Carole Nelson Trio
At a glance
About this event
Limerick Jazz proudly presents The Carole Nelson Trio 'One Day in Winter' Album Tour live Upstairs at Dolans, Wednesday, February 21st, @ 8.45pm
The Carole Nelson Trio - 'One Day in Winter'
Carole Nelson - piano; soprano saxophone; text.
Cormac OBrien - bass.
Dominic Mullan: drums
Long at the creative hub of multi-award winning Irish Jazz group Zrazy, Carole Nelson now turns her attention to the exploration of the piano trio form.
'One Day in Winter' is located in a particular space and time.
Living between the River Barrow and the Blackstairs Mountains in Co. Carlow gave Carole both the physical and mental landscape for composition.
The album traces the course of one winter's day, from before dawn to moon rise. In between, the listener is taken on a journey that describes a human landscape as much as a physical one – meditation; playfulness; wonder; contemplation of ageing and death; human warmth; and companionship.
'One Day in Winter' was recorded in two days, often in first takes, capturing a freshness and a feeling of attentive presence.
Throughout, the playing of all three musicians expresses a deep sense of conceptual coherence.
The opening track, 'Beata Viscera', is based on a 12th Century Pérotin composition. After a piano opening, Carole, Cormac and Dominic encounter each other as if from sleep, stretching gently into the music.
'Sun Rising Over The Blackstair' takes an easy stroll through the changes, while 'Low Light Through Bare Trees' brings delicacy, sparseness and a simple rising melodic line to a more introspective piece.
The mood shifts decisively in 'Snow is Falling'. Carole delivers spoken word text, written while snow-bound for ten days during the winter of 2010. Childlike joy at first snowfall, and a reference to Joyce's 'The Dead' show up here, ending with a wild toboggan run of free-flying notes.
Flashes of light on water, glimpses of wildlife, movement on the riverbank are all expressed in the introduction to 'Cold Rushing River'. The seven bar form creates a restless and unceasing flow to the music, which ends by opening out into a wide rolling drum piece.
'The World is Full of Love' sits at the centre of the album, poised and optimistic, before a turn of mood into 'The Sky Darkens'. Inspired by the death of Leonard Cohen, Carole recites her adaptation of the Buddhist meditation on ageing and death. The quiet acceptance of the text contrasts with the stormy anger of the music, which ends with a soprano saxophone piece that follows the flight of a bird into the dying light.
'The Silence in Between' was the last piece recorded, an afterthought at the end of the session, and it serves here to create a needed space after the intensity of the previous piece.
Loosely tethered to a shared time, the playing from all three musicians is freely improvised.
'One Day in Winter' draws towards a close with 'Stories by the Fire'. In which, there is a sense of different voices sharing the same cheerful conversation, until one voice picks up the thread and runs with it, developing the theme.
'Moon Rising Over The Blackstair' closes the album with an elegant and elegiac air.
'One Day in Winter' was recorded at Hellfire Studio and mastered at Masterlabs - Mastering Services and Vinyl Cutting
'One Day in Winter' is available from:
CD Baby - https://store.cdbaby.com/
Jazz Ireland - www.jazzireland.ie/
iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/
Carole Nelson Trio Tour Dates 2018
Carlow Arts Centre: Jan 13
Wexford Arts Centre: Jan 27
Kilkenny Sofa Sessions: Feb 1
Arthurs, Dublin: Feb 15
Courthouse, Tinehely: Feb 17
Upstairs at Dolans, Limerick, Feb 21st
CONTACT
+353 87 912 1314
+353 59 972 5947
facebook.com/
About Carole Nelson
(October, 2017)
Carole is a London-born pianist, saxophonist and composer who has been living in Ireland since 1986.
Her newest project, The Carole Nelson Trio, with Carole on piano, bassist Cormac OBrien and drummer Dominic Mullan, began at the Dublin Trio Trio Trio Piano Festival in 2015.
The Trio’s first album, 'One Day in Winter', was released on November 16th, 2017 with a launch performance at the Dublin Trio Trio Trio Festival.
The album, all original compositions from Carole, follows the course of a winter’s day, inspired by the South County Carlow landscape between the River Barrow and the Blackstairs Mountains, where Carole currently lives. (Carlow, Ireland).
Carole's professional musical life spans four decades. In the late seventies she performed in London with Carole Grimes, Jan Ponsford and Maggie Nichols, all highly regarded UK Jazz and blues singers.
Her own band, The Spoilsports, released an EP in 1980 described by NME as “a cross between Steely Dan and The Joy Of Cooking”
A move to Dublin in 1986 saw Carole participating fully in Irish musical life, as both saxophonist and pianist, performing with Major to Minor, Kieron Halpin, Honor Heffernan and many more.
She formed Zrazy with vocalist Maria Walsh in 1991. Their debut LP 'Give it All Up' won the 1992 Hot Press Magazine Music Critics Best New Band Award.
Carole has since recorded four further albums with the critically-acclaimed and award-winning Zrazy.
Their 1998 album 'Private Wars' won an American GLAMA award (Gay and Lesbian American Music Award) for Best Jazz.
Zrazy performed this year at the Brecon Jazz (official) Festival, the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival and they have toured extensively in North America and Europe.
Carole has arranged original music for the Dublin choir Gloria. The composition 'Beloved' and other arrangements are now performed by choirs worldwide.
Carole's theatre work includes compositions for The Trojan Women at the Peacock; Emma Donoghues' Ladies and Gentlemen at the Project Arts Centre, Dublin; and Suzie Kennedy's As Time Goes By – a celebration of women ageing in style.
Carole cites pianist Bill Evans as a major musical influence. She also enjoys early sacred music; Arvo Part; Bach; and Debussy.
Other interests/obsessions include: growing food, Ecology, Tai Chi, and Zen Buddhism.
“glorious free-spirited jazz” – The Irish Times
Location
4 Dock Rd
Venue details
Dolans pub is the hub of the complex, a traditional Irish bar with Irish music seven nights a week all year round. It has become a cultural attraction and this year received the IMRO award for best Live Music venue in Ireland. The bar is open 12pm daily for lunch and 10am on weekends and public holidays for breakfast.
