Nils Kavanagh

“No Expectations”

(Flaming Sword Records)

Nils Kavanagh – piano, Marcus Baber – double bass, Sam Green – drums

Nils Kavanagh is a young pianist and composer of Irish and Danish heritage.

Born in Sligo, a hotbed of Irish jazz that hosts its own Jazz Festival and Summer School, Kavanagh was drawn to the music through the Sligo Jazz Project and studied with local jazz pianists Kieran Quinn and Mark Murphy. He later studied with Scott Flanigan, an Irish jazz pianist with an international reputation.

In 2022 Kavanagh won the inaugural Young Irish Jazz Musician of the Year Award. He subsequently moved to Cardiff to study Jazz Performance at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, where his piano tutors included Huw Warren and Elliot Galvin.

It was in Cardiff that he formed a trio with bassist Marcus Baber and drummer Sam Green and in 2023 the group undertook a six date tour of Ireland, recording this album in Limerick at the end of the tour. Featuring Kavanagh’s compositions exclusively it’s an outstanding debut and the album has been featured on Soweto Kinch’s late night jazz show ‘Round Midnight on BBC Radio 3.

I heard the track “Hazelwood Home” on Kinch’s programme and was mightily impressed. It certainly whetted my appetite for hearing the album and I’m indebted to Nils for forwarding me a review copy after we met at the recent Wall2Wall Jazz Festival in Abergavenny, where I enjoyed seeing him perform as part of a duo with the Cardiff based saxophonist Joe Northwood.

Kavanagh is still based in Cardiff and divides his time between the UK and Ireland. UK based musicians with whom he has worked include saxophonist Tony Kofi, pianist / vocalist Liane Carroll and drummer / percussionist Paul Clarvis. He also leads an Irish piano trio featuring bassist Derek Whyte and drummer Miles Ronayne.

Kavanagh says of the music on the album;
“The music on the record was inspired by one main question, what is like to ‘dwell’. Being Irish and Danish and having moved to Wales to study my personal idea of dwelling has come to the forefront of my mind in recent years. The album intends to capture different places and feelings that I would associate with home, be it the joy of a peaceful walk in beautiful Hazelwood, the mythical, dramatic landscape of Maeve’s cairn on Knocknarea mountain, or the bittersweet passage of time , inspired by my Danish grandmother’s clock, which still manages to chime every half hour after all these years”.

On Kavanagh’s Bandcamp page the album is described as being;
“rooted in  Nils’ unique upbringing, the north-west of Ireland’s mystic landscapes and joyous fellowship, while also exploring the sense of unity and introspection present in Denmark and broader Scandinavia. Home, joy, family, mythology, folk music, loss and longing are all key themes of the album, with an overarching focus on warm melody and musical storytelling.

Originally released in May 2025 “No Expectations” appears on Flaming Sword Records, a new independent imprint established by Kavanagh and two other Cardiff based musicians, bassist / vocalist Ursula Harrison and saxophonist Em Craig. In 2024 Kavanagh was a finalist in the 2024 BBC Young Jazz Musician competition, the actual award going to his friend Harrison. The other two finalists were trumpeter Klara Devlin and saxophonist George Johnstone and it’s interesting to note that all four finalists have been featured on The Jazzmann web pages over the course of the last year. This site has always maintained a commitment to supporting emerging British and Irish jazz talent.

Turning now to the album which features six Kavanagh originals, plus one composition from Eddie Lee, a bassist and composer from Sligo who was the founder of the Sligo Jazz Project. Lee has been a mentor to Kavanagh and acts as the co-producer (with Kavanagh) of this album.

The Kavanagh trio’s sound is very contemporary and draws upon both his Irish and Danish heritage, combining folk like melodies with a very Scandinavian sense of ‘cool’. This is unmistakably European jazz, informed by the ECM aesthetic, among a variety of other influences.

It’s a strikingly mature debut, there’s nothing brash or hurried about the young trio’s playing. Kavanagh and his colleagues give the compositions room to breathe and grow and the interplay between the three instruments is highly developed and richly detailed, speaking of a musical wisdom beyond the trio members’ tender years. It’s a quality that’s enhanced by the production, with engineers Sean Harold, Dave O’Brien and Andrew Lawson, the latter at Fieldgate Studio in Cardiff where the album was mixed and mastered, all deserving credit.

The album commences with the title track, an immediate introduction to the trio’s delicate strengths. A brief solo piano introduction is followed by a gently melodic passage of subtle trio interplay, with Green’s deft and subtly detailed brushwork a particular highlight. Later the music becomes more forceful with the introduction of a muscular E.S.T. style groove, with Kavanagh’s own playing becoming more forceful and percussive, with Baber and the busy Green responding accordingly. Kavanagh’s subsequent piano solo is a joyous outpouring of ideas, building to a peak before the piece ends quietly, much in the manner that it began. An excellent start.

 “For Seán” is a jazz waltz dedicated to the memory of Kavanagh’s paternal grandfather, who passed away during the period in which the material for the album was being written. Strong melodies combine with expansive piano soloing and further sharply focussed trio interplay, with Baber’s bass temporarily coming to the fore. As a composition it’s both ambitious and sophisticated, but the sentiments behind it remain obvious.

The waltz theme continues with Eddie Lee’s “Waltz for Carole”, a composition that the young trio make their own with a truly beautiful performance, typically unhurried and with the focus again on both melody and fine detail. Kavanagh’s thoughtful piano meditations are enhanced by a delicately nuanced performance by Green, deploying what sounds like a combination of brushes and mallets, and possibly even bare hands.

The eight minute “Queen Maeve’s Grave” takes its inspiration from Irish landscape and mythology and features an opening melody informed by traditional Irish folk music. The folk influence remains implicit throughout but acts as a springboard for jazz improvisation, with Kavanagh stretching out forcefully and at length.  Following a dazzling solo from Kavanagh, underscored by busy bass and bustling drums, there’s a change of pace with a gentler passage of unaccompanied piano, presumably a lament for the titular Queen Maeve.  Bass and drums eventually return, subtly at first , before the trio conclude with a turbulent and spectacular flourish. With its skilled use of contrasting dynamics this is the kind of performance that has prompted favourable comparisons with the work of Fergus McCreadie, the Scottish pianist and composer who also takes the folk music of his native land as a source of inspiration for original composition.

Kavanagh turns to his Danish heritage for the next piece. “Bornholmerur (Grandfather Clock)”  is named for the titular timepiece in his maternal grandparents’ home in Denmark. It deploys a chiming two note melody, a simple but evocative device enhanced by another finely nuanced percussive performance by the excellent Green. Baber’s bass subsequently takes the melodic lead, albeit very briefly. There are no solos as such, this piece is primarily about creating an atmosphere, something that it does very successfully in yet another demonstration of the trio’s admirable maturity.

Similar qualities inform the ballad “Old House on the Hill”, a similarly evocative composition with a distinct cinematic quality. Evolving slowly and organically over the course of its five minute plus duration it’s a beautifully calibrated trio performance with drummer Green again in the role of colourist, bringing the kind of qualities associated with Paul Motian and Jarle Vespestad to his performance.

Finally we hear “Hazelwood Home”, the track that was featured by Soweto Kinch. Centred around Baber’s bass pedal note this is the most immediately accessible track on the album and has already been released as a single. Kavanagh develops the simple but infectious melody in interesting ways, ably supported as ever, by Baber and Green, as the music gathers momentum, ramping up the tension and eventually releasing it.

“No Expectations” is the latest in a series of exceptional debut albums in the piano trio format featuring pianists schooled in Cardiff’s musical educational establishments. It follows Eddie Gripper’s “Home” (2023) and Ross Hicks’  “Three Elms” (2024), both of which are reviewed elsewhere on The Jazzmann. It deserves to make a similar impact on the UK jazz scene and to establish Kavanagh as a rising star and a musical force to be reckoned with. This album is an impressive introduction to his talents and there is an obvious potential for so much more to come.

Audiences will be able to catch the Nils Kavanagh Trio on tour in Ireland and Wales during October and November 2025 with dates as follows;

Canolfan Ucheldre Centre, Holyhead, Wales, on 26 October;

Westport Jazz Club at the Clew Bay Hotel on 29 October;

Arthur’s Blues and Jazz Club, Dublin, on 30 October; 

Scott’s Jazz Club, Belfast, on 31 October;

Bennigan’s Bar, Derry, on 1 November;

Dolan’s, Limerick, on 2 November;

Peppers, Fishguard, Wales on 7 November;

Hawk’s Well Theatre, Sligo, on 18 November. 

“No Expectations” is available via Kavanagh’s Bandcamp page here;
https://nilskavanagh.bandcamp.com/music

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