Seim: very special

Galway's fifth jazz festival kicks off this week with a small but seductively-formed programme which puts it on a par with similar pocket festivals in Bray and Sligo. Jazz has always had trouble gaining a foothold in Galway, perhaps due to the strength of the traditional music scene, but thanks to the persistence of the organisers and support from the local authority and the Arts Council, the festival has all the makings of an artistically credible annual event, which could become a destination for music fans from all over Ireland and further afield.

The festival has been programmed for the last two years by the Improvised Music Company, whose benign influence is discernible in the line-up – long on contemporary European music and particularly supportive of the domestic scene, while also offering a taste of American talent.

The festival opens this Thursday night, 19 November, with Norwegian saxophonist and ECM recording artist Trygve Seim, one of the most original voices of the fecund Scandinavian scene. His 10-piece orchestra, which includes leading northern lights clarinetist Håvard Lund and trumpeter Arve Henriksen, will perform in the resonating chamber of St Nicholas church in what promises to be a very special concert.

American singer Rebecca Martin plays a duo concert early on Friday night in the Druid Lane Theatre with her husband, superstar bassist Larry Grenadier, while Dun Laoghaire heavyweights Metier, featuring guitarist Joe O'Callaghan and saxophonist Michael Buckley, play what will be a very intimate set at the Crane Bar later in the evening.

Italian pianist Francesco Turrisi, who has been a dynamic presence on the Irish scene since relocating to Dublin a few years ago, performs with his trio at Druid Lane on Saturday night. Then London-based punk-jazzers Polar Bear, led by the strange and wonderful drummer Seb Rochford and recently nominated for a Mercury prize, play the Crane Bar on Saturday night.

Dublin guitarist Hugh Buckley is joined by two others, American John Stowell and Galway native John Feeley, for a three-guitar performance in Druid Lane on Sunday afternoon that will fuse jazz and classical in a variety of solos, duos and trios, while well-regarded German pianist Julia Hülsmann and her trio take the evening slot. It all finishes up in the Crane Bar on Sunday night with a special Galway ensemble led by Headford-born saxophonist Matt Berrill. There is also a festival club which runs every night from 11pm till late in the Oyster Bar in the Meyrick Hotel, Eyre Square.

The Galway Jazz Festival may not be on the same scale as large festivals like Cork or the North Sea, but perhaps the very human scale and careful artistic focus of so-called boutique festivals is their strength and the shape of things to come.