Blind Date Jazz: Episode 4

About this event

IMC’s Blind Date Jazz - A New Limited Series

Episode 4: Hugh Buckley + Derek Whyte
Sunday 7th March, 8pm

Streaming on Youtube or Facebook, subscribe to be notified.

Musicians often describe improvising with each other as having a conversation - listening, throwing out ideas, responding and developing on each other’s musical thoughts, all in real time.

Since the start of the pandemic we’ve all had less opportunity to listen and hear - feeling either isolated from other people, or besieged by a tsunami of digital content, impossible to focus and listen.

IMC’s new limited series Blind Date Jazz brings listening and creative improvisation into focus, with some of Ireland’s leading improvisers coming into the studio to create an exciting, new, musical conversation.

The twist?

Neither musician has any idea who they are playing with. Unknown, unrehearsed, unplanned and unseen. Not even aware what the other instrument is. In other words, completely blind.

For episode 4 of Blind Date Jazz, we paired up guitarist Hugh Buckley with bassist Derek Whyte.

Hugh Buckley is a Dublin born and based, self-taught guitarist, composer, arranger, educator and author. He has performed with a wide array of internationally acclaimed artists including James Williams, Peter Bernstein, Ronnie Drew and Van Morrison. He has released a number of acclaimed albums as a leader, including, “Yes Indeed”, “Spirit Level” and “Sketches of Now”, besides featuring on numerous recordings as a sideman.

Bassist Derek Whyte is involved in many of the Dublin Jazz scene's more experimental Jazz groups, including ReDiviDeR, Fuzzy Logic and The Troupe, and plays consistently with leading jazz musicians across Ireland and in the U.K. Derek also lectures in ensembles, rhythm, transcription and instrumental skills at Dublin City University’s Centre for Jazz Performance.

So, join us on this journey, as we introduce the two performers, shepherding them into the studio while completely hiding from each other’s sight. A curtain bisects the studio, obscuring the artists from one another.

They begin to play, exchanging musical thoughts, sentences, developing a theme and interacting only through the music, an open mind and completely blind. Our studio curtain drops at a certain point and they come face to face with their new improvising partner. Does the musical conversation change?

Blind Date Jazz is an exploration in listening, intuition, skill and spontaneity, all unique hallmarks of the improvising artist.

Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter to let us know what you think, and tune in each Sunday evening on Facebook, Youtube or IGTV to listen in to their musical conversation.

“Jazz music is the power of now. There is no script. It’s conversation.”

- Wynton Marsalis