Jay Wilson

I’ve been a big fan of Kirk Franklin ever since my sister lived in Philadelphia for a year back in ‘98/’99. His gospel choir compositions are certainly among the absolute best and the choirs and bands he has worked with over the years have been eye-wateringly groovy. At E ...

Found this site where you can print blank music paper for free. It’s very fully customisable – you can have any clef or tab, you can even print a key signature and a time signature if you want. Very handy. Posted in links

Imagine confining yourself to a single letter. “Platoon” and “Peter Pan” in a month watching only films starting with “P”. Cornflakes and carrot-cake on a day devoted to food beginning with “C”. For their wint ...

Last Wednesday Hamlet and I played our first gig together in ages. He’s been busy at work (and honing his stand-up comedy skills) and I’ve been teaching full-time in primary schools. It was great to play his songs again and dust off the keyboard. I’ ...

Yesterday I was teaching classes in Our Lady of Victories Infant School in Ballymun. We had been doing all kinds of stories and music about bears over the past few weeks ...

Found this article from The New Yorker about the move in pop music away from the swing groove of hip-hop to a more European style of dance music – a more straight beat. Jen and I were just last night listening to the Jay-Z track featuring Rihanna mentioned in the article, “Run This Town”. Sas ...

I’m just back from my Friday ‘Magic of Music‘ school. It’s the mid-term break next week and all the kids had dressed up for Halloween. There are twelve classes in the infant school and this morning they all gathered in the assembly hall. Some of the costumes were fantastic! A few ...

Tommy Tiernan did a Hotpress Q&A at Electric Picnic – watch it here on the Hotpress website. That may be enough to make you wonder what the fuss is about. Fuss that has surfaced two weeks after the event. ...

my songs, music and ideas

I found this site via @laputean on Twitter. It’s by a Dutch guy called Paul van Coeverden and, being entirely based in Flash, doesn’t need a lot of computer power. He ...

Barry Rycraft (bass), Satya Darcy (drums) and Jay Wilson (piano) - photo by Mildred Hernandez Posted in what I'm up to

My jazz trio is doing its second gig tonight at Anseo on Camden Street in Dublin. We’ve been thinking of a name and have paused for a little while on ‘Rothko Smile’, inspired by the famous painter. His ...