DOWN WITH JAZZ 2017

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Improvised Music Company

Sat 10th & Sun 11th June

The Grand Social, Liffey Street Lower, Dublin 1

Down With Jazz, Dublin’s annual festival of ‘filthy foreign rhythms & divilish beats’ moves across the Liffey and into The Grand Social for it’s 6th edition on 10th-11th June with a shameless line-up of jazzy grooves. “Everyone’s favourite horn wielders.." (Hot Press) Booka Brass Band have just been added to the programme, which celebrates the finest in Irish jazz!

Way back in 1917 the very first shellac jazz record was cut by a New Orleans quintet called The Original Dixieland Jass Band. It also marked the birth of the First Lady of Jazz, Ms Ella Fitzgerald. Jaysus, not another bleedin’ centenary says you!

Fast forward one hundred years and there is plenty to celebrate in our diverse Irish jazz scene, with Down With Jazz bent on “reimagining mainstream jazz and bringing everyone together for a hell of a good time.” - All About Jazz

The festival takes a tongue-in-cheek look back to 1930s Ireland when jazz and ‘foreign’ music was seen by the Church as a filthy force of corruption, which culminated in a repressive ‘anti-jazz’ campaign to ban jazz music from the dance halls and airwaves of Ireland. Today’s Down With Jazz festival links audiences with 21st century Ireland’s vibrant and diverse music scene through the playful prism of this notorious period of our social history.

SATURDAY NIGHT kicks off with a Jazz Lab jam session. Ríona Sally Hartman’s FÓD will play joyous, uptempo song cycles with West African and Brazilian influences. Top notch jazz quartet Gamerz with special guest Kit Downes blend tradition with an expansive modern aesthetic. Booka brass band bring an exciting mix of jazz, hip hop and pop which is sure to get you dancing. Robocobra Quartet will follow, mining influences from jazz, hardcore punk and contemporary classical music, followed by a sweet serving of Ireland's leading improvisers and electro-sonic explorers, BigSpoon. And finally DJ trio We Three Kings will take you past midnight with jazz, hip-hop, funk and South American beats.

ON SUNDAY An Nóta Gorm’s DJ Billy O hAnluin is on the decks playing vintage jazz from 4pm in the upstairs beer garden at the Grand Social. First up for late afternoon jazz is Stella Bass and Hugh Buckley with Stella Sings Ella, a tribute to the life and music of Ella Fitzgerald. Acclaimed jazz cabaret artist Honor Heffernan performs ‘The Whistling Girl’, a dark and dirty cabaret inspired by the work of Dorothy Parker, with Trevor Knight and band. Finally trombonist Paul Dunlea's Septet rounds up some of Ireland’s finest improvising musicians for a perfect jazz ending to the festival.

TICKETS are a sweet €25 for the Weekend or €15 Daily Book HERE