Live Reviews

THE IRISH TIMES Monday, February 13, 2006

Zrazy, Mermaid Arts Centre, Bray

SIOBHAN LONG

One time hobo musicians (by their own admission), and now an ineffably cool jazz duo, Zrazy's natural home should surely be Manhattan's Blue Note, rather than Bray's (admittedly divine) Mermaid Theatre. Jazz lines intersect with funk, and the odd stray samba rhythms, blissfully under the influence of Maria Walsh and Carole Nelson.

The electrical current that passes tangibly between this duo who formed Zrazy as far back as 1992, suggests a collaboration that still thrives on a delicious frisson of delight in one another's company. Their music is just about as languid as a drenched afternoon on the bayou, and yet it's tethered to neither geography nor history. In fact, a repertoire that swings from the romance of I Know When You Are Near to the melodrama of Private Wars to and the quotidian frustrations of Parking Mad suggests that two times a seven year itch might be no bad thing for any relationship, whether personal or professional.

Hammocked by the superb drums of Kevin Brady and the pin-pricked bass lines of Andrew Csibi, Walsh and Nelson took an indolent stroll through their back catalogue and lured their audience into a world where emotions stray ever skywards, only to be finally restrained by the pair's shared delight in pulling back from the precipice with milliseconds to spare.

And so, Five Birds celebrates the summer solstice with childlike wonder, Dream On delights in the thrill of sexual diversity and Ecstasy captures the indelible memories that characterise an intimate relationship infinitely better than any power ballad ever could. Even Cole Porter's Let's Fall In Love and a vastly re-worked take on Billie Holiday's You Go To My Head become the sole property of Zrazy for a brief interlude.

Nelson' piano limes are as loose-limbed as a Sunday afternoon sofa-fest, and Walsh's vocals nestle into them, drenched in a familiarity and ease born of their years together. If eardrums had grey matter, Zrazy's music would be enough of an aural challenge to merit post-gig graduation for their punters. Instead though, most of us just left with our hips swivelling and brainwaves firing, hungry for more.

Grainne Farren, Sunday Independent Jazz Correspondent, 2001

ZRAZY AND ALL THAT HOME-GROWN JAZZ

With all the celebrities coming and going these days, we are in danger of forgetting that we have plenty of good home-grown jazz musicians on our own doorstep.

Maria Walsh (vocals) and Carole Nelson (alto and soprano saxes) have been playing high-quality pop music under the name Zrazy for several years. A few months ago they added a rhythm section and re-launched themselves as a jazz quintet. Last Thursday night in Renards, Justin Carroll (piano), Tony Steel (bass) and Kieran Phillips (drums) provided just the right kind of relaxed rhythmic support for the singer and sax player.

Maria Walsh has a smooth flexible voice, impeccable diction and spot-on timing. Most of the songs she sang were originals; she wrote the words, Carole Nelson the music. The quirky, imaginative lyrics of numbers like "I Just Like to Drink Alone", "Walking on Air" and "Remember That You Did It First with Me" put them a cut above the general run of present-day songs.

Carole Nelson was sounding more robust and extrovert than before, especially in the instrumental numbers, Horace Silver’s "Song For My Father" and the bouncy "Debra Gets The Blues". She is at her best on alto sax, with a touch of Lou Donaldson in her tone and phrasing, but her improvisations still err on the side of caution.

Zrazy can be heard on their recent CD "Private Wars" (ALFI 1999).