Dana Masters: the jazz singer Belfast has embraced
A city-by-city interactive charting favourite music genres disproportionately popular on Spotify appeared this week. In Belfast’s case I knew punk has been popular for years and years mainly because of Terri Hooley’s championing of the genre and the talent of the local bands also mentioned in the streaming service’s metric. But jazz?
Well to test it out I’ve been out and about this week at a few places in Belfast. The places I found weren’t heaving with jazz fans but nor were they deserted and since last checking the scene out last year there definitely seems to be new life in jazz in Belfast. First stop, and a place the article mentions, Berts Jazz Bar, a five star-hotel sited club aimed at upmarket diners primarily. More Boisdale Canary Wharf than Ronnie Scott’s (because the food and upmarket ambience come first in the pecking order as at Boisdale rather than the music which is always first at Ronnie’s) the place could also do with a better five-star piano to match the cutlery and china. But these caveats aside it is definitely at the heart of what can be called a proper scene small though it is and Belfast isn’t a huge city at just a quarter of a million population. If it wasn’t there night-after-night then the scene would be less solid. Regular performers include Scott Flanigan, Nigel Moody, John Trotter and Linley Hamilton and on Sunday trumpeter Hamilton was performing with singer-pianist Barry McCrudden the mood suitably mellow, ‘I Can’t Give You Anything But Love Baby’ opening the first set just after 9pm.
Jazz in Belfast isn’t remotely avant-garde. The local scene’s most significant free improviser drummer Steve Davis usually ends up playing standards sets with local bands at Berts teaming up occasionally with his colleagues in Bourne/Davis/Kane from time to time for special gigs elsewhere in Belfast. But there is some eclecticism to be found for instance in March with the Brilliant Corners festival, a relatively new affair based this year once again in the Cathedral Quarter and in the University area. This year’s line-up is the best of the three runnings so far: the Dublin City Jazz Orchestra opening followed next night by the Meilana Gillard quartet and the Scott Flanigan trio, with Troyka, Steve Davis’ Human, and Henry Cow ‘leg-end’ Fred Frith playing a rare solo gig among the other performances.
Albany scene: midweek jazz jamming in Belfast
March also sees a big gig at the Lyric theatre by Dana Masters currently a backing singer for Van Morrison whose own gigs in Belfast encompass a good deal of jazz-flavoured material although it’s fair to say that most of his fans aren’t necessarily all going to be jazz aficionados such is his more general popularity and celebrity status in Belfast. He’s back playing the Europa Hotel again soon and if you walk along one of Belfast’s main central streets Great Victoria Street at the moment there is a huge poster of Morrison on a prominent billboard looking every bit the jazz man at heart.
To finish off this brief round-up I took the long walk up the Lisburn Road to trendy pub restaurant The Albany to catch the city’s main mid-week jam session taking place on Wednesdays led by trumpeter Rick Swann. Playing buttery flugel on a dimly lit bandstand at the back of the pub opening proceedings with ‘Round Midnight’ and ‘One Note Samba’ this was a low-key gig Swann and his initial quartet joined after a while by promising young singer Katharine Timoney who opened brightly but a little unadventurously with ‘Summertime.’
Swann is making a difference and crops up at other venues and I had hoped to catch him the previous night at The Bar With No Name on the Dublin Road but that gig was pulled at the last minute for some reason.
The other main improvement on the regular weekly scene is a relatively new Thursday night slot at SD Bell’s in east Belfast adding to their regular Sunday slot, although the loss of the Saturdays McHugh’s afternoon session is still felt. Dana Masters' new album recorded there will be released later in the spring.
So there is plenty going on scratching the surface, and jazz certainly is on the up here not just on computer screens and streaming services but in front of real people in real places to borrow the words of the great Dan Penn-Chips Moman song “at the dark end of the street” where it belongs just as much as anywhere.
Stephen Graham
Useful links:
Berts
The Albany
SD Bell’s
Teatro
Jazz NI
Brilliant Corners