American pianist George Colligan's Live In Arkiow represents that formerly belittled jazz encounter, the star soloist with the local rhythm section – but this 2018 show from Ireland's Bray Jazz Festival could hardly affirm jazz's now comprehensive internationalism better, being a collaboration with the pianist's long-time musical friend Darren Beckett (a Belfast-born New York/Brighton resident) and the widely-experienced Dublin bassist David Redmond. The programme splices three good Colligan originals with imports from Freddie Hubbard, Cole Porter and Brazilian composer Carlos Lyra. Colligan opens Hubbard's ‘Up Jumped Spring’ as an unaccompanied daydream the song stealthily edges into, before Beckett's brushes usher in its bright waltz, and the pianist takes off on a long solo of typical storytelling subtlety. His ‘Lost on Fourth Avenue’ opens in graceful solo ripples tightening into a patiently-accumulated improvisation fuelled by what sounds like an emerging sense of his own freedom in this band. A long, flooding piano intro to ‘Again With Attitude’ sets up a hustling Tyneresque chord-rocking, hard-trilling groove; Cole Porter's ‘What Is This Thing Called Love’ is an exquisite piece of standard-reclamation by a trio deep inside the song; Carlos Lyra's ‘The Influence of Jazz’ juggles bossa, salsa and Redmond's springy inventiveness; and Colligan's ‘Usain’ is a fittingly storming uptempo postbop sprint. Darren Beckett's recorded drum sound is a shade distant at times, but it's easy to hear why George Colligan's liner note cherishes this gig as ‘a magical night’.