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- Written by: Red Keane
- Parent Category: Jazz Ireland Blog
- Category: Jazz News
Read more: Building the Scene: Arthur’s Jazz Jam Returns Every Monday
When the first Arthur’s Jazz Jam took place on 17 January 2024, it began what would become a regular meeting point for musicians and listeners on Dublin’s jazz scene. Now, more than two and a half years later, the jam is entering a new chapter, relaunching as a weekly Monday-night fixture at Arthur’s Blues & Jazz Club through the end of 2026.
Led by saxophonist and flautist Hayley Kavanagh and guitarist Eric Doyle under their Cookin’ Dublin banner, the jam has become about considerably more than filling a Monday night.
It provides a high-quality but financially accessible night of live music, while creating a space where professional and emerging musicians can meet on the bandstand.
Each session opens with an invited band of working jazz musicians before moving into an open jam, operated through a sign-up list. For professional players, it offers an opportunity to perform with musicians they may not ordinarily work with and to try new ideas in a live setting. For emerging musicians, it provides valuable stage time alongside more experienced players in a real performance environment.
Read more: Building the Scene: Arthur’s Jazz Jam Returns Every Monday
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- 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
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- 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: Jazz News
Read more: Scott’s Jazz Club to Leave Ballyhackamore Home After Six Remarkable Years
Scott’s Jazz Club has announced that its residency at the Hack Club in Ballyhackamore will come to an end later this month, bringing to a close a remarkable chapter for one of Belfast’s most highly regarded jazz venues. While the loss of its home is a significant blow to the city’s jazz scene, the team behind Scott’s is already looking to the future and hopes to return at a new venue in 2027.
Scott’s Jazz Club has announced that its final concerts at the Hack Club will take place in September, with all concerts scheduled for the remainder of 2026 postponed. Ticket holders for cancelled concerts will receive full refunds.
In a statement, Scott Flanigan, Cormac O’Kane and Richard Brown reflected on six years in Ballyhackamore during which the club welcomed hundreds of musicians and thousands of audience members from around the world. The team is already in discussions with a number of potential venues for 2027 and says it is “extremely hopeful” that Scott’s Jazz Club will return next year.
Read more: Scott’s Jazz Club to Leave Ballyhackamore Home After Six Remarkable Years
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- Written by: Red Keane
- Parent Category: Jazz Ireland Blog
- Category: Jazz News
Read more: Stella Bass Takes Flight with New Big Band Single ‘Time To Fly’
Irish jazz vocalist Stella Bass is set to release her new single Time To Fly on Friday, 28 August 2026, an upbeat original big band number that marks a new chapter in her work as both performer and producer.
Written and arranged by veteran composer and bandleader Dave Gold, Time To Fly has an unusual origin story. The song was written in 2024 following a good-natured bet with a friend who challenged Gold to write and arrange an entire big band song from scratch in just two weeks. Gold, who has more than 60 years in the music business, responded by completing it in just two days.
The resulting song draws on the classic big band sound of the 1940s and '50s and carries an appropriately uplifting message about overcoming fear and self-doubt and taking a leap of faith.
Read more: Stella Bass Takes Flight with New Big Band Single ‘Time To Fly’
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- Written by: Red Keane
- Parent Category: Jazz Ireland Blog
- Category: Jazz News
Read more: Everybody Digs Bill Evans – New Biographical Drama Comes to Irish Cinemas
A new film exploring one of the most significant and turbulent periods in the life of legendary jazz pianist Bill Evans is coming to cinemas across Ireland this September.
*Everybody Digs Bill Evans*, directed by Grant Gee and starring Anders Danielsen Lie as Evans, will be released theatrically in Ireland and the UK on 11 September 2026.
The film takes us to New York in June 1961, when Evans had found what he considered his perfect trio alongside bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. Their celebrated residency at the Village Vanguard culminated in recordings that would produce two landmark live albums, *Sunday at the Village Vanguard* and *Waltz for Debby*.
Just ten days later, LaFaro was killed in a car accident at the age of 25. Devastated by the loss of his musical soulmate, Evans withdrew from performing. *Everybody Digs Bill Evans* explores this period of grief and retreat, as Evans moves between New York and the relative safety of family life while his extraordinary musical voice continues to develop.
Read more: Everybody Digs Bill Evans – New Biographical Drama Comes to Irish Cinemas
