At the home of the Cork Jazz Festival, the Metropole Hotel, they are proud of their jazz heritage  

As the old saying goes, ‘mighty oaks from little acorns grow’... and the Cork Jazz Festival which spans a whole city and brings over 100,000 people to all manner of pubs, bars and venues started with two people trying to solve a challenge.

Roger Russell, the general manager of The Metropole Hotel, explains how his predecessors got the ball rolling for the busiest weekend in Cork.

“It was founded here in 1978, by Douglas Vance, the general manager at the time, and Jim Mountjoy, the sales and marketing manager.

“There had been a bridge tournament booked that got cancelled, and suddenly there was a big gap that they needed to fill. They put their heads together and came up with a jazz festival. It’s grown from those two people to what it is today.

“Working here now, we are immensely proud of our history with the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival. The part we play in it is still important to us. We are the home of the festival and we are always keen to make sure we keep our standard up.

“After each festival, we sit down and do a debrief. No matter how well it goes we wonder ‘How we can do it better?’ Everything changes so quickly that you need to always be assessing how to keep growing.”

The festival club that runs in The Metropole is a legendary part of the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival now, with this year’s programme having over 50 different concerts played over four days in five different parts of the hotel. Roger knows just how much effort the entire staff put into making the Festival Club run smoothly.

“Everyone who works here looks forward it to it rolling around every year. There’s a lot of excitement in the build-up to the festival, and then our delivery of it. Creating an atmosphere for people coming into The Metropole. It’s something that is part of the DNA of the hotel, in a way it’s the most important weekend of the year for the hotel, but it doesn’t define us. ”

The Metropole take pride in not just putting on the service, but also programming the music, Roger finds a balance between the different rooms they use. “The Ballroom is what I’d call concert music. It’s a standing event, the room is bouncing, It’s foot-stomping stuff, and it goes back to the roots of jazz. We have a rule of thumb, that we don’t book bands that play jazz, we book jazz bands! The Douglas Vance room is smaller and more intimate, there are tables for people to be able to be immersed in the jazz music if they want, but there’s still room to move around too. It’s more like a jazz club. Then downstairs is more about the smaller two- or three-piece acts. While a lot of the acts upstairs might be coming in from the UK, Netherlands, America etc, it’s really important to us for Cork people to get in to play as well.”

Indeed, The Cork Opera House’s Jazz Artist in Residence, Laoise Leahy, credits the Metropole Festival Club with helping her find her feet as a singer. “I first sang there with the Cork School of Music Jazz Big Band as a very young singer and it is a core memory, feeling like I was at the centre of the festival. It was very exciting and such a buzz seeing the variety of acts and artists, I went back every year following that experience.

“I think when I started taking part in the artist’s after-hours jam sessions, it really hit me. Seeing international visiting artists playing and collaborating; having the opportunity to play with them and see the local musicians stretched and challenged. It was a special thing, a very exciting time and certainly contributed to my hunger to keep exploring the art of improvisation as a universal musical language. The buzz was like nothing else those nights! When I started to perform with my own bands there it certainly felt like a rite of passage knowing the evolving history in the club.”

The different spaces in the hotel being used as multiple venues is something Laoise really values. “I adore the immersive aspect of the Jazz Festival Club in The Metropole, there is a variety of vibes you can be exposed to as you wander through and see what hits for you. There has always been a hugely eclectic choice in the programming. Bigger bands with high energy in the ballroom, interspersed with quieter listening spaces, jam sessions and lounge sessions showcasing a wide variety of music. Over the years I have stumbled across many acts in the club I would never have heard otherwise, it gives you a sense of choice and freedom to have a taste of everything along the way.”

Roger mentioned just some of the acts on this year’s schedule. “We have some artists returning that we have year after year, such as Pixie & The Gypsies, they are phenomenal; The New York Brass Band and Lamorette, it’s always great to have them back; and of course the local musicians who play jazz in Cork all year round like Gary Baus, Harry Connolly and Paul Dunlea. They are all brilliant. This year we have an artist we’ve never had before, called Judi Jackson. She was voted the 2020 Jazz FM singer of the year. She’s been on ‘Later With Jools Holland’, she sells out Ronnie Scotts in London, and she plays all over the world at different jazz festivals. I’m very excited to hear her in our ballroom.”

The Metropole Hotel’s jazz music programme starts at 3pm on Friday, and 1pm on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. The full listings can be found at www.themetropolehotel.ie or their social media.