald Davis established Livia Records in 1977 specifically to record him on home soil.
It was only towards the end of his life, that he gained honours at home as Ireland began to realise that he was one of the great geniuses of modern music, an Irish artist to stand alongside Heaney, Beckett, and Le Brocquy as one who transcended his art form. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Trinity College Dublin (1998) and Aosdana membership (2009) (Arts Council body to acknowledge outstanding contribution to the creative arts in Ireland). Louis died in 2016.
Sunday Times critic Derek Jewell: "... a musician to be spoken of in the same league as Django Reinhardt, Wes Montgomery, or, among contemporary virtuosos, Joe Pass."
Ronnie Scott: "In my book he's one of the world's great jazz guitarists"
DownBeat Magazine: "must be considered one of the instrument's world class players"
Louis inspired generations of guitarists, in Ireland and around the world, and enjoyed the regard of many of the great musicians who he had so carefully studied, including Barney Kessel, Tal Farlow, Jim Hall and Pat Martino.