If your image of a jazz session is one of goateed middle-aged men, all listening intently to complex, impenetrable music with modal scales and syncopated rhythms, then it’s time to think again. A good start would be to pop along to the Boom Boom Room when these guys are next in action. Tommy Halferty’s guitar playing is mesmerising, while the rhythm section of Ronan and Conor Guilfoyle (on bass and drums respectively) provide the perfect foil to his impressive fret-work. Performing original pieces from a soon-to-be released album along with interpretations of classic tunes from Ellington et al, this was engrossing stuff from start to finish.
This relatively unheralded venue has the perfect atmosphere for a gig like this while the near-capacity crowd were astonishingly young and terminally hip (must’ve been the Kelly/Dineen effect) On the way out, mind, I swear I heard one guy say, “I much prefer the diatonic stuff.”