- Details
- Written by: Red Keane
- Parent Category: Jazz Ireland Blog
- Category: Jazz News
Read more: From Super Mario to Jazz Standards: 8-bit Funk Announce Debut Album Level Design
For generations of jazz musicians, the popular music of their youth provided material to be pulled apart, reharmonised and reinvented. For Dublin quartet 8-bit Funk, that source material happens to include Super Mario, Pokémon, Sonic and other landmarks of video game music.
On 30 October, the group will release Level Design, a six-track debut album that takes music from the world of video games and reimagines it through jazz, funk, fusion, neo-soul and electro-rock.
The album will be preceded on 2 October by its first single, “Bob-omb Battlefield”, 8-bit Funk's organ-driven jazz-funk arrangement of the instantly recognisable theme from Super Mario 64.
Read more: From Super Mario to Jazz Standards: 8-bit Funk Announce Debut Album Level Design
- Details
- Written by: Red Keane
- Parent Category: Jazz Ireland Blog
- Category: Jazz News
Read more: John Wadham’s DRUMS and FRIENDS Returns on Livia Records
Livia Records continues its exploration of Ireland’s jazz archive with the reissue of DRUMS and FRIENDS, the only album recorded under the leadership of drummer John Wadham.
Originally released in 1978 as the second album on the fledgling Livia Records label, DRUMS and FRIENDS brought together some of the most important musicians working in Irish jazz at the time, including guitarist Louis Stewart, flautist Brian Dunning and bassists Frank Hess and Martin Walsh. Almost five decades later, the album returns in a newly remixed, remastered and expanded edition, released on 18 September 2026.
The new edition also adds two previously unreleased tracks, Miles Davis’s Seven Steps to Heaven and John Coltrane’s Naima, bringing the album to nine tracks and offering another glimpse into a particularly fertile period in Irish jazz history.
Read more: John Wadham’s DRUMS and FRIENDS Returns on Livia Records
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- Written by: Red Keane
- Parent Category: Jazz Ireland Blog
- Category: Jazz News
Read more: Jennifer McMahon Reimagines ‘Beacon Home’ for Orchestra
Irish singer and songwriter Jennifer McMahon will release a new orchestral version of Beacon Home on 25 September, revisiting one of the most personal songs from her debut album Part of The Whole with an expansive new arrangement featuring The Soundtrack Orchestra.
Originally written in memory of her father, Beacon Home has now been expanded from its jazz band and string quartet setting into a chamber orchestral arrangement featuring almost 40 musicians. Recorded across Sierra Recording Studios in Athens and The Cooler at The Complex in Dublin during 2025, the anniversary edition gives the song a broader cinematic scale while retaining the intimacy at the heart of the original.
For McMahon, the new recording also reflects how far her own musical journey has travelled since the song was first written.
Read more: Jennifer McMahon Reimagines ‘Beacon Home’ for Orchestra
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- Written by: Red Keane
- Parent Category: Jazz Ireland Blog
- Category: The Hot Box
Read more: The Hot Box #157 - A Home Game (Mostly)
It’s something of a home game on this edition of The Hot Box, with Donald Helme spending most of the hour in the company of Irish musicians, drawing on recordings both new and from the archives.
Among the newer music is Stella Bass with her latest single Time to Fly, while a look back into Irish jazz history brings us John Wadham’s Drums and Friends, recently remastered and reissued by Livia Records, from which we hear Wayne Shorter’s Footprints. There’s also music from Linley Hamilton, Don Baker, Fintan O’Neill, Lee Meehan and Kevin Brady.
- Details
- Written by: Werner Lewon
- Parent Category: Jazz Ireland Blog
- Category: All Other Jazz
Read more: Icons in Jazz Vol. 33 - John Scofield - The Magician on the Guitar
This podcast celebrates the music and life of some of the greatest movers and shakers in Jazz history.
Read more: Icons in Jazz Vol. 33 - John Scofield - The Magician on the Guitar
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- Written by: Red Keane
- Parent Category: Jazz Ireland Blog
- Category: All Other Jazz
Read more: JazzTime 20th September 2026
Weekly 2-hour jazz show from Dublin presented by Dermot Rogers.
Playing tracks by Bill Evans, Noel Kelehan and Louis Stewart, John Coltrane, Joe Lovano, Woody Shaw and more.
- Details
- Written by: Red Keane
- Parent Category: Jazz Ireland Blog
- Category: All Other Jazz
Read more: Tales from the far Side 17.09.26 On Bass....... Dave Redmond - A Portrait
On this edition I explore the music of bassist Dave Redmond, one of the leading artists at the thriving Irish Jazz Scene. And you can hear some of his work as a sideman and as a leader of his own groups. And I talk with Dave about his career, influences and musical vision.
Read more: Tales from the far Side 17.09.26 On Bass....... Dave Redmond - A Portrait
