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"BackStage" gives
you the background and expertise that makes the music and
dance Cityfolk presents come alive in so many dimensions --
historical, societal, musical, personal and emotional. Look
for new BackStages by music expert and writer Jon Hartley
Fox two appear about two weeks before each concert. Programs
are not created for club shows.
Jon Hartley Fox, a Dayton native now living in California,
has finished his first book, King
of the Queen City: The Story of King Records (Music in American
Life), and has been writing about music, pop
culture and the arts for over thirty years.
 November
7, 2009
The StepCrew
Leave it to our Canadian neighbors to come up with such
a brilliantly practical, economic, entertaining and self-sufficient
idea—step dancers who provide their own musical accompaniment
by fiddling while they dance. Think about it for a minute;
there’s Natalie MacMaster, Donnell Leahy and his several
performing siblings, April Verch, Jon Pilatzke, Stephanie
Cadman, Richard Wood, Dan Stacey and a host of lesser-known
dancing fiddlers, many of them from one place—the Ottawa
Valley of Canada.
Whatever the reason for this geographic concentration of
musical multi-taskers, the next logical step in the evolution
of step-dancing fiddlers is an ensemble full of them. That
would be the StepCrew, a new 12-person Canadian-American ensemble
that includes seven dancers (three of whom also play fiddle),
a vocalist and a four-person band. The Calgary Herald
was an early supporter of the StepCrew, describing a concert
by the group as “sizzling, sensational, [and] definitely
a must see event.”
Sometimes described as a cross between Riverdance
and Tap Dogs, the StepCrew consists of dancers Nathan
Pilatzke, Cara Butler, Joe Dwyer and Sarah Uddin; fiddling
dancers Jon Pilatzke, Stephanie Cadman and Dan Stacey; vocalist
Courtney Farquhar, a veteran of Riverdance; and four backing
musicians playing guitar, bass, keyboards and drums. The group
members have vast collective experience, appearing with such
bands and shows as the Chieftains, Riverdance, Bowfire,
Solas, Cherish the Ladies and more.
The group members’ busy schedules can make logistics
tricky, but according to group founder Jon Pilatzke, everything
else has gone smoothly for StepCrew. “The thing that
makes it all easy is that there are seven dancers in the show,
and we are all connected. We grew up together or were working
together on projects over the years,” says Pilatzke.
“We talked, joked about it, ‘One day we should
do this.’ And then we decided to hunker down and actually
do it. We’re all friends. We all love dancing together.
It’s really just based on a bunch of friends.”
Brothers Jon and Nathan Pilatzke have astounded
audiences around the world with their dynamic and highly athletic
take on Ottawa Valley step dancing. The brothers started step
dancing before they started school and Jon (who’s one
year younger than Nathan) began fiddling at age nine. The
Pilatzkes started working with the Chieftains in 2002 and
have toured annually since then with the legendary band, performing
on four continents.
Jon and Nathan (aka Crazylegs) earned a Gemini Award (the
Canadian equivalent of the Emmy) in 2005 for Best Performance
in a Variety Program for their contributions to The Chieftains
in Canada. When not working with the StepCrew, the Pilatzke
brothers work with Cara Butler and harpist Triona Mitchell
in an Irish/Canadian traditional music and dance project called
Tread. The Pilatzke brothers also perform and record with
an ensemble called Quagmyre, which includes Cara Butler, Ryan
McLamon, Jef McLamon and Jon McCann. Jon Pilatzke is also
a member of Bowfire, a genre-bending, fiddle-centric Canadian
ensemble best known for a popular PBS special.
Cara Butler is one of the best-known Irish
dancers in the U.S. A native of Long Island, New York, Butler
began dancing at a young age, studying with Donny Golden,
a renowned Brooklyn-based Irish dance master who received
a National Heritage Fellowship in 1995. Butler was a highly
successful competitive step dancer, winning six national titles.
She has toured with the Chieftains since 1992 and has also
worked with such bands as Cherish the Ladies, Solas and Green
Fields of America.
Butler was a principal dancer in Dancing on Dangerous
Ground, a show created by her sister Jean Butler, the
co-creator of Riverdance. Longtime TV viewers with
good memories might recognize Butler from an award-winning
commercial she did several years ago for Folgers coffee (the
commercial was called “A Dancer’s Morning,”
and no, I didn’t know commercials had titles either).
Dancer, fiddler, actress, singer and choreographer Stephanie
Cadman has combined her love of Irish fiddling, dance
and theater into a varied and impressive career. She was the
top female solo tap dancer at the 1998 World Tap Dance Championships
and has won three Canadian step dancing titles. Cadman was
a member of Bowfire and has worked in such productions as
Classically Celtic, Celtic Blaze, Needfire and Canada
Rocks.
Cadman has also worked extensively in classical music, appearing
as dance soloist and Celtic fiddler with the National Symphony
Orchestra at Kennedy Center, the National Arts Centre Orchestra,
and the Edmonton, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Seattle and Portland
symphonies. Cadman has recorded one CD, Celtic Blaze.
Another native of the Ottawa Valley in Ontario, fiddler
and step dancer Dan Stacey has worked with
a number of prominent bands, including Altan, Cherish the
Ladies and Dervish. He now plays with Seven Nations, a Florida-based
“bagpipe rock” band. Stacey has appeared on several
albums by Seven Nations, including And Now It’s
Come to This, The Factory, The Pictou Sessions and Thanks
for Waiting.
Joe Dwyer and choreographer Sarah
Uddin round out the terpsichorean troupe. A native
of Brooklyn, New York, Joe Dwyer has won several regional
and national titles and placed seventh in the World Championships
of Irish Dancing. He started step dancing at the age of six
and soon became a protégé of dance master Donny
Golden. Dwyer has worked with Cherish the Ladies and has twice
performed at the White House.
Sarah Uddin is the youngest of the StepCrew dancers, but
she’s already quite experienced in both dance and choreography,
and has won awards for both. Uddin has trained in Ottawa Valley
step dancing, tap, ballet, jazz and hip hop and performed
at the International Children’s Festival in China. She’s
done much of the choreography for the StepCrew.
The highly energetic dancing by the StepCrew hoofers is
a blending of three distinct dance traditions from three different
cultures: Irish step dancing, American tap and Ottawa Valley
step dancing.
It’s been said of Irish step dancing that “a
good dancer could dance on a silver tray, and a really excellent
dancer could dance on a sixpence.” As that might suggest,
Irish step dancing is about controlled abandon, a balance
of passion and precision. This style of dancing is characterized
by “low to the ground” footwork, a rigid upper
body, minimal arm movement and an impassive facial expression.
The percussive footwork is the focus, and the dancing is generally,
though not always, done to traditional fiddle and pipes tunes.
Traditional Irish dancing was just one element of Irish
life that was suppressed almost to the point of extinction
by the tandem forces of the English crown and the Roman Catholic
Church. But dancing began making a comeback in the 19th century,
in part because of the efforts of dancing masters, itinerant
dance teachers who traveled from village to village in Ireland.
Irish step dancing was also spread throughout the world, particularly
to the U.S., Canada and Australia, by the millions who left
the country during the Irish Diaspora. The style received
a huge boost in the 1990s with the success of the hit theatrical
show Riverdance, created by Jean Butler and Michael
Flatley.
Tap dancing, a highly percussive style that developed in
the American south in the 1800s, is a fusion of English, Irish,
African and West Indian forms. From Bill “Bojangles”
Robinson in the 1920s and 1930s to Savion Glover today, tap
has long been part of mainstream popular culture in the U.S.,
from the minstrel shows through vaudeville and into the movies
and television, through the works of such well known dancers
as Sammy Davis, Jr., Fred Astaire, Honi Coles, Gregory Hines,
Ann Miller, Bunny Briggs and the amazing one-legged tap dancer
Clayton “Peg Leg” Bates.
The style of step dancing that developed in the Ottawa Valley—an
area in Canada encompassing part of eastern Ontario and a
bit of Quebec—is much more exuberant than the Irish,
Cape Breton or French Canadian variants and is characterized
by free arm movement, steps done high off the floor and an
attitude of what one writer has called “constant aggressiveness.”
“Ours is more free form, just more to the music—whatever
comes natural,” says Jon Pilatzke of the Ottawa Valley
style. The best dancers appear to have legs made of rubber.
The Ottawa Valley is one of North America’s great
(if largely unheralded) musical melting pots. The region’s
cultural traditions are a blend of Irish, Scottish, French,
German, English and Polish influences, brought to the area
by immigrants from those countries drawn first by the timber
industry and later by the rich farmland. The music and dance
that developed in the area is distinctive and unique and perfectly
suited to this multi-talented ensemble.
“All of us have spent a lot of time with bands,”
says Jon Pilatzke, expressing a sentiment shared by his partners
in the StepCrew. “It’s great to have our own show.
We’re trying to get our style seen, and we’re
starting to have our talent recognized. I’m glad we’ve
done it. We’re definitely hoping to increase [our touring]
and never go home again—as long as our legs hold out.”
back to top
 November
12, 2009
Son de Madera
“La Bamba” is surely one of the most familiar
songs in the Western world. In addition to hit recordings
of the songs by Richie Valens in 1958 and Los Lobos in 1987,
“La Bamba” has been recorded by a wide range of
artists that includes Harry Belafonte, Selena, Neil Diamond,
Willie Bobo, the Wiggles, Rory Gallagher, the Royal Philharmonic
Orchestra and the New Riders of the Purple Sage. The song
has been played an estimated 17.8 million times by garage
bands in the United States alone.
What people may not know about “La Bamba” is
that it’s not a 1950s rock song at all, but is instead
a venerable old folk song from the Mexican state of Veracruz,
one that was often played at weddings and other community
celebrations called fandangos. The song is the most
famous example of the regional Mexican style of music known
as son jarocho, a traditionally based body of music
and dance that was disseminated throughout Mexico (and beyond)
by radio, records and movies in the 1930s and 1940s. The most
important, popular and influential son jarocho ensemble from
this era was the Conjunto Medellin de Lino Chavez.
As son jarocho (son, literally “sound,”
is a regional style of Mexican music and dance that’s
usually in 6/8 time; jarocho is a colloquial term
of unclear origin used to refer to the people of the Veracruz
region) gained national popularity, however, the music became
smoother, blander, less rural and less authentic. By the closing
years of the century, son jarocho was ripe for rediscovery
and revival.
Enter Son de Madera, an ensemble founded in 1992 and based
in Xalapa, Veracruz. Son de Madera is one of the foremost
bands in the ongoing revival and revitalization of son
jarocho, combining tradition and innovation in a unique,
distinctive fashion that is shaping the modern evolution of
this traditional music. The Los Angeles Times noted
this aspect of the band in a performance review: “The
band takes the folk music it cherishes and brings it into
the present, making it sound fresh, modern and fully its own.”
Son de Madera (“Sound of Wood”) is led by musical
director Ramón Gutierrez Hernández (violin,
guitarra de son, cinco zapotero, vocals and zapateado
dancing). He’s joined in the group by Tereso Vega Hernández
(jarana, vocals), Rubí Oseguera (zapateado
dancing) and Juán Perez (electric bass). Beginning
in 1997, the band has recorded four albums: Son de Madera,
Raíces, Las Orquestas Del Dia and Son de Mi
Tierra, released earlier this year by Smithsonian Folkways.
In addition to working throughout Mexico and the U.S., Son
de Madera has performed in Canada, the Netherlands, Spain,
Germany and Morocco.
Son de Madera has its roots in a group called Mono Blanco
(White Monkey), formed in 1977 by two of Ramón Gutierrez’
older brothers. Mono Blanco was one of the first and most
influential “folk revivalist” bands in Mexico
and the standard bearers for what was called the Movimiento
Jaranero.
Part of an international “folk revival” movement
that arose in the first couple of decades after the end of
World War II, Mono Blanco looked back to the rural roots of
son jarocho and shed much of the music’s acquired
slickness while collaborating with such older, “rediscovered”
traditional musicians as guitarra de son master Andrés
Vega. Ramón Gutierrez joined his brothers Gilberto
and José Angel Gutierrez in Mono Blanco before leaving
to form Son de Madera.
Veracruz, the third most populous of Mexico’s 31 states,
is in the east-central part of the country along the coast
of the Gulf of Mexico. Veracruz was the point of first contact
with the Spanish, where Hernando Cortez stepped ashore one
fateful day in 1619 and decided to found a village on the
beach at Chalchihuecan. As it was Good Friday, Cortez went
with a religious theme when picking a name for Mexico’s
first colonial settlement and New Spain’s first port—La
Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz or The Rich Town of the True Cross.
He then went about the task of toppling the Aztec civilization
and empire.
Veracruz was home to one of the first examples of black
autonomy in the Western Hemisphere. One of the busiest Mexican
ports, the town of Veracruz played a big role in the slave
trade that brought imprisoned Africans to the country. Wherever
people are enslaved, there will be slave uprisings and rebellions;
the first documented one in Mexico occurred in Veracruz in
1537. Enough slaves escaped from their masters that settlements
of runaway slaves called palenques soon dotted the countryside.
In 1608, the Spaniards established a free black community
in Veracruz called Yagna, named after one of the leaders of
the runaway slaves.
The combination of European and African influences did much
to shape the culture and artistic traditions of Veracruz.
A form of dance known as zapateado, a central ingredient
of the son jarocho style, is a good example of this
cultural fusion at work. Zapateado (from the Spanish
zapato, for shoe) is a dance of Spanish origin, clearly
related to flamenco—and just as clearly related to the
percussive African dances that gave birth to tap and other
later styles.
It’s an energetic dance in which the dancers pound
out fast, syncopated rhythms with their heels to complement
the rhythms of the instrumentalists. Zapateado dancers
stomp their heels so hard that they, in the words of one observer,
“can literally reduce even the most resistant dance
floor to splinters.” Most modern groups, Son de Madera
included, thoughtfully travel with portable wooden platforms
on which the dancers perform.
Other African influences found within the son jarocho
sound include extensive improvisation, call-and-response vocals,
syncopated rhythm patterns, slurring of notes in the singing
and a playful, sarcastic approach to life through song. As
these elements blended with and transformed the European contributions
(which included dances such as the fandango, stringed instruments
and the tonadilla escenica, a highly dramatic and
theatrical style of performance), the new Afro-European synthesis
then absorbed bits and pieces of the music of the indigenous
people of Veracruz. The most enduring aspect of this influence
can be found in son jarocho lyrics in which such
animals as bulls, woodpeckers and iguanas take on human characteristics.
The three main traditional instruments used in the son
jarocho style are the arpa jarocha, a large
wooden harp with 32-36 strings; the guitarra de son
(also known as a requinto jarocho or javalina),
a four-stringed instrument that looks like a small guitar
and is used to pick out melody notes; and the jarana,
a descendant of the Spanish Baroque guitar, with between eight
and 12 strings arranged in five courses, and strummed to provide
a chordal and rhythmic base for the song. In modern times,
the guitarra de son has largely replaced the harp
as the primary lead melody instrument.
Other instruments that are sometimes used to augment the
three primary ones include the violin; acoustic bass; 6-string
Spanish guitar; guitarrón, an acoustic bass
guitar more often found in mariachi bands; leon or
leona, a large-body baritone requinto; jaranas
of varying sizes (the smallest are often called “mosquitos”);
an oversized African thumb piano known as a marimbol;
and such percussion instruments as the pandero (tambourine),
quijada (a mule or horse jawbone) and cajon
(a percussive wooden box the player sits on).
The members of Son de Madera have gone through a certain
type of musical identity crisis that would be very familiar
to many musicians in the U.S. who perform within traditionally
rooted genres—from bluegrass and Cajun to blues and
Celtic. As band member, dancer and anthropologist Rubí
Oseguera explains, “We found ourselves looking into
whether this is authentic or traditional [and] that’s
not traditional, and separating ourselves into our own trenches
of traditional or folkloric or commercial.
“I think we’ve gone beyond this stage…because
we know quite well what we learned on the ranch, and we have
a clearly defined base, a structure, of what tradition is,
and we’re creating new things from that point of departure.
We’ve opened our ears, our eyes, and our hearts to other
sounds.”
To its members, Son de Madera is more than just a band.
“It’s music, it’s dance, it’s teaching,
it’s instrument making, and it’s a bit of research
and recovery,” says founder Ramón Gutierrez.
“son jarocho is music for improvising. Since
I was a child, I dreamed about melodies. When I went to school,
I was dreaming about melodies.” Those youthful dreams
led Gutierrez to the company of other like-minded renovadores
and eventually to Son de Madera.
The Los Angeles Times critic hit the nail squarely
on the head in describing Son de Madera as an “explosive
fusion of cross-border cultures…The performance left
the exciting impression that something totally new was being
created.” It’s a new day for an old tradition,
and the future looks bright for son jarocho. Just
don’t ask Ramón Gutierrez where the music is
heading. “We don’t know what’s going to
happen,” he says. “There are always surprises
when improvising.”
back to top
November 19, 2009
Los Lobos
Thirty-six years into a career that has included three Grammy
awards, chart-topping hit records, worldwide touring, mind-blowing
masterpiece albums and widespread critical acclaim, there
isn’t much to say about Los Lobos del Este Los Angeles
(the Wolves of East Los Angeles) that hasn’t already
been said. Perhaps only this: Los Lobos stands alone as the
greatest American rock band of all time.
Judged by any standard—longevity, vision, dignity,
creativity, fan loyalty, window-rattling rockability, smarts,
songwriting, guitar or vocal power—Los Lobos is rock
royalty. But you’d be hard pressed to find a more affable
and down-to-earth group of men than David Hidalgo (vocals,
guitar, accordion, violin, requinto), Cesar Rojas
(vocals, guitar, mandolin, jarana), Louie Perez (guitar,
vocals, drums, percussion, jarana, charango, vihuela),
Conrad Lozano (bass, guitarrón, vocals) and
Steve Berlin (saxophone, keyboards, percussion, harmonica,
midisax), who have played together as Los Lobos since Berlin
came on board in the early 1980s.
Hidalgo, Rojas, Perez and Lozano go back even further than
that—to 1973 and East Los Angeles. The four young musicians,
just out of Garfield High School, had all played in different
local rock, R&B, blues and soul/funk bands, but they music
they began playing together was something different. It was
the music of their parents and grandparents, traditionally
rooted folk music from Mexico played on button accordion,
fiddle and such acoustic string instruments as bajo sexto,
guitarrón, jarana and requinto.
“We had been playing together at my house in East
L.A. just for fun,” remembers Cesar Rojas of the early
days, “learning to play some Mexican songs, just kind
of jammimg and having a few Budweisers. It wasn’t anything
serious at that time.” But then came a paying gig at
an American Legion Hall and Los Lobos was born. For most of
the rest of the 1970s, the young quartet played its acoustic
folk music at every party and social function in the neighborhood,
enchanting young and old alike with its unlikely blend of
ranchera, huapango, son jarocho, conjunto and other
traditional Mexican styles.
“In the early years, when this band was playing exclusively
Mexican music, there was a lot of pressure for us to get more
political,” says Louie Perez. “And we never were.
We always thought that somehow what we did was innately political;
it was a big statement in itself. We kept it that way—a
more universal thing.”
During this time of learning and experimentation, Los Lobos
continued doing “electric” gigs as well, at which
the band cooked up fierce roadhouse blues, covers of hits
by Cream, Jimi Hendrix and the Yardbirds, Latino rock obscurities
from southern California bands and original music that combined
everything they’d heard to that point.
The rock press has long treated Los Lobos’ unexpected
musical detour into traditional Mexican music as some sort
of mystical quest, and while there may have been some of that
to it, those years were about working hard and connecting
with an audience. Those years established Los Lobos as a force
and serve as the glue that has kept the band together through
thick and thin. “We’ve been friends for so long,”
says Louie Perez, only half joking, “our moms would
have our heads if we tried to break up. Because we’ve
become a family.”
“The intuitive thing with us, after 30 years,”
says Perez, “is that you can actually feel where the
next thing is going to go. You kind of know what David’s
going to do before it happens, or Cesar, or vice-versa, with
all of us. I think when everybody is hitting that spot, we
don’t even know what we’re doing at that point,
but we all know it’s happening.
“It’s one of the most elusive aspects of the
band. There’s a component of friendship, because we
were friends before we were musicians together. We recognize
each other’s space. We know almost intuitively when
to stay out of each other’s way. But if you peel away
the business and even take away the music altogether, you’ll
end up with a bunch of guys who are just buddies.
“We’ve been through some tough times, obviously,
that have really kind of asked us, ‘What is the most
important thing here?’ It is our friendship. That sounds
like too simple an answer. But there’s also the most
powerful element—from the very beginning we knew there
was something special here, and we had to hang on to it. There’s
something that keeps the enthusiasm alive and the sense of
discovery. How many bands can reinvent themselves every time
they go into the studio?”
That reinvention has produced a Los Lobos discography staggering
in its diversity. Each album is strikingly different from
the one that came before, as well as the one that followed.
Los Lobos challenges, or surprises, its audience occasionally—as
with its psychedelic masterwork Kiko—but it
has never underestimated that audience. And, in the opinion
of this fan at least, Los Lobos has never disappointed that
audience either.
“We never really plan any album,” says producer
and multi-instrumentalist Steve Berlin. “Like with Kiko
and Colossal Head, we just played the songs that
showed up, naturally. With each project, we try to make our
songwriting an artistic statement, where the stories we’re
telling and the arrangements we’re composing get our
point across. But to a certain extent, we make our songs opaque,
mysterious. We leave it up to the listener to interpret. That’s
the highest purpose of artists, we think—not to rob
the spirit out of the work.”
The songwriting team of David Hidalgo and Louie Perez, the
heart of the Los Lobos sound, is now in its fourth decade
and is the only American songwriting collaboration that can
be seriously mentioned in the same breath with John Lennon
and Paul McCartney. “We just work well together,”
says Louie Perez of his partnership with David Hidalgo. “We’ve
been able to knock out some pretty good songs over the years.”
That catalog of “pretty good songs” includes such
modern classics as “Will the Wolf Survive,” “A
Matter of Time,” “Evangeline,” “One
Time One Night,” “Is This All There Is,”
“Tears of God,” “La Pistola y El Corazon,”
“I Walk Alone,” “The Neighborhood,”
“Little John of God” and several songs from Kiko—“Angels
with Dirty Faces,” “Saint Behind the Glass,”
“When the Circus Comes,” “Dream in Blue”
and “Kiko and the Lavender Moon.”
Los Lobos was born in an era of cultural upheaval and an
area that straddled two cultures. “Being Mexican-Americans,
you’re never quite accepted by Mexican nationals,”
says Louie Perez, speaking of Los Lobos. “What are you
then? Are you Mexicans or are you Americans? And of course
we’re not totally accepted in the United States, as
Latin people. So what do you do? Do you sit on your hands
and ponder your dilemma and not do anything, or do you find
freedom in it? That’s what we found—freedom. If
we don’t belong over there, and we’re not totally
accepted over here, then we belong everywhere.”
That certainly seems to be the case in recent months. The
band’s latest album, Los Lobos Goes Disney,
released last month, has the band covering 13 songs that first
appeared in Disney films. It’s the band’s second
children’s album (Papa’s Dream was the
first) and second foray into the world of Disney, having previously
covered “I Wanna Be Like You (The Monkey Song)”
for the Hal Willner-produced album Stay Awake. Featuring
a very hip “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” and a version of
“Heigh-Ho” from Snow White that would make Grumpy
smile, Los Lobos Goes Disney will be rocking many
households this holiday season—and turning on a whole
new generation to the wonderful world of Los Lobos.
No place says “everywhere” like prime-time TV
and a pair of recent high-profile programs on public television
took Los Lobos into millions of American homes. Latin
Music USA, a two-part PBS special that aired in October,
featured some great concert footage of Los Lobos and interviews
with Perez, Hidalgo and Rojas talking about their discovery
of traditional Mexican folk music. In Performance at the
White House: Fiesta Latina, also on PBS in October, captured
the band performing a medley of “Cumbia Raza”
and “La Bamba,” with the White House as the backdrop
and the First Family bopping along in the audience.
For a band with such humble origins—with one foot
in the Mexican-American neighborhoods of East L.A. and one
foot in the seedy Los Angeles punk/roots rock scene—Los
Lobos has scaled the heights of international rock stardom
with considerable aplomb and dignity. There’s not much
left for the band to achieve. Induction into the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame is on the horizon, already overdue but inevitable.
But, beyond that, what’s left? Only “everywhere,”
as Louie Perez suggests. Los Lobos is truly one band that
belongs everywhere.
back to top
 January
23, 2010
Del McCoury Band with Joe Mullins and the Radio
Ramblers
Young Del McCoury must have thought he was living
the bluegrass dream. The year was 1963 and Bill
Monroe, the “Father of Bluegrass,”
had just asked the young banjo picker to join
his band, the Blue Grass Boys. Fifteen years after
Earl Scruggs had vacated the job, it was one of
the premier jobs in bluegrass for a banjo player,
especially one like McCoury who idolized Scruggs.
It was a big break for a young musician.
Unfortunately, by the time McCoury made it to
Nashville to accept Monroe’s offer, Monroe
had already hired another young banjo picker,
Bill Keith. Rather than send the disappointed
McCoury home, Monroe handed Del a guitar and asked
him if he’d ever done any singing. And just
like that McCoury stepped into the band’s
lead singer/guitarist spot once filled not by
Scruggs but by Scruggs’ musical partner,
Lester Flatt. McCoury stayed with Monroe for almost
a year before leaving for California in February
1964 to join the Golden State Boys (aka the Hillmen),
a short-lived band that included, at various times,
Chris Hillman, Vern Gosdin, Don Parmley and Bobby
Slone.
Born in 1939 in North Carolina but raised around
York, Penn-sylvania, Delano Floyd McCoury was
back living in Pennsylvania when he started his
band, the Dixie Pals, in 1967. For the next several
years, McCoury worked in logging and construction
and played music mostly on the weekends, often
in the tough clubs of Baltimore and Washington,
D.C. “I used to travel 40 miles and make
seven dollars to play a night of bluegrass,”
remembers McCoury of those days. “I always
loved playing, always loved the road.”
Del McCoury and the Dixie Pals played most of
the eastern bluegrass festivals over the next
several years and recorded a number of albums
for such labels as Arhoolie, Grassound, Rebel,
Rounder and Revonah, including the 1972 classic,
High on a Mountain. Del’s 14-year-old
son Ronnie joined the band on mandolin in 1981,
with his banjo-playing younger brother Rob coming
on board five years later.
McCoury’s career started taking off in
the late 1980s with four albums he recorded for
Rounder between 1988 and 1996: Don’t
Stop the Music, Blue Side of Town, Deeper Shade
of Blue and Cold Hard Facts. The
McCoury family, and the newly rechristened Del
McCoury Band, moved to Nashville in 1992, at which
point everything shifted into high gear.
The Del McCoury Band has been on a red-hot roll
since then. McCoury is now the most celebrated
bluegrass singer of his generation. He has won
four Male Vocalist of the Year awards from the
International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA)
and an unprecedented nine Entertainer of the Year
awards at the head of the Del McCoury Band.
Throw in a Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album
for The Company We Keep (2005) and the
Del McCoury Band’s other IBMA awards—Instrumental
Group of the Year (two), Album of the Year (two),
Song of the Year, Instrumental Album of the Year,
eight Mandolinist of the Year awards for Ronnie
McCoury and three Fiddler of the Year awards for
Jason Carter—and it’s hard to disagree
with the assessment by British singer/songwriter/guitarist
Richard Thompson, who calls the hard-driving quintet
“the best bluegrass band, period.”
Del McCoury recorded only three songs during
his time with the Blue Grass Boys (none of which
featured his lead singing), but he has been a
prolific recording artist since forming his own
band. He made his recording debut as a bandleader
in 1968, with Del McCoury Sings Bluegrass
for Arhoolie, and has since recorded nearly 20
albums, as well as side projects with Doc Watson
and Mac Wiseman (Mac, Doc and Del), country-rock
singer/songwriter Steve Earle (The Mountain)
and intergalactic funkster Bootsy Collins (the
Groovegrass Boyz).
McCoury released three albums in 2009, all on
his own McCoury Music label. They include Family
Circle, an album of new material; Celebrating
50 Years of Del McCoury, a five-CD career
retrospective that contains new recordings of
many of Del’s older songs as well as some
of the band’s best cuts from the past 15
years; and By Request, a single disc
culled from the cuts on Celebrating 50 Years.
Lots of ambitious bluegrass bands over the years
have tinkered with the music trying to reach more
fans, but the Del McCoury Band has pulled off
a much more difficult feat: “crossing over”
without changing the basic sound of bluegrass
as played by Bill Monroe—high, hard and
fast. For Del McCoury, there’s nothing better
than that fiery “first generation”
sound of Bill Monroe, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs,
Del’s first musical idol. “He put
me on fire for music,” McCoury says of Scruggs.
“Later on, everybody else was crazy about
Elvis, but I loved Earl.”
Where the Del McCoury Band embraces the modern
and non-traditional is in its material. Some of
the band’s biggest hits have come from outside
bluegrass, from Richard Thompson (“1952
Vincent Black Lightning”) and Robert Cray
(“Smoking Gun”) to Tom Petty (“Love
is a Long Road”) and the Lovin’ Spoonful
(“Nashville Cats”). The band’s
latest album, Family Circle, continues
the trend, with covers of songs by Jerry Lee Lewis,
Solomon Burke, Slim Whitman and Dire Straits.
“We’ve really been getting outside
of the bluegrass box,” says Ronnie McCoury.
“Dad’s voice is what you’d call
traditional, but he’s open-minded, too.
And so it seems like in the last few years especially,
he’s become more than bluegrass—he’s
being recognized as just a great singer, period.
So that’s really been bridging the gap between
bluegrass and other kinds of music and musicians.”
The Del McCoury Band has introduced bluegrass
to millions of people through touring with Phish,
playing at Bonnaroo and other huge rock festivals,
recording with Steve Earle and TV appearances
with Letterman, Conan and their late-night brethren.
“Young people are just wild about bluegrass,”
says McCoury, speaking from personal experience.
“This music has grit and young people like
that. The general public hears something real
in bluegrass. That’s why it’s more
popular than ever, I believe.”
The Del McCoury Band consists of Del McCoury
(guitar, lead vocals), Ronnie McCoury (mandolin,
lead and harmony vocals), Rob McCoury (banjo,
harmony vocals), Jason Carter (fiddle, harmony
vocals) and Alan Bartram (bass). One of the big
reasons for the success of the Del McCoury Band
has been its amazing stability. With only one
personnel change in the last 18 years, the band
has enjoyed an enviable continuity unusual in
any style of music.
The Washington Post calls Del McCoury
“a national treasure,” while Entertainment
Weekly says of his music, “lonesome
never sounded so appealing.” USA Today
has asked, “Is there anybody cooler than
Del McCoury?” There’s certainly no
one in bluegrass as personable as Del McCoury—everybody
likes Del, who always seems to have a smile on
his face. He appeals equally to die-hard bluegrass
traditionalists and dreadlocked jam band followers,
performing with the grace and assurance that come
from 50 years of staying true to his vision of
bluegrass and doing things his own way.
“What I most admire about Del,”
says country star Vince Gill, a former bluegrass
picker and big McCoury fan, “is that he’s
one of the last patriarchs that really played
the music in its authentic way. And even though
he’s willing to bend a little bit, to be
out there playing at jam band festivals and things
like that, it doesn’t sound like what the
new people do with bluegrass. He’s done
a great job of bringing new songs into the fold,
but when he sings them, they sound like 1959 or
1962 again. It still has the element of his voice,
and the authenticity of it never goes away, never
changes.”
At 70, Del McCoury is truly living the bluegrass
dream—just like he always thought he would.
“I’ve played music forever but it
all just seemed to come together in the last 10
years or so,” he says. “The thing
is, I’ve never changed my style at all.
I’ve always done my own thing, always had
confidence in myself. I always knew that someone
would like my sound.”
Starting the evening on a high note tonight
are Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers.
Led by one of the best banjo players in the land,
Joe Mullins, they have become one of the best
and busiest traditional bands in the region. Their
latest CD, Ramblers Call, is dedicated
to Joe's late father Moon Mullins and tastefully
mixes old and new songs, polished vocals and instrumental
firepower. The band includes guitarist/vocalist
Adam McIntosh, fiddler/vocalist Ewan McGregor,
mandolinist/vocalist Mike Terry and bassist Tim
Kidd.
back to top
 February
4, 2010
Masters of the Fiddle: Natalie MacMaster and Donnell
Leahy
It’s a journey of several hundred miles
from Cape Breton Island, just east of Nova Scotia,
to the Ottawa Valley of Ontario. The two areas
don’t have a great deal in common, but what
they do share is important—rich, vital fiddling
traditions and long histories of great fiddlers.
Between them, Cape Breton and the Ottawa Valley
have established Canada as one of the world’s
great centers of traditional fiddling.
When step-dancing fiddler Natalie MacMaster,
the pride of Cape Breton, and Donnell Leahy, leader
of one of the Ottawa Valley’s premier fiddle
and step-dancing ensembles, were married in 2002,
it called to mind one of those old-time, old-world
weddings uniting two royal or dynastic families.
From now on, Cape Breton and the Ottawa Valley
fiddling would be brought together in ways both
symbolic and actual, cultural and musical.
Born in 1972 in Troy, Nova Scotia, Natalie
MacMaster was part of a musical family
in a very musical environment; Natalie’s
uncle, Buddy MacMaster, was one of the premier
fiddlers in the area and the biggest influence
on her fiddling. Natalie began playing fiddle
at a young age, giving her first public performance
at age nine. She recorded her first album, Four
on the Floor, when she was 16, about the
same time she began step dancing.
Her next album, Fit as a Fiddle, came
in 1993. Despite her abundant talent and growing
reputation, MacMaster trained as a teacher (she
has a Bachelor of Education degree from Nova Scotia
Teacher’s College) and never expected to
be a professional musician. “It never dawned
on me growing up that I’d be doing this,
since nobody I knew made a career out of playing
Cape Breton fiddle,” she says. “All
the fiddlers I knew had day jobs.”
MacMaster broke that pattern in spectacular
fashion. Now in her late 30s, with 10 highly acclaimed
albums (and a concert DVD) to her credit, MacMaster
is internationally regarded as the foremost standard
bearer for the traditional Cape Breton fiddling
style. She has collaborated on record and in performance
with a dizzying array of musicians that includes
Alison Krauss, Yo Yo Ma, Carlos Santana, Paul
Simon, Bela Fleck, Faith Hill, the Chieftains,
Luciano Pavarotti, Mark O’Connor and numerous
symphony orchestras.
MacMaster has won numerous musical honors in
Canada and the U.S., including Juno and East Coast
Music awards and Grammy nominations. In 2006,
MacMaster was made a member of the Order of Canada,
a lifetime achievement award (and Canada’s
highest civilian honor) that celebrates accomplishment
in a number of fields.
The oldest son in a large musical clan, Donnell
Leahy was born in Lakefield, Ontario,
in the Ottawa Valley. He is best known for his
fiddling with the Juno Award-winning family band
Leahy, where he performs alongside three brothers
and four sisters. Leahy first gained widespread
attention as the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary
film, The Leahys: Music Most of All;
subsequent touring with Shania Twain brought Leahy
thousands of new fans. The group has recorded
five albums: Leahy, Lakefield, In All Things,
Leahy Live from Gatineau, Quebec (which is
also available as a DVD) and Handmade.
Between Donnell’s work with Leahy and
Natalie’s touring with her band, the couple
doesn’t get to tour together very often,
which is one reason this “Masters of the
Fiddle” tour is so special to both of them.
And though they play together at home, working
out the on-stage musical arrangements took a bit
of work.
“It’s been a real challenge for us
to figure out ways to play together without stepping
on each other’s toes, figuratively speaking,”
says MacMaster. “Donnell’s sound is
quite varied with several elements that make up
his own style. He’s got a bit of a French
sound, a little Cape Breton twang, a little Irish,
and a more worldly kind of Russian or Hungarian
sound too. He’s very strong, while I’m
more relaxed and focused on a Cape Breton style,
which comes from Scotland.”
“It’s harder than you would expect,”
Leahy says of working together. “But we
play different styles. If we put a tune together,
we play it different and what happens is we mask
each other’s qualities.”
“We share the same interests and same
taste in music,” MacMaster continues. “We
have the same musical sense and same ideas, probably
because we come from similar backgrounds. If Donnell
and I weren’t working together, I would
make it so we were. He would be helping me produce
my records. I really value, trust and respect
his decisions and he does the same for me.”
MacMaster has always earned critical praise
for the tasteful ways in which she has updated
and expanded her traditional Cape Breton heritage.
Her albums have successfully integrated elements
of bluegrass, jazz, rock and several strains of
world music into her overall Celtic sound, but
MacMaster disputes the notion, up to a point,
that she is blazing new or unconventional trails.
“I’m not actually doing anything
differently,” she says. “People say,
‘Oh you play so many styles.’ That’s
not true. I’m clever in that I hire other
people who play lots of styles, and they taint
my music, they color my music. If you got rid
of all the accompaniment and just heard me play
the fiddle, that’s just the same kind of
fiddling that you’d hear on My Roots
Are Showing, which is considered a very traditional
Cape Breton record. What’s going on around
me is what makes it a different style.
“I always felt like I can play music however
I want to play it,” says MacMaster, “although
everything is rooted in the tradition of Cape
Breton fiddling. I am a very musical person. I
love music, and I don’t just love Cape Breton
fiddling, although it’s my favorite. I love
jazz and pop, rock and country. I grew up listening
to Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Def Leppard,
AC/DC, Anne Murray. If I hear something really
great, I want to be a part of it.”
In addition to Natalie MacMaster and Donnell
Leahy, performers on the Masters of the Fiddle
tour also include the members of MacMaster’s
working road band: Mac Morin (piano), Matt MacIsaac
(Highland bagpipes, small pipes, banjo, whistles),
J. D. Blair (drums), Nathaniel Smith (cello) and
Shane Hendrickson (bass).
The music of Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy,
regardless of whatever “outside” influences
the duo adds to the mix, fits perfectly into the
ongoing evolution of what is known as “Celtic”
fiddling. No tradition survives unchanged, and
this is doubly true for traditional music. What
we call “traditional” Cape Breton
or Ottawa Valley fiddling styles are actually
significantly different from their old world “traditional”
antecedents.
The Ottawa Valley traditions Donnell Leahy grew
up with are more worldly—in the sense of
having been exposed to more of the world—than
those Natalie MacMaster knew in Cape Breton. But
then the Cape Breton tradition is more worldly
than the Irish or Scottish traditions from which
it developed, changed by the immigrant experience
and numerous other cultural factors. This is how
musical traditions evolve over time.
“Scottish music has had classical influence,”
explains MacMaster “and that classical influence
has made the style a little bit more regimented
and formed. Irish music is a little bit more of
a hand-me-down style, where it has become more
of a tradition passed on from one generation and
less learned. The Scottish are very strong at
the technical side of playing the violin, and
the Irish are really strong at the groove, the
feel.
“Cape Breton is very much the hand-me-down
style, but it is a relaxed style of music. Cape
Breton fiddle music is largely descended from
the traditions over in Scotland, but it’s
not as perfected as the Scottish style of today.
It’s a little rough around the edges—but
you can hear the history in it. You can hear the
hard times, the good times; it’s not so
polished that it erases those characteristics.
It’s very energetic music, very danceable.
It’s like a train—once you get on,
you don’t get off. It just keeps chuggin’
along.”
Natalie MacMaster and Donnell Leahy, who live
in Ontario with their three young children, are
more than “masters of the fiddle.”
The two fiddlers demonstrate, in their work together
and with their respective bands, how traditions
can be updated without being compromised. Both
MacMaster and Leahy walk the musical line between
old and new. They explore the new, because that’s
what creative, ambitious musicians do. But they
cherish the old, because that’s what shaped
them as musicians and what still makes sense at
the end of a busy day.
“The music has stood the test of time,”
says Natalie MacMaster of the music she plays
with her husband, “so there’s something
in it that appeals to the inner human spirit.
It’s very real and it’s very alive.
It gives you new life. When you hear it, you just
forget your worries. It’s very positive
music.”
back to top
 February
11, 2010
Chen Zimbalista
Israeli percussionist Chen Zimbalista was born
to be a drummer. From his name—which is
derived from the word for one who plays cymbals—to
his ancestors, who include an eastern European
kinsman who played the cimbalom, Zimbalista seemed
fated, one way or the other, to play the drums.
His talent was a perfect match for his destiny,
and today, Zimbalista is hailed worldwide as “a
true virtuoso with brilliant technique…who
never fails to captivate his audience” (Shanghai
Today) and “a towering virtuoso”
(Frankfurter Allgemeine).
Chen Zimbalista is a world-class noisemaker.
Using his hands, feet, elbows, knees, head and
other parts of his body, Zimbalista employs an
arsenal of percussion tools on stage that numbers
more than 40 instruments. He uses drums, of course—snares,
bass drums, bongos, tom toms, congas, dumbeks,
tympanis, tablas, and 15 varieties of tambourines.
Then there are the mallet instruments: marimbas,
xylophone, and vibes. Plus bells, Chinese bells
called crotales, cymbals, gongs ranging
in size from 10-50 inches, and temple blocks.
The dynamic percussionist has performed with
the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Israel Chamber
Orchestra and all of the leading orchestras in
Israel. In this country, he has performed with
the Detroit Symphony, the Los Angeles Jewish Symphony
and the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players. Zimbalista
has toured extensively in China, the U.S., Canada,
the Netherlands, England, Brazil, Germany, Portugal,
Turkey, France, Italy, and Taiwan.
The music played by Zimbalista is an exciting
and fascinating mélange of many different
styles of music from around the world, including
classical, jazz, rock, hip-hop and several strains
of world music, including Middle Eastern, Afro-Caribbean
and Brazilian. Zimbalista doesn’t like getting
pinned down by labels. “It defies classification,”
he says of his music, allowing that it is, at
the least, “a reflection of the cultural
and political landscape of [Israel].” He
also says of his performances, “The more
receptive the crowd, the better the music.”
In addition to his solo performances, Zimbalista
often works in duet and trio settings, as well
as playing marimba with the Israeli quartet SheshBesh.
He is the Artistic Director of the Science and
Music Festival at Weitzman Institute, a musical
consultant for the Kfar Blum Festival in Israel
and the Artistic Director of TAM TAM, an annual
international percussion festival.
Zimbalista made his recording debut in 1999
with (the mostly solo) Desert Beat, on
which he was joined by musicians Nadav Rubenstein,
Boris Sickon and Shlomo Gronich for a program
ranging from Shostakovich to Zimbalista’s
own prize-winning Impulse I. Zimbalista
has also recorded Percussion with Aron
Schwartz and Music for Marimba & Piano.
Zimbalista expressed a desire to be a drummer
at a young age (no doubt beating the daylights
out of any and all stationary objects within reach),
but his parents started him instead on flute at
age eight. Two years later, they okayed the drums,
if Chen would study piano, too. Piano and flute
failed to divert the young musician, and by 14,
he was studying percussion with Allon Bor of the
Israel Philharmonic.
Zimbalista joined the Israel Philharmonic as
a reserve percussionist at the age of 16 and soon
won the Young Artist Performing Israeli Music
Award. After completing his mandatory military
service playing in the Israel Defense Forces Orchestra,
Zimbalista moved to New York City in 1988 for
three years of study with Morris Lang of the New
York Philharmonic Orchestra.
He returned to Israel in 1991 and won the prestigious
Francois Shapira Prize. That award, which “started
things rolling” according to Zimbalista,
convinced the young percussionist to attempt the
solo route. It’s not a crowded field he
joined; by some estimates there are fewer than
30 percussionists in the world who earn a living
by performing solo.
Zimbalista certainly has the right attitude
for a solo musician: “I don’t want
anyone to tell me how or what to play.”
And so he has charted his own path, working solo
in an ensemble world, performing a repertoire
that ranges from the classical works of Bach,
Bizet and Britten to newer compositions by South
American masters Astor Piazzolla and Heitor Villa-Lobos.
Several prominent contemporary Israeli composers,
including Noam Sheriff, Menachem Weisberg, Benjamin
Yosopov and Mark Hagerty, have written works especially
for Zimbalista to perform.
Critical response to Zimbalista and his performances
has been positive and enthusiastic, with one Los
Angeles critic wondering why Zimbalista isn’t
a well-known superstar in this spectacle-loving
country of ours. The Jerusalem Post calls
Zimbalista “totally charismatic” and
says his music is a “rich acoustic experience
that celebrates artistic freedom.” The
Los Angeles Times adds that “Zimbalista
is a young, muscular, intense dynamo with charisma
to burn and a precise technique that knows no
stylistic bounds. He’s also a showman…Why
can’t all drum solos be like this?”
“Chen Zimbalista is a throwback to the
days when ‘entertainer’ wasn’t
a pejorative term,” notes a glowing concert
review in San Francisco Classical Voice.
“He radiates energy onstage, tells stories,
indulges in audience participation, choreographs
the beginnings and ends of pieces in true showman
style, mines a wide variety of musical genres
from around the globe, and exemplifies the old
Italian art of sprezzatura, making nearly
impossible technical challenges seem easy.”
Lewis Nash, Chen Zimbalista’s
performing partner for tonight’s concert,
has been hailed by prominent jazz critic Gary
Giddins for being “resourceful, inventive,
subtle and infallibly tasteful” and “the
great drummer of his generation.” Phil Elwood
wrote in the San Francisco Examiner that
“Nash is always involved, always imaginative,
always brilliant.” Nash is widely acclaimed
by critics, fans and musicians alike for his superior
musicianship, peerless musical empathy, endless
versatility and wide-ranging creativity—pretty
much everything one might hope for in a musician.
No stranger to Cityfolk audiences, having performed
here twice previously with Larry Willis and Khalid
Moss, Lewis Nash is the gold standard for jazz
drumming ten years into the 21st century, nothing
less than the best in the business.
Born in 1958 in Phoenix, Arizona, Nash started
playing drums at age 10 but didn’t get interested
in jazz until his high school years. He was a
quick study; by the time he was 21, Nash was first-call
drummer in Phoenix, backing artists like Sonny
Stitt, Art Pepper, Red Garland, Lee Konitz, Barney
Kessell and Slide Hampton whenever they came to
Arizona.
Since moving to New York City in 1981, Nash
has been a member of some of the best bands in
jazz, including those led by Betty Carter, Ron
Carter, Branford Marsalis, J.J. Johnson, Don Pullen/George
Adams and Tommy Flanagan and the Carnegie Hall
Jazz Band, Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Classical
Jazz Quartet and the Blue Note 7, the all-star
septet assembled to celebrate the 70th anniversary
of the founding of Blue Note Records.
A highly in-demand sideman, Nash has performed
on more than 400 recordings with such esteemed
jazz artists as Dizzy Gillespie, Oscar Peterson,
Benny Carter, Hank Jones, John Lewis, Diana Krall,
Joe Lovano and Roy Hargrove. Nash is also featured
on recordings by such pop singers as Natalie Cole,
Bette Midler, Nancy Wilson, Kenny Rankin, Melissa
Manchester and Linda Ronstadt.
“Everything depends on how daring you
want to be,” says Nash of his affinity for
playing in different musical contexts. “You
try not to limit yourself to ‘this is how
you’re supposed to play this music.’
You jump in, let your ears dictate, and keep all
options on the table. I might borrow some sound
or approach from an avant-garde context that works
in the middle of trading fours on a blues.
“Sound can cross genres and styles. It’s
just a sound. It’s your job to figure out
how to use that sound tastefully and in context.
The more things you’ve done, the more you’ll
be able to interject something new…When
you are rooted, you don’t have to be afraid
to try new things…Sometimes a little craziness
is necessary to break through”
Nash made his recording debut as a leader in
1989 with Rhythm Is My Business. His
subsequent recordings as a leader include
It Don’t Mean a Thing, Stompin’ at
the Savoy and Lewis Nash and the Bebop
All-Stars featuring Frank Wess. In 2001,
Nash teamed up with guitarist David O’Rourke
to record Celtic Jazz Collective, an album of
traditional Irish music featuring concertina player
Niall Vallely and legendary Irish piper Paddy
Keenan.
Like a point guard in basketball, the role filled
by the drummer in an ensemble is vital, complex
and multi-faceted. Both roles, however, can be
boiled down to one fundamental principle: making
everyone else play better. Lewis Nash does that
as well as anyone. It’s his job.
“I’m thrust into situations day
in and day out,” says Nash, “with
people who may have completely different musical
objectives and viewpoints. I try to bring the
same seriousness to each situation…What
I do, night after night, is help the people around
me play their best, and you do this by helping
them relax, give them something to respond to
that makes them better, and in doing this, you
raise the level of their game.”
back to top
 April
7, 2010
Wacongo Dance Company
The name of Wacongo Dance Company says it all.
“Wacongo” means “from Congo,”
and this internationally acclaimed ensemble of
master drummers, dancers and singers draws upon
the incredibly varied range of traditional arts
from the Congo—from the ceremonial masks
and ritual costumes to the ancestral dances and
songs—to present an authentic yet theatrical
exploration of the traditional music and dance
of the people of the Congo and its neighbors in
Central Africa.
Wacongo Dance Company was founded in 1998 in
Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic
of the Congo, by Elie Kihonia, who serves as the
ensemble’s music director. All of the members
of Wacongo were born in the Congo, but several
of them currently reside abroad in Europe or the
U.S.; the company is based in Pittsburgh, where
Kihonia now lives. The ensemble has performed
internationally in South Africa, France, Brazil
and in the U.S., at such venues as the Smithsonian
Institution, the Field Museum in Chicago, the
National Folk Festival and the Embassy of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo in Washington,
D.C.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is home to
roughly 69 million people, encompassing several
hundred distinct ethnic groups, perhaps as many
as 700, of which the most numerous is the Bantu.
Wacongo’s repertoire represents some 400
of these traditional groups, including Luba, Mongo,
Kongo, Mbala, Bantu, Pende, Kuba, Mbunda and many
more.
Wacongo’s drumming, singing, dancing and
traditional masks and costumes bring to life a
compelling storehouse of songs and tunes from
Central Africa. Some of the standouts of the ensemble’s
repertoire are “Lyandja”—perhaps
the most widely recognized traditional song from
the Congolese repertory—a fable concerning
love, revenge and family; “Bulamatari,”
a recounting of the fateful first meeting of the
Congolese people and the European colonists who
had come to conquer them; and “Dowry,”
a song written by Elie Kihonia promoting AIDS
awareness in Africa. Other highlights include
“Africa Shout,” “Congo River”
and “Nzinga, Queen Mother.”
The third largest country in Africa (about one-fourth
the size of the U.S.), the Congo was known as
Zaire from 1971-1997, and before that as Belgian
Congo. When the country gained its independence
in 1960, after 52 years as a colony of Belgium,
it faced a problem that would also challenge the
other former African colonies that gained their
independence in the 1950s and 1960s, a group that
included Cameroon, Tanzania, Zambia, Guinea, Senegal,
Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and the Ivory Coast,
among others.
The problem was how to suddenly create a country
with a national consciousness and a national identity
out of many different (and often hostile) ethnic
groups thrown together by sometimes arbitrary
lines on a map. An approach tried by many countries
with varying degrees of success was to create
national performing ensembles that would take
the many different varieties of traditional drumming,
dance and music found in a country and synthesize
a “national” art and a vision of culture
that could be embraced by all its citizens.
Some of these traditional dance and music ensembles
were sponsored by national governments, others
by cultural foundations or individual patrons.
The companies varied in scope and ambition, with
some performing mostly at home for state and ceremonial
occasions. Others, like Les Ballets Africains
in Guinea or the National Dance Company of Senegal,
also toured internationally acting as cultural
ambassadors of their home countries.
These were the ensembles that inspired Elie
Kihonia to found Wacongo Dance Company a dozen
years ago. His aim was to create a traditional
company that could educate the public about African
culture, dispel a few stereotypes along the way
and also be highly entertaining. Kihonia wanted
the ensemble to promote intercultural understanding
while it preserved the music, dances and traditional
arts of his ancestors.
In addition to its performance endeavors, Wacongo
Dance Company is also deeply involved in education.
The ensemble frequently conducts workshops in
schools and community centers presenting the essence
of Central African arts through hands-on instruction
in the region’s traditional instruments,
songs, dances, costumes, storytelling, art and
ancestral tales. While it’s in Dayton for
this performance, Wacongo has been working with
Culture Builds Community, Cityfolk’s neighborhood-based
arts program, performing at residencies and community
events.
Wacongo founder Elie Kihonia
was born into a musical family in the Congo and
was exposed to traditional music and dance at
a very young age. He made his debut as a performer
at the age of nine with various local youth choirs,
and in 1980, he joined the well-known Gevakin
Choir. In 1989, under his direction, the Gevakin
Choir toured Africa, Europe and the United States.
Kihonia realized during those tours that a need
existed for a touring ensemble that presented
the traditional dance, music, songs and ceremonial
masks of the Congo in a manner that was authentic
and respectful but shaped, polished and contextualized
for non-African audiences. To that end, he co-founded
UMOJA African Arts Company to promote African
arts and culture in the U.S. Kihonia has also
worked in the Ministry of Culture and Arts in
the Congo.
In the U.S., Kihonia has been an artistic consultant
for the Museum of African Art in New York City,
the Carnegie Museums in Pittsburgh and the Smithsonian
Institution. A multi-instrumentalist skilled at
xylophone, mbira, hand and set drums, keyboard,
accordion and guitar, he has performed and/or
recorded with such artists and ensembles as Miriam
Makeba, Yondo Sister, Soukous Stars, Pepe Felly
Manuaku, Liz Lerman, David Fanshawe, Pittsburgh
City Brass and the Bach Choir.
Roger Tshiko Issako, the music
director for Wacongo, is a master drummer and
the son of a celebrated griot. After
studying with his father, Issako has mastered
several indigenous drum styles of Central Africa
and such distinctive traditional rhythms as the
Ngoma, Bonda, Conga, Bonyoma and Kongo. Issako
launched his professional musical career by working
with several of the Congo’s traditional
music and dance ensembles, including Ballet Elima,
ChemChem Yetu and the Congolese National Ballet,
with which Issako performed in Europe, Asia, Central
and South America and the Caribbean.
Issako lived in France for eight years working
as a resident master drummer at Euro-Disney near
Paris, before moving to Florida and accepting
a position as the musical director at the African
Pavilion in Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom
Park in Orlando. In addition to his work with
Wacongo, Issako has recorded with such artists
as Papa Wemba, Koffi Olomide and Soukous Stars.
The artistic heart of each Wacongo performance
is four master artists, known by the French title
principle: lead dancer and singing principle
Djema Bosawa; dancing principle Basele
Antoinette Ekila, known to her fans as “Mama
Anto”; masquerade principle Issako
Kongo; and drumming principle Bofenda
“Bokulaka” Ilonda.
Djema Bosawa does double duty,
serving as both Wacongo’s lead singer and
lead dancer. She has been singing and dancing
since she was a young girl and made her international
touring debut in 1994, when she performed in Brazzaville,
the capital of neighboring Republic of the Congo,
and the Ivory Coast. She has also toured with
the Congolese ensemble Kiti Na Mesa and performed
at the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996.
Basele Antoinette Ekila started
her career in 1979 in the provincial capital of
Mbandaka and has toured Africa, Europe and the
U.S. with various Congolese music and dance ensembles.
She worked with Kiti Na Mesa, an ensemble that
showcased the traditional music and dance of the
Mongo ethnic group, from 1980-1996, performing
in Spain, Belgium, France, Germany, England and
the U.S. When she’s not touring with Wacongo,
“Mama Anto” dances at Walt Disney
World in Florida.
Issako Kongo has been dancing
professionally since 1977. She has performed and
toured internationally with a number of Congolese
music and dance companies and has lived abroad
in Spain and Belgium. Another former member of
Kiti Na Mesa, Kongo also works with Elie Kihonia’s
UMOJA African Arts Company.
Bofenda “Bokulaka” Ilonda
began his professional career in 1974, drumming
with Orchestre Afrisa International, the influential
band led by soukous pioneer Tabu Ley
Rochereau, one of Africa’s most important
and popular musicians. Ilonda has also worked
with such artists as Jimmy Cliff, Kanda Bongo
Man and Franco and toured extensively in Africa,
Europe, Australia, South America, Canada and the
U.S.
The Wacongo Dance Company has earned considerable
acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic for its
artful presentation of traditional African arts
and culture. Much of the credit for the group’s
success goes to founder Elie Kihonia. His drive
to get it right comes from more than nation-making,
more than being an emissary for one’s country,
more even than putting on a memorable show. For
Kihonia, the music and dance, the drums and masks,
all things “from Congo” are life itself.
“This is a healing thing,” says
Kihonia. “Where politicians cannot bring
together people in conflict, drumming and dance
can. We all have a little drum playing in our
daily life we call our heart. It reminds us we
are alive and to be grateful for the opportunity
to live in our world.”
back to top
 April
9, 2010
Lunasa
The response was immediate and enthusiastic when
Lúnasa made its debut in 1997. The
Irish Echo called Lúnasa “the
best Irish traditional instrumental band on the
planet.” Folk Roots magazine called
the band an “Irish music dream team,”
while the Washington Post credited the
band for hauling traditional Irish music into
the new century: “Lúnasa manages
to marry jazz-rock bass lines and an expanded
harmonic sensibility to an older rural music…determined
to drag Irish folk music kicking and screaming
into the 21st century.”
Now that we’re actually a decade into
the 21st century, it seems the critics would have
been wise to save a few of their superlatives,
as Lúnasa just keeps getting better year
after year. With the release earlier this week
of the quintet’s widely anticipated latest
album, Lá Nua, the high-powered
band has restaked its claim to being the dream
team of traditional Irish music, an unrivaled
collection of virtuoso musicians who understand
what it means to be in a band. Lúnasa brings
new life to an old tradition, with fresh new tunes
alongside revitalized old tunes and a keen desire
to make its own bit of tradition and history.
Named for an ancient Celtic harvest festival—Lughnasadh—honoring
the Irish god Lugh, the patron of the arts, Lúnasa
is Seán Smyth (fiddle, whistles), Kevin
Crawford (flutes, whistles, bodhrán), Trevor
Hutchinson (bass), Cillian Vallely (uillean pipes,
whistles) and Paul Meehan (guitar).
The origins of Lúnasa date to a 1996
Scandinavian tour by the trio of Seán Smyth,
Trevor Hutchinson and guitarist Donogh Hennessy.
It was so much fun they decided to continue the
adventure after they returned to Ireland, recruiting
John McSherry (uillean pipes) and Michael McGoldrick
(flute, whistles, pipes) to join them. Kevin Crawford,
widely regarded as one of the finest flutists
in traditional Irish music, came aboard early
in 1997. This was the line-up of the band heard
on its debut album. McGoldrick soon went on to
other projects and McSherry tired of touring;
his replacement was Cillian Vallely. Hennessy
left in 2004, to be replaced by Meehan.
Even before coming together in Lúnasa,
the five musicians had already played in some
major Irish bands. Trevor Hutchinson was a member
of the Sharon Shannon Band, and before that, the
Waterboys. Seán Smyth, an All-Ireland champion
on both fiddle and whistle, worked in Donal Lunny’s
Coolfin, while Kevin Crawford played with Moving
Cloud. Cillian Vallely has recorded with his concertina-playing
brother Niall (Callan Bridge) and performed in
the Broadway production of Riverdance. The newest
member of the band, Paul Meehan has worked with
Buille, North Cregg, Na Dorsa and the Karan Casey
Band.
The band made its recording debut in 1997 with
Lúnasa, a mix of live and studio
recordings that topped the folk charts in Hot
Press. Subsequent recordings have been equally
successful. Otherworld (1999), the fastest-selling
album in record company Green Linnet’s history,
won “Traditional Album of the Year”
honors from both Irish Echo and Irish
Voice. Sé was named “Traditional
Album of the Year” for 2006 by Irish
Echo.
Lúnasa’s newest album, Lá
Nua, was released on Tuesday. Lá
Nua, Irish for “new day,” is
the band’s first studio album in four years.
The album contains 10 tune sets with a load of
new original tunes by Crawford and Vallely as
well as traditional tunes from Ireland, Brittany
and the Galician region of Spain.
Lúnasa side and/or solo projects include
The Blue Fiddle (1993) by Seán
Smyth; ‘D’ Flute Album (1995)
and In Good Company (2001) by Kevin Crawford;
and On Common Ground (2009), a critically
acclaimed uilleann pipes and flute duet album
by Cillian Vallely and Kevin Crawford. The band
has also produced two books, Nótaí
and Lúnasa: The Music 1996-2001;
each contains tunes from three of the band’s
albums presented in standard notation, photos
of the band and information and stories about
the tunes.
The instrumental-only approach of Lúnasa
was inspired by the dazzling virtuoso playing
and telepathic interplay of the Bothy Band in
the 1970s—especially fiddlers Tommy Peoples
and Kevin Burke, piper Paddy Keenan and flute
and whistle player Matt Molloy. While the Bothy
Band featured vocals from singing siblings Tríona
Ní Dhomhnaill and Mícheál
Ó Domhnaill, the men of Lúnasa wanted
to focus solely on the instrumental side.
“I always felt that a singer would water
down what we have to offer,” says Kevin
Crawford. “What we try to do and what we
do really well is to create the highs and lows
that other bands often create by the use of a
song here and there. We do it through the music
and I think it works. Once you capture the audience’s
imagination and psyche, it really works well.
If they’re following what you’re doing,
you can bring them along this road and it’s
great.”
In addition to not having a singer, Lúnasa
stands apart from most of its musical peers by
including a bass player—a welcome addition
to ears raised on music with a bottom end. Lúnasa
bassist Trevor Hutchinson gives the band a solid
foundation without being a drag on the ensemble’s
propulsive forward motion.
“There is nothing that occupies the sonic
territory that the bass has, other than the
bodhrán,” says Hutchinson. “Most
of the instruments are in a high range, and you
need to balance the sound by giving it a low range.
The hardest thing is integrating with the guitarist—what
room does the guitar leave to figure out what
the tune needs? Does it need to swing? What will
be the rhythm motion?”
Lúnasa is one of the hardest working
bands in Celtic music. In just the last couple
of years, the band has performed in Ireland, England,
Scotland, Canada, France, Spain, Portugal, the
Netherlands, Belgium and the U.S. Previous tours
have taken the quintet to Australia, Israel, Japan,
Germany, Italy, and most of the rest of Europe.
The band plays regularly at Festival Kan-Al-Loar
in the Brittany region of France and at the Celtic
Connections festival in Glasgow, Scotland. Lúnasa
performed with singer Natalie Merchant at last
summer’s Celtic Connections festival, which
led to the band playing on five cuts on her upcoming
CD.
Since Lúnasa was last in Dayton in 2007,
the band took part in a unique and innovative
18-month residency project in County Leitrim,
in the north-central part of Ireland. The least
populous county in Ireland with only 29,000 inhabitants,
Leitrim has lost much of its population to the
famines of the 19th century and to immigration,
but the county is nonetheless home to a small
but devoted group of traditional musicians who
are keeping the Leitrim legacy alive.
The band conducted eight three-day residencies
in the county, each in a different area of Leitrim.
During each visit, Lúnasa would perform
at schools, community centers, hospitals and pubs,
learn Leitrim tunes from the older musicians in
the vicinity and help to mentor the area’s
younger musicians in house and pub sessions. The
experience was documented on The Leitrim Equation,
a double-CD on which the members of Lúnasa
were joined by a dozen or so Leitrim musicians
for a program of traditional tunes from the area,
as well as five original tunes that came out of
a new tunes workshop.
The months spent in Leitrim convinced Kevin
Crawford that, contrary to many reports, regional
styles of music can still be found in Ireland.
“There are many arguments that since the
onslaught of CDs and digital media, regional music
styles have been watered down to some extent,”
says Crawford. “But having been involved
in the whole Leitrim experience, I doubt that
now because there are so many regional pockets
within Leitrim who haven’t really been exposed
to the whole record industry. They have kept their
own identity in terms of the tunes they play,
the style they play. We were able to tap into
that and get a sense of what music has been like
[there] for the last 60 years.
“It has been a wake-up call for a band
like Lúnasa. We are on the road all the
time; you can live a kind of a false life, in
some ways, in terms of your vision of music in
Ireland. We’ve enjoyed dipping into the
well and coming out with a fresh approach…We
came away totally mesmerized, and invigorated
by the whole thing.”
According to legend, music came to Ireland when
the Tuatha Dé Danann, a race of people
in Irish mythology, descended from the top of
a mist-enshrouded mountain in County Leitrim.
With them came three musicians, Ceol, Binn and
Téidbhinn—the embodiment of music,
melody and harmony. The music then spread outward
from Leitrim across the country, to every town,
village and crossroads in Ireland.
There’s a nice, satisfying symmetry to
Leitrim being chosen for the first traditional
music residency program in Ireland. And it’s
hard to imagine a more fitting, more symbolically
meaningful place for Lúnasa to receive
a “wake-up call” and be reinvigorated
about the magic and the power of a well-played
tune.
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