Ronan Guilfoyle’s Bemusement Arcade, At Swing, Two Birds, Livia ***1/2

Jaunty lennies from literary heaven

Flann O’Brien aka Myles na gCopaleen aka Brian O’Nolan aka Brian Ó Nualláin inspired Django Bates on the zany Music from The Third Policeman (Ah Um, 1990).

“That is a great curiosity, a very difficult piece of puzzledom, a snorter.” Sergeant Pluck in The Third Policeman

It was a very decent stab. And Bates’ music has been covered by others since as in the video above.

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But now even closer to the source – but taking a different style musically to pay homage (and using fewer if any borrowings from Irish traditional music) – this is from an Irish band at play doffing the cap to one of the great geniuses of Irish literature, the title punning on 1939 post-modernist classic the rife with chortles hilarious At Swim-Two-Birds.

It’s the at one period MBASE-influenced Irish bassist Ronan Guilfoyle who has written the tunes here in the band Bemusement Arcade that he’s in with his son guitarist Chris Guilfoyle, the London saxist Sam Norris and the Brighton based Northern Irishman drummer Darren Beckett known for his work with Brandon Flowers of the Killers and Madeleine Peyroux.

I’m all for literary inspired albums even when the linking is highly tenuous. I think with O’Brien the soundtrack needs to be trad Irish and specifically “diddily eidily” at that if you want complete authenticity in the pursuit of capturing the madcap humour O’Brien did so well especially in the very funny if deliberately grandiose old Gaelic historical odes. These Finn McCool and Mad King Sweeney escapades are a diverting part of a sub plot storyline of At Swim-Two-Birds that revels in mischievous pastiche and dazzling literary ventriloquism on O’Brien’s part.

But it’s always better isn’t it being metaphorical and going with a thematic conceit rather than more literal verisimilitude. It’s jazz after all, nothing is quite as it seems. And this isn’t programme music in any sense.

I ended up after listening here reading some lines cut from the manuscript of At Swim-Two-Birds – even O’Brien’s out-takes are worth reading:

‘Some of the stuff I’ve heard in my time, said Shanahan, is no joke to play for the man that has two hands. It was stuff of the best make I don’t doubt, classical tack and all the rest of it, but by God it gave me a pain in my bandbox. It hurt my head far worse than a pint of whiskey.’

Flann O’Brien

At Swing, Two Birds doesn’t give me a pain in the bandbox or anywhere at all let alone hangxiety – and I could listen to out takes happily enough if there are any just as much.

And certainly in the literary postmodern universe of Flann O’Brien that much used and abused term these days “meta” (he was ahead of his time in that but his meaning would have been different) is important given the way he slips in and out of an authorial voice like putting on a big coat and taking it off again rhetorically.

A stylist like James Joyce and Samuel Beckett with a sense of humour akin to Spike Milligan’s what’s here isn’t comedic at all.

But what is an active ingredient on these seven tracks is Tristano inspired Cool School jazz ostensibly – there’s even a tune called ‘Lenniesphere’ to make this link obvious even if the penny hasn’t yet plunked itself down.

There’s plenty of strong soloing from Norris whose sound is a little Lee Konitz-like in places.

Norris released the credible Small Things Evolved Slowly last year which featured Jay Verma on piano who is impressive on the new Donovan Haffner album Alleviate.

The jauntiness you get in an O’Brien work and it’s always there – for me the funniest of all his books is The Dalkey Archive featuring fake philosopher De Selby – is definitely caught on the title track.

But really the inspiration – just as the upcoming Patrick Zimmerli William Blake homage Songs of Innocence written about in marlbank recently – is just a hook to hang the album on and draw literary fans everywhere closer to the flame. Job done.

Irish purple patch continues

It’s been a good year for Irish jazz so far with strong albums by Tom Caraher, Michael Buckley and Organ Freeman. This is up there with the best (the Buckley album Ebb and Flow is my overall pick among these contenders).

Guilfoyle hasn’t really ever issued an album that has moved him up the radar as a recording artist of massive prominence at least that is enough to rival his position as a leading educator and jazz thinker in Ireland.

This release might do that a bit more than hitherto. Son Chris on guitar is quite Phil Robson-like (a good thing) and shares lead soloing duties with Norris.

Beckett, D. not S., was a strong factor in the success of George Colligan’s Live in Arklow (Ubuntu, 2020) and his role here too is significant. You need a drummer with such a strong technique to be fit for all the twists and turns a body of music such as this demands. The main bass solo is on the track called ‘Langorous’ and reveals Guilfoyle Senior limber and particularly on this track effortlessly Dave Holland-like.

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