Some countries have reacted in different ways to the Pandemic. Banning live music is not the right answer. But it is what it is on the island of Ireland and we are stuck with the situation. Within music in specialist jazz communities, because improvisation through composition, re-creation and interpretation in the moment is crucial and the whole point, only online live-as-live ''real time'' streams come close to capturing the essence of jazz and whether we like it or not online gigs currently seize the day in the face of such banning in both the Republic and in the north. It's all that we have until venues open up again.

Jazz festivals that usually take place at this time of year and that do not embrace an online version, including conspicuously by its absence online in 2020 the Guinness Cork Jazz Festival, Ireland's biggest and most prestigious international festival down the decades, are only underlining the fact that they are not taking place during the Pandemic.

Given this, and the fact that both the Sligo jazz project festival and summer school – we may as well think of it going forward as Ireland's number 1 jazz festival, certainly in terms of a more organic, holistic approach and overall sheer excellence – and the Limerick jazz festival, a close no. 2, impressively mounted festivals this year against the odds on much more limited resources by reacting and doubling down to accept the online challenge, Cork's status as Ireland's leading jazz festival is fast slipping. Not having an online festival in 2020 makes that observation more pronounced. Cork is not alone, however, and the Galway jazz festival this year does not seem to have an obvious online presence either if at all.

Looking ahead, the 2021 iteration of Belfast's Brilliant Corners this side of St Patrick's day may have to embrace online more fully than ever before because live music is currently banned with no word of its reinstatement any day soon either there or on the shut down Dublin jazz scene, Ireland's biggest. Even Derry jazz as far ahead as May 2021 (and which quick to react ran an online festival during Lockdown this year) may have to scale back physical events if even a partial ban is still a factor.

Listen to an example of what we are missing live, top, l-r, the Irish-American piano trio of George Colligan (United States of America), Dave Redmond (Republic of Ireland) and Darren Beckett (Northern Ireland) whose superb Live in Arklow was released in the spring and remains the marlbank no. 1 jazz album pick in 2020 from among albums released for the first time that emanate from Ireland. Photo: via Ubuntu.