Concert Programs 2011

"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 been writing about music, pop culture and the arts for over thirty years. His first book, King of the Queen City: The Story of King Records (Music in American Life), was published in September 2009 by the University of Illinois Press.

October 21, 2010

Simon Shaheen

Some people are born to build bridges. Internationally renowned oud and violin virtuoso, composer, music educator and music promoter Simon Shaheen is such a man. A Palestinian Christian born in Israel, Shaheen has been crossing boundaries between cultures, and building bridges between those cultures, since he was a child. Now that he is hailed as one of the most important Arab musicians of his generation, Shaheen feels an even greater need to reach out to anyone who will listen to his message of tolerance, understanding and cooperation. 

Simon Shaheen was born in 1955 in the village of Tarshiha in northern Israel, not far from the border with Lebanon. His family moved to the larger city of Haifa when he was two. Shaheen grew up in a musical household and he began playing the oud at age five, taught by his father Hikmat Shaheen, a music professor, oud master and founder of two regional orchestras.

“What my father taught me was a very vast range of Arabic musical tradition,” says Shaheen. “For example, I was exposed to classical genres and repertoires. I was exposed to traditional folkloric music. In the beginning, at four, I started to hold the instrument and play on it just by listening and watching my father, who was a great oud player. My whole family is musical—so, to grow up in this kind of environment, automatically, you are susceptible to music.”

The oud, Shaheen’s first instrument, is a plucked, unfretted short-neck lute and the central instrument in Arabian music. The instrument is at least 5,000 years old and is heard not only in the Middle East, but also in Turkey, Iran, Greece and Azerbaijan, as well as the northern African countries of Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and Sudan.

Shaped something like a pear cut in half, the oud has 11 strings and is viewed as the direct forerunner of the European lute. “The oud is considered like the piano in the west,” Shaheen says. “It’s the instrument that composers use when they work with musical ideas.”

Shaheen started playing the violin at age six and studied the instrument for eight years at the   Conservatory for Western Classical Music in Jerusalem. He graduated from the Academy of Music in Jerusalem in 1978 and then taught at the school for two years. Shaheen moved to New York City in 1980 for graduate studies in performance at the Manhattan School of Music and performance and music education at Columbia University. He is now a citizen of the U.S.

“I came [to the United States] to continue my education,” Shaheen says, “and to be able to perform to a wider range of people. Back home in Israel, performance was kind of limited. I wanted to expand. I wanted to perform internationally. I wanted to go to Arab countries, which I was not permitted to do because I was living in Israel. The borders at that time were not open. So, it was only after I came to New York and obtained an American passport that I was able to travel to other Arabic countries.”

Since moving to the U.S., Shaheen has worked with a diverse array of musicians and artists. In 1982, Shaheen formed the Near Eastern Music Ensemble, a group of virtuoso musicians that performs traditional Arab music and newer music from contemporary Middle Eastern composers. One of Shaheen’s goals for the NEME was to educate people in the U.S. about Arab music and culture and to dispel stereotypes about the music—such as that it’s only for belly dancers. “I felt it was a mission for me,” he says.

By the mid-1990s, Shaheen had become intrigued with the concept of fusion, specifically a fusion of Arab music, jazz, classical and Latin styles. “Living in New York, you can’t avoid fusion,” he notes. To that end, he founded the ensemble Qantara in 1995. Qantara, which means “arch” in Arabic, made its recording debut in 2000 on the critically acclaimed album Two Tenors & Qantara: Historic Live Recording of Arabic Masters, featuring legendary vocalists Wadi El Safi and Sabah Fakhri.

Shaheen made his recording debut in 1983 on an improvisational duet album, Taqasim, with Mansour Ajami, a master of the buzuq, a longer-necked relative of the oud. Shaheen made his solo debut in 1991 with The Music of Mohamed Abdel Wahab, a tribute to the great Egyptian composer. He followed that in 1993 with Turath: The Masterworks of the Middle East, a collection of classical Arab ensemble music.

Shaheen showed his gift for cross-cultural collaboration on his next album, Saltanah, a duet recording with renowned Indian guitarist Vishna Moham Bhatt. Blue Flame, the first full album by Qantara, came out in 2000 and has been hailed as Shaheen’s finest recording to date. National Public Radio called Blue Flame “a staggering tour de force of technique and passion.” A critic for the Los Angeles Times lavishly praised the album and perceptively described its appeal: “Shaheen’s success in combining characteristics of Middle Eastern music, Western classical music, jazz and Latin rhythms into a gorgeous tapestry can be traced to his capacity to find their common threads.”

Shaheen has performed at some of the world’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, Cairo’s Opera House, Theatre de la Ville in Beirut, and Le Palais des Arts in Brussels. He has also collaborated with other musicians at several high-profile events; Shaheen appeared before 500,000 people at Quincy Jones’ “We Are the Future,” fundraising concert in Rome and performed and led the Middle Eastern string section that backed Sting and Cheb Mami on the Grammy Awards telecast in 2000.

In addition to his work with Qantara and the Near Eastern Music Ensemble, Shaheen spends roughly half of his time working as an educator, conducting workshops, seminars and lecture/demonstrations throughout the country. He’s an articulate and charismatic advocate for Arab music and culture and has taught at such colleges and universities as Juilliard, Columbia, Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Yale, University of Michigan and several others. As he did on his previous visit to Dayton in 2008, Shaheen will be working with Cityfolk’s Culture Builds Community program during his time in town.

In 1994, Shaheen received a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the highest award traditional musicians and artists can receive from this country. The Fellowship is a lifetime achievement award, and Shaheen—who was honored at the age of 41—received the Fellowship in recognition of his work as both musician and cultural advocate. His award noted that “Shaheen has emerged as a leader, not only in the performance and development of new compositions for the oud, but in the shaping of American attitudes about Arabic music.”

Shaheen was honored earlier this year by the Berklee College of Music in Boston, one of this country’s leading music schools, with one of its annual Berklee Honors Award, presented at the school’s long-running International Folk Music Festival. Shaheen was praised in the award citation for “his tremendous support of education, for promoting international goodwill and understanding, and for the amazing support and advocacy provided for Berklee students.”

As a highly visible Arab-American, Shaheen feels an obligation to try to bring his native culture and his adopted country closer together—before the gulf of misunderstanding between them gets even wider. He seems uniquely qualified for the task and, indeed, Reflex Magazine calls Shaheen “one of the finest cultural ambassadors the Arab world has.” Shaheen has no illusions about the difficulties or the challenges inherent in his educational campaign, but he also realizes that as the political situation in the Middle East deteriorates, his work becomes even more important. “I cannot think that [global politics] will be a barrier,” he says. “I cannot think this way. Otherwise, I am not living with myself. I don’t have my own world, my own personality and character.”

Our society badly needs people like Simon Shaheen—now more than ever. A poisonous current of hatred and intolerance is loose upon our land, targeting immigrants, Muslims, Middle Easterners, people of color and others who are somehow “different.” “It’s so easy to hate and fear something you don’t know,” Shaheen says, and so he works tirelessly on, using music to point out the common threads between cultures

“If Arabic culture is kept as a kind of puzzle, in the dark,” he says, “then definitely there will be hate and fear.” But if Simon Shaheen can bring people together through his virtuoso music, can get people to really hear his music and his message and can get American audiences to think more about what we share with other cultures around the world, then he has at least a chance to do what he does best: build bridges between people.

“I’ve tried to come up with a formula,” Shaheen says, “that is original, interesting musically, but not harming the roots…something that holds different things together, and when you go through it, you don’t know what to expect. It’s like a new world.”

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November 12, 2010

A Tribute to Bix Beiderbecke
Dave Greer's Classic Jazz Stompers with special guest Andy Schumm

Bix Beiderbecke
Bix Beiderbecke didn’t make it to his 30th birthday, but he helped write the early history of jazz during his short time on earth. A native of Davenport, Iowa, Leon “Bix” Beiderbecke (1903-31) was a gifted self-taught cornetist, pianist and composer, and, in the words of noted jazz critic and historian Leonard Feather in 1956, “the first white musician to be admired and imitated by Negro jazzmen.” Beiderbecke wasn’t a big star when he died, but jazz musicians knew who he was and held him in high regard, and several of the tunes he composed or made famous are still played by traditional jazz musicians, including “Davenport Blues,” “In A Mist,” “Candlelights,” “Singin’ the Blues,” “Flashes” and “In the Dark.”

Beiderbecke launched his professional career in Chicago in the early 1920s, playing the cornet—the trumpet’s mellower-voiced younger brother—in several different ensembles. He moved to Ohio and joined the Wolverine Orchestra in 1923 and made his recording debut the following year with the group. An important early “territory band,” the Wolverines were based at the Stockton Club in Hamilton when Beiderbecke joined the band. When that venue closed after a brawl on New Year’s Eve, the group moved down the road to Cincinnati to play at Doyle’s Dance Studio; after three months at Doyle’s, the band was the hottest thing going in Cincinnati.

The Wolverines began recording for Gennett Records in February 1924, both at the company’s headquarters in Richmond, Indiana, and in New York City, and cut several sides, including a hot “Tiger Rag.” After an extended engagement with the Wolverines in New York City was cancelled, Beiderbecke jumped ship and launched a partnership with saxophonist Frankie Trumbauer, recording a single 78 as the Sioux City Six.
Beiderbecke took a job with Jean Goldkette’s Orchestra late in 1924, recording for Victor alongside such musicians as Tommy Dorsey, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Jimmy Dorsey and Trumbauer. Bix worked and recorded off-and-on with Goldkette into 1927, though he also recorded in various formats as a leader, in bands led by Trumbauer and in a trio with Trumbauer and guitarist Eddie Lang.

Known as an especially lyrical improviser, Bix joined the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, the most popular and prestigious jazz ensemble of the 1920s, late in 1927. Bix worked with Whiteman into 1930, but serious health problems plagued him throughout his tenure. He did some of his best playing during the years with Whiteman, establishing an enduring reputation as the most creative trumpet/cornet soloist in early jazz other than Louis Armstrong; prominent jazz critic Terry Teachout says Armstrong and Bix represent “the twin lines of descent from which most of today’s jazz can be traced.”

Store-bought liquor would have been bad enough for a self-destructive alcoholic like Beiderbecke, but he didn’t stand a chance drinking the toxic swill that passed for booze during Prohibition. His health was pretty much shot by 1929, though he recorded some great music over the last couple years of his life, working with such stellar musicians as Hoagy Carmichael, Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Jack Teagarden and others.

After his death, Beiderbecke became a legendary (and often misunderstood) Romantic figure—the doomed, charismatic, self-destructive artist who flames out at a young age—thanks in part to a popular novel loosely based on Beiderbecke’s life, Young Man with A Horn (and the subsequent film, starring Kirk Douglas as Bix). Later film documentaries and memoirs have painted a more accurate picture, but Beiderbecke’s life remains wreathed in mystery.

Bix Beiderbecke’s tombstone at Oakdale Cemetery back home in Davenport reports just his name and dates of birth and death, nothing about his music. A more fitting epitaph came from his friend, Louis Armstrong: “Bix didn’t let anything at all detract his mind from that cornet. His heart was in it all the time.” Clarinetist Pee Wee Russell, who played with Bix in St. Louis, added the ultimate musician’s compliment: “If you had any talent at all, he made you play better.”

Dave Greer’s Classic Jazz Stompers
Bandleader Dave Greer describes his Classic Jazz Stompers as “a territory band from Dayton, Ohio, which is magnetized by the moment in the late 1920s and early 1930s when classic jazz evolved into small band swing.” The well-traveled octet looks for inspiration to several iconic figures from the early years of jazz: Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Jelly Roll Morton, King Oliver, Bix Beiderbecke and Duke Ellington. The American Rag calls the Classic Jazz Stompers “one of the best jazz bands playing today.”

Formed in Dayton in 1981 by Dave Greer, a prominent Dayton attorney who has been playing traditional jazz for decades, the Classic Jazz Stompers started life with a weekly gig at Langtree’s, a restaurant and club under the Courthouse Square in downtown Dayton. After several years there, the band moved to the Centerville Club. Subsequent residencies followed at Gilly’s, Longfellow’s Tavern (later Geez) in Washington Township Suttmillers in Dayton, and the Crowne Plaza Hotel.

Dave Greer’s Classic Jazz Stompers consists of Dave Greer (banjo, tenor guitar, vocals), Chris Moore (cornet, vocals), Erik Greiffenhagen (clarinet, tenor, baritone, and soprano saxophone), Gordon Moore (trombone), Greg Dearth (alto and tenor saxophone, clarinet, violin, vocals), John MacQueen (bass), Jim Leslie (drums, vocals) and Ted Des Plantes (piano, vocals).

In addition to regular local appearances in Dayton and Cincinnati, the Classic Jazz Stompers travel within a roughly 500-mile radius to perform at clubs, weddings, funerals, conventions and traditional jazz festivals, earning critical acclaim every step of the way. “The group has the sound that only comes from working together a long time,” wrote a critic for The Mississippi Rag. “The repertoire is seemingly endless and is always delivered with the enthusiasm that comes from really believing in classic jazz.” The band has also performed at the Cityfolk Festival and made three successful tours of Belgium.

This version of the Classic Jazz Stompers came together in 1990, when Chris Moore, Gordon Moore (no relation) and Erik Greiffenhagen joined the ensemble. Greiffenhagen and Chris Moore had both played in the Rambler Classics, a Yellow Springs-based band led by saxophonist Jim Campbell, and had considerable experience with the music despite their youth. The band gained a formidable four-man front line, a rarity in traditional jazz bands of this size, when multi-instrumentalist Greg Dearth (whose credits include the Hutchinson Brothers, the Hotmud Family and the Rug Cutters) joined the group in the late 1990s. Dearth’s violin playing gives the Stompers a distinctive sound and his versatility on the reed and string instruments allows the band a staggering number of instrumental combinations and voices.

The Classic Jazz Stompers have recorded nine (or so) albums, including such well-received recordings as The World Can’t Do Without that Rhythm Man, Rough Winds and Darling Buds and You Asked for It. The band’s most recent album, Chasin’ Old Man Blues, was released earlier this year. This album marks a major step for the Stompers: alongside classics from Fats Waller, Duke Ellington and Bix Beiderbecke, the CD includes four original tunes by the band’s members—“The Classic Jazz Stomp” by Greg Dearth, “Waukazoo 212” by Erik Greiffenhagen and “Whoopee Soup” and “Melancholy Moments” by Ted des Plantes.

Ted des Plantes, the veteran piano man who joined the Stompers in 1999, has recorded extensively in his own right for such labels as Stomp Off, Jazzology and Solo Arts. His CDs include the solo album Christmas Night in Harlem Stride, Ain’tcha Got Music, Ohio River Blues, Shim Sham Shimmy Dance, Feelin’ Good, Railroad Man and Thumpin’ & Bumpin’ (the last five by Ted Des Plantes’ Washboard Wizards).

Andy Schumm
The guest artist for this evening’s Bix Beiderbecke tribute is cornetist Andy Schumm, a young musician from Wisconsin who’s already earned considerable acclaim in the traditional jazz world for his superior musicianship and devotion to the legacy of Bix Beiderbecke. A native of Milwaukee, Schumm came under the spell of Beiderbecke after hearing Bix’s 1927 recording of “At the Jazz Band Ball,” and has since dedicated himself to spreading the word about the music he loves.

Schumm started playing piano at the age of five and picked up the trumpet a year or two later. He studied modern jazz in high school, but his playing and his musical outlook really took form when he began exploring the jazz of the 1920s and early 1930s. Though Schumm has been most heavily influenced as a cornetist by Beiderbecke, he also lists among his influences such early masters of the cornet and trumpet as Louis Armstrong, Jabbo Smith, Red Nichols, King Oliver and Rex Stewart.

An extremely versatile multi-instrumentalist, Schumm is adept on piano, trombone, bass sax, clarinet, banjo, baritone, trumpet and drums as well as cornet. A recent graduate of the University of Illinois, Schumm has performed with a number of ensembles, including the West End Jazz Band, the Flatland Gang, the Noble Friends and Andy Schumm’s Bixologists. He is a regular participant in Bix Beiderbecke tributes, festivals and retrospectives around the country.

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November 13, 2010

Liz Carroll & Friends

A strong case can be made that Chicago is the beating heart of Irish traditional music in the United States—and has been for several decades. Other cities, notably Boston and New York City, can lay claim to the title, but no place other than Chicago has had quite the same combination of a large Irish community, outstanding musicians, vibrant infrastructure of radio shows, dancehalls and community centers and a rich history. Chicago even had what is probably the most musical municipal police force in American history, thanks to Chief Francis O’Neill, who, in the first years of the 20th century, added as police officers as many Irish fiddlers, pipers and whistle players as he could find.

Fiddler and composer Liz Carroll is the Windy City’s foremost standard-bearer for traditional Irish music in the 21st century, a spiritual descendant of the musical Chief. Born in 1956 in Chicago, Carroll has been widely hailed as the greatest American fiddler in traditional Irish music. The New York Times calls her “brilliant,” the Washington Post opts for “extraordinary” and her hometown Chicago Tribune describes her as “one of the greatest contemporary Irish fiddlers.”

Like many prominent Irish musicians, Carroll started step-dancing at a young age, encouraged by her immigrant parents. Her first instrument was her father’s accordion, but Liz soon found her calling when Sister Francine started violin instruction at her elementary school. Growing up, Liz was mentored by many great musicians in Chicago, including piper Joe Shannon, fiddler John McGreevy and accordionist Tommy Maguire and others at countless sessions around the city.

Carroll first attracted wide-spread notice outside Chicago when she won the All-Ireland Junior Fiddle Championship in 1974 at age 17. The following year, in her first year of eligibility, she won the All-Ireland Senior Fiddle Championship, only the second American to win this prestigious title. Playing with Chicago accordion virtuoso Jimmy Keane, she also won the All-Ireland Senior Duet Championship in 1975.

Carroll has worked with and been a member of several important bands throughout her career. She was an early member of both Cherish the Ladies and Green Fields of America, all-star Irish-American bands formed by folklorist and musician Mick Moloney. Carroll later worked for several years with Trian, a Chicago-based trio with multi-instrumentalist Dáithí Sproule and accordionist Billy McComiskey that recorded two albums in the early 1990s, Trian and Trian II.

In 1998, Carroll took part in another historic gathering of musicians, at the annual Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow, Scotland. Shetland fiddler Catriona Macdonald was assigned the task of assembling a one-time super-group of female fiddlers to close the festival. She invited five of her friends from Ireland, Norway, Sweden and the U.S.—Liz Carroll, Emma Härdelin, Liz Knowles (the fiddler in Riverdance), Annbjørg Lien and Maireád Ní Mhaonaigh (Altan)—and the sextet was the hit of the festival. The group has since done some sporadic touring and recorded a concert album, Live, in 2007. Carroll currently records and tours in a duet with guitarist and singer John Doyle.

Carroll made her recording debut in 1978 with Kiss Me Kate, a duet album with All-Ireland Button Accordion Champion Tommy Maguire, a native of County Offaly who spent much of his life in Chicago. She has subsequently recorded four solo albums, A Friend Indeed, Liz Carroll, Lost in the Loop and Lake Effect, and a pair of critically acclaimed CDs with guitarist John Doyle, In Play and the Grammy-nominated Double Play—which made Liz the first American-born artist ever nominated for playing Irish music. Carroll has additionally recorded with the String Sisters, and Cherish the Ladies, among others.

Carroll is also a gifted and prolific composer of fiddle tunes. Several of her tunes, including “The Air Tune,” “The Diplodocus” and “The Lament for the First Generation,” have entered the standard repertoire and are frequently heard at traditional sessions. A printed collection of her tunes was long overdue, which makes the publication earlier this year of Collected a welcome treat for Carroll’s many fans. Collected is a compendium of 185 of Carroll’s original tunes, many of which have appeared on her solo albums and recordings with John Doyle, Trian and Cherish the Ladies, and covered by such artists and bands as Solas, Dervish, Natalie MacMaster, the Battlefield Band and Sharon Shannon. Fifty of the tunes have never been recorded.

Liz’s friends for this Cityfolk concert are Dáithí Sproule (guitar and vocals), Pauline Conneely (banjo and dancing), Troy MacGillivray (fiddle and Cape Breton step dancing) and Jake Charron (guitar and piano).

Renowned guitarist Dáithí Sproule, a native of County Derry, has lived in Minnesota for many years. He was one of the first guitarists in traditional Irish music to experiment with the guitar tuning known as DADGAD and has been hailed as “a seminal figure in Irish music” (Rough Guide to Irish Music). Sproule has worked with a number of illustrious musicians and ensembles on both sides of the Atlantic, including Skara Brae, Altan, Bowhand (with James Kelly and Paddy O’Brien), Fingal (with Randall Bays and James Keane), Trian (with Liz Carroll and Billy McComiskey), Peter Ostroushko and Tommy Peoples. In addition to dozens of albums he’s recorded with different groups, he has recorded two solo albums: Heart Made of Glass (1995) and the all-instrumental The Crow in the Sun (2008).

Pauline Conneely was born in England, to Irish immigrant parents hailing from Connemara and County Longford. She first came to the U.S. in 1988 as a dancer and musician with Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann, before moving to Chicago the following year. She has worked with Cherish the Ladies as well as Liz Carroll and had a tune named for her by Carroll, “Pauline Conneely’s,” which has been recorded by Trian and others.

Award-winning multi-instru-mentalist Troy MacGillivray comes from a musical family in Nova Scotia, and, like seemingly every fiddler from eastern Canada, he’s also a highly skilled step dancer. The most recent of his five albums is When Here Meets There, a collaboration with fiddler Shane Cook.

Already known as a superb accompanist for fiddle music, pianist Jake Charron has performed with fiddle champions Shane Cook, Mark Sullivan, Pierre Schryer and Louis Schryer, Stephanie Cadman’s Celtic Blaze and fiddler/step dancer Dan Stacey. Charron has been the house pianist at the Canadian Open Fiddle Championships for the past five years.

In 1994, the National Endowment for the Arts awarded Liz Carroll a National Heritage Fellowship—the highest honor the U.S. bestows upon traditional musicians and artists—for her great influence upon Irish music in America, as both a performer and a composer. The award cited Carroll, one of the youngest artists to ever receive a National Heritage Fellowship, as a “Master Traditional Artist who has contributed to the shaping of our artistic traditions and to preserving the cultural diversity of the United States.” As the decade ended, Carroll received an honor at home to go with that national recognition—Chicago celebrated “Liz Carroll Day” September 18, 1999.

As is true with the greatest traditional musicians, Liz Carroll helps to shape the tradition within which she works and lives. She’s one of the foremost modern composers in traditional Irish music, and, with each new album and now her book Collected, Carroll expands and enriches the Irish music tradition with beautifully crafted tunes that will be played for years and years—tunes “as intoxicating as a stiff shot of whiskey” (Los Angeles Times).

She vividly remembers writing her first tune: “When I was nine years old, with much ceremony, I sat down and composed a reel. I can remember that this felt very special, different from learning a tune, varying one, or hearing one for the first time. I had a melody that had come to me, and it didn’t exist anywhere else. I was at once the first person to hear it, to vary it, to learn it and ultimately to perform it. I can’t tell you how exciting that was.”

That excitement is still an integral part of Liz Carroll’s music after all these years. Whether she’s playing for President Obama at the White House (as she did on St. Patrick’s Day last year) or at a festival appearance or a teaching workshop, Carroll brings a sense of focus and undimmed passion to everything she plays, discovering new pleasures in even the most familiar tunes. Her musical curiosity is every bit as acute as her compositional and instrumental gifts.

“Liz is one of the most intense Irish fiddlers on the scene,” says fiddler Darol Anger, who recorded her tune “Lost in the Loop” with the American Fiddle Ensemble. “She’s playing with such heightened emotional and technical concentration that every note is like a dart aimed at the heart. Her compositions reflect her intensity. You can see her thinking, ‘How can I stretch this? How can I play something even more amazing?’ She’ll pursue an idea until she’s completely run it down and mastered it.” Chief O’Neill and Sister Francine would both be very proud of Liz Carroll.

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January 29, 2011

Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder

with special guests The Steep Canyon Rangers

The Steep Canyon Rangers
A funny thing happened to the Steep Canyon Rangers on the way to the next bluegrass festival: Steve Martin. When the comedian, actor, author and banjo picker chose the Steep Canyon Rangers to tour with him in support of his Grammy-winning album The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo, the young North Carolina band was thrust into a world unknown to most bluegrass bands—including sold-out shows at theaters and arts centers across the country, numerous TV appearances (including Austin City Limits) and gigs at such clubs as B.B. King’s Blues Club in New York City.

The Steep Canyon Rangers—Mike Guggino (mandolin), Charles Humphrey III (bass), Woody Platt (guitar), Nicky Sanders (fiddle) and Graham Sharp (banjo)—didn’t really need Martin’s help, but the connection has certainly raised the band’s profile. The members of the band have been playing together since they were students at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in the late 1990s. Now based in Asheville, the quintet was named “Emerging Artist of the Year” by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) in 2007. Steve Martin says of the Rangers’ original but traditional sound: “It makes you feel that even though you know you haven’t heard this music before, it seems like you have, or at least should have.”

After a pair of band-released albums, the group has recorded four albums for Rebel Records: The Steep Canyon Rangers, One Dime at a Time, Lovin’ Pretty Women and the most recent, released in 2009, Deep in the Shade. A collaborative album with Steve Martin is scheduled for release this spring. All of the albums have received heavy national radio airplay and One Dime at a Time topped the chart in Bluegrass Unlimited. Since winning the band contest at the Rockygrass Bluegrass Festival in Colorado, the Rangers have toured coast to coast, picking up devoted fans at each stop. As No Depression has proclaimed of the Rangers: “They get the big things—and the little things—right.”

The music of the Steep Canyon Rangers, called “raw and perfect” by Popmatters.com, rises above the pack on the strength of the band’s superb vocals and distinctive original material. Guitarist Woody Platt does the lead singing for the band and he’s a strong, charismatic vocalist, equally effective on bluegrass burners and honky-tonk country weepers. The band’s harmonies are also sublime, especially on such a cappella standouts as “Sylvie” and Wade Mainer’s “I Can’t Sit Down,” a guaranteed show-stopper.

Aside from a few well-chosen covers, the Rangers perform mostly original material, the majority of it written by banjo player Graham Sharp. “Our original music is grounded in traditional bluegrass but has country influences,” says Sharp. “It’s not really progressive, just new with an old sound.” That new-old dynamic is clearly working for the Steep Canyon Rangers. In just five years on the national scene, the Rangers have covered a lot of ground to become, in the words of Bluegrass Unlimited, “simply as good as a tradition-based modern bluegrass band gets.”

Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder
The course of Ricky Skaggs’ life was clear before he even entered grade school. His parents gave him a mandolin at age five and he began studying the classics—Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers and Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs. “I got to play with Bill Monroe when I was 6 years old,” Skaggs says, “and Flatt and Scruggs when I was 7. I met Ralph Stanley when I was 9. So I was ruined after that.” The die was cast.

Born in 1954 in Cordell, Kentucky, Ricky Skaggs is one of the most important, influential, successful and popular musicians in the modern era of bluegrass. From the time he started his career as one of Ralph Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys to his current status as Grand Ole Opry star and award-winning bandleader, Skaggs has distinguished himself as a peerless singer and hot-picking multi-instrumentalist (mandolin, fiddle, guitar), as well as a respected advocate for bluegrass, traditional country and Americana music.

Skaggs was “discovered” by Ralph Stanley in 1970, and he joined Stanley’s Clinch Mountain Boys just in time to participate in Stanley’s landmark record Cry to the Cross, arguably the greatest bluegrass gospel album in history. Skaggs played on seven of Stanley’s albums before he left; he later played with the Country Gentlemen and J.D. Crowe & the New South before forming the short-lived band Boone Creek with dobro master Jerry Douglas.

In 1977, Skaggs left the bluegrass world—temporarily as it turned out—to replace Rodney Crowell in Emmylou Harris’ Hot Band. Skaggs was the driving force behind Harris’ classic mostly acoustic album Roses in the Snow, but he also found the time while fronting Harris’ band to record the albums Sweet Temptation (1979), Skaggs & Rice (1980), a superb album of old-time “brother duets” with guitarist Tony Rice, and Family & Friends (1982).

After leaving Harris’ band to pursue a solo career in Nashville, Skaggs emerged as a leader of the “New Traditionalist” movement that revitalized country music in the 1980s. Skaggs’ savvy blend of bluegrass and honky-tonk country from the 1940s and 1950s was the freshest sound on country radio and he became a major star during this period

During his years atop the country charts in the mid-1980s—when Skaggs recorded such number one hits as “Crying My Heart Out Over You,” “Don’t Cheat in Our Hometown,” “I Wouldn’t Change You If I Could,” “Uncle Pen,” “Heartbroke,” “Highway 40 Blues” and “I Don’t Care”—he won several top honors from the Country Music Association, including Entertainer of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year. Producer Chet Atkins, who as a major architect of the pop-ish Nashville Sound is blamed by many for “ruining” country music, credited Skaggs with “single-handedly saving” country music.

As commercial country music continued to move away from its traditional roots throughout the 1990s, Ricky Skaggs made a much-anticipated “return to bluegrass” in 1997 with the album Bluegrass Rules. With his new band Kentucky Thunder, Skaggs proceeded to blaze an unprecedented trail: the first eight albums he recorded with the band were nominated for the Bluegrass Album of the Year Grammy Award. Six of the albums won the award. Soldier of the Cross, his first all-gospel album, also won the Grammy for Best Southern, Country, or Bluegrass Gospel Album in 2000.

Of his high-powered band, Skaggs says, “Each and every one of the pickers in Kentucky Thunder totally amazes me in every show…and that, to me, outweighs any award we could ever win.” Even so, Kentucky Thunder has won the IBMA Instrumental Group of the Year Award eight times, more than any other band. Kentucky Thunder consists of Andy Leftwich (fiddle), Cody Kilby (lead guitar), Mark Fain (bass), Paul Brewster (tenor vocals, rhythm guitar), Eddie Faris (baritone vocals, guitar) and Justin Moses (background vocals, banjo).

Ricky Skaggs is one of the most honored modern bluegrass and country musicians, with 14 Grammy Awards to his credit. He’s nominated for another three Grammys this year (to be presented February 13)—Best Traditional Folk Album for Ricky Skaggs Solo: Songs My Dad Loved, Best Pop/Contemporary Gospel Album for Mosaic and Best Gospel Song for “Return to Sender.” His awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) include Album of the Year for Bluegrass Rules and an unprecedented eight Instrumental Group of the Year awards for Kentucky Thunder.

Ricky Skaggs Solo: Songs My Dad Loved, Skaggs’ most recent CD, is a true solo effort: Skaggs sings and plays every note on the album, a mix of traditional songs and tunes with a Skaggs original, “Pickin’ in Caroline,” on which he plays clawhammer banjo. It’s a very special album for him, dedicated to his father Hobert Skaggs, who died in 1996.

“If I could’ve gotten my dad into the studio, this is how I would’ve wanted him to sound,” Skaggs says of the recording. “He played a very vital role in my musical journey. He got me started on the right foot and really worked with me and spent time with me. He was just a great dad, a great example.”

Now celebrating his 40th year in the business, Ricky Skaggs is unveiling a new tour in 2011 called “Treasure Chest,” in which his country hits from the 1980s will be mixed in with the bluegrass. He’s journeyed a long way from Lawrence County, Kentucky, in his career, but he remains firmly committed to bluegrass or, as he calls it, “America’s root music.”

Ricky Skaggs is in control of his musical future these days, and even if he doesn’t know what that future might hold, he knows that he will always be trying to “preserve that high lonesome sound and never going too far away from it.” In his heart he’s still the little kid who idolized Lester Flatt, Bill Monroe, Earl Scruggs, brothers Carter and Ralph Stanley and all the other pioneers of the early days of bluegrass. “We are very grateful to be able to play this music,” he says, “because the music deserves honor.”

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February 1, 2011

Huun-Huur-Tu

Once upon a time, the Republic of Tuva, situated in the exact geographic center of Asia, nestled in the mountains of southern Siberia, was known to Westerners, if at all, for its bizarre postage stamps. Tuva was beloved by stamp collectors worldwide in the 1920s and 1930s for its large, colorful, oddly-shaped stamps, many depicting such local scenes as a woman milking a yak, Tuvan folk wrestling, an airplane stampeding a herd of startled reindeer and, my personal favorite, what seems to be a race between a camel and a low-flying dirigible.

That was the old days, though. The most famous cultural export of modern Tuva is “throat singing,” and the best known throat-singers are found in Huun-Huur-Tu, one of the most fascinating and compelling ensembles on the world music circuit. The quartet of highly skilled singers and instrumentalists, based in the Tuvan capital of Kyzyl, has emerged as the leading ambassadors of Tuvan culture, taking its traditional music around the world, amazing and completely entrancing audiences in the U.S., Australia, Japan, Russia and throughout Europe.

Music critics have been singing the praises of Huun-Huur-Tu for years, and, if the critics haven’t always known what to make of the music, they have gamely tried to convey its special magic. Jazz Times heard “a rustic joyousness and unadulterated expressiveness” in the music, while folk and world music magazine Dirty Linen hailed its dualistic nature as “both very spiritual and down to earth, grounded in a strong sense of place, yet its appeal is universal.” To the Chicago Tribune Huun-Huur-Tu “is unfamiliar yet very accessible, an other-worldly but deeply spiritual music that is rooted in the sound of nature.”

The idea behind Huun-Huur-Tu came from an unlikely place—the annual Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena, California. Kaigal-ool Khovalyg, a young man already known as one of Tuva’s most accomplished throat-singers, and two other Tuvan singing horsemen had been invited to ride in the 1992 Rose Parade. As a result of the trip, the three Tuvans decided to form a band and try to preserve traditional Tuvan music and culture in the face of modernization and a half-century of Soviet suppression. The paranoid powers in the Kremlin saw throat singing as subversive.

Tucked between Russia and Mongolia, Tuva was already a thriving society when Genghis Khan conquered it in 1207. Mongol and later Chinese forces ruled Tuva for centuries before it was made a Russian protectorate in 1914. Tuva was part of the Soviet Union between 1944 and 1991. Approximately 305,000 people live in Tuva, many of them semi-nomadic sheep and reindeer herders. Spiritually, these herders observe a distinctive regional blend of Buddhism and animism, with a bit of Orthodox Christianity mixed in. Their music is a direct result of their animistic beliefs.

The original version of Huun-Huur-Tu consisted of Kaigal-ool Khovalyg, brothers Alexander and Sayan Bapa and Albert Kuvezin. The Bapa rothers and Khovalyg had previously worked together in a state-sanctioned ensemble during the Soviet regime. Kuvezin eventually left to form a progressive Tuvan rock band called Yat-Kha; he was replaced by, in turn, Anatoli Kuular, Andrey Mongush and Radik Tyulyush, who joined H-H-T in 2005. Alexander Bapa left the group in 1995 to focus on music production. He was replaced by Alexei Saryglar.

The group’s initial name was Kungurtuk, but was soon changed to Huun-Huur-Tu, which means, literally, “sun propeller.” The idea doesn’t translate exactly, but “sun propeller” is a Tuvan term for the refracted mountain sunlight seen at dawn and dusk. These vertical rays of light struck the musicians in the group as an analogy for the kind of “cultural refraction” they had in mind for their music.

The ability to produce two notes simultaneously is called “throat singing” or, more properly, overtone singing. In Tuva, it’s called khoomei (“throat” in Mongolian); singers of khoomei are known as khoomigch. The skilled khoomigch starts by singing a note in the middle of his range, as loud and steady as possible. This low fundamental note serves as a drone, like with a bagpipe.

Next, the basic idea is to use the tongue to divide and seal the mouth into two sound chambers. By positioning the lips, tongue, cheeks, jaws and mouth just so, a second note can be sounded, a higher-pitched harmonic of the first note. Once those two have been established, the singer can emphasize different harmonics, thus creating a tune, by “adjusting the tension and geometry of the mouth” (to quote one learned explanation).

Khoomei is representational to the extreme, intended to be nothing more than a faithful and accurate imitation of sounds in nature. This use of mimesis, basically imitation for aesthetic purposes, makes perfect sense given the herders’ cultural isolation and intimate ties to nature, as well as their long hours in the saddle with little to think about.

Throat singers not only imitate everything from bird calls to the sound of rushing water, they also construct what could be called sonic “maps” that use throat singing, whistling and other vocal techniques to share specific, detailed topographical information about a physical landscape. One herder might then sing this “map” to another. They also achieve such natural “effects” as reverb, by reflecting the voice off the face of a cliff, and vibrato, by singing into a waterfall.

Throat singing is not something that’s studied in Tuva. Singers aren’t really taught how to do it; they just pick it up. Khovalyg, who worked as a nomadic herder until he was 21, picked up throat singing from hearing his grandfather do it. As he rode for hours seated in front of his grandfather on the horse, the young boy not only heard the singing but felt it, absorbing the vibrations through every tissue of his body. He says the singing came to him naturally. Most Tuvans learn the skill as children. Throat singing is said to calm herd animals.

Cross-cultural collaboration has been a priority for Huun-Huur-Tu from the beginning. On the group’s first couple of U.S. tours, H-H-T performed or recorded with such musicians as Johnny “Guitar” Watson, the Kronos Quartet, Ry Cooder, the Chieftains, Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead and Frank Zappa, to whom H-H-T dedicated the song “Ching Söörtükchülerining Yryzy” (Song of the Caravan Drivers). The quartet has toured and recorded with the Bulgarian women’s choir Angelite, recorded with banjo master Bela Fleck on his Outbound album of 2000 and worked with Scottish pipers Martyn Bennett and Mary MacMaster.

Ry Cooder used H-H-T’s music in his soundtrack for the film Geronimo, and if Cooder’s conflation of Tuvan and Native American music confused some listeners, it made perfect sense to the Tuvans. According to a recent study published in Russia, Tuvans are genetically linked more closely to Native American peoples like the Eskimo, Apache and Navajo than to any other group. Tuvans believe that Native Americans originated in their area.

Since Huun-Huur-Tu was last in Dayton in 2006, the band has continued to expand the boundaries for traditional Tuvan music. H-H-T’s most recent album, Eternal (2009) is its most ambitious effort yet. A collaboration with Grammy-nominated electronic musician and producer Carmen Rizzo (known for his work with Coldplay, k.d. lang, Alanis Morissette, Seal and Paul Oakenfold) and composer/arranger Mark Governor, Eternal has been hailed as a masterpiece and a world music landmark, an album that “combines the primordial sound of the Tuvan steppes with a modern sound of electronic beats and strings” and “honors both the past and the future” (Dirty Linen).

The album began with H-H-T going into the famed Fantasy Studio in Berkeley, California, and recording a number of its signature songs and tunes using such native Tuvan instruments as the igil, a horse-hair fiddle; the shoor, a vertical flute; the bowed byzanche, an erhu-like fiddle with two sets of strings; and the dünggür (shaman drum). Rizzo was then hired to mix the album, but as he listened to the music, he saw an opportunity to create something entirely new and “began taking liberties,” as Rizzo puts it.

To call Rizzo’s efforts an “electronic remix” would be a vast understatement. He crafted elegant, provocative soundscapes around and out of the group’s pieces, creating a highly engaging synthesis that sounds neither forced nor contrived and really is unlike anything you’ve heard before. The members of H-H-T were thrilled when they heard Rizzo’s work, in part because it reminded them in places of one of their all-time favorite bands—Pink Floyd. “It was a good space around our music, with our music,” said Bapa Sayan.

While remaining as true to tradition as they could, Kaigal-ool Khovalyg and his mates in Huun-Huur-Tu have performed musical alchemy by converting amateur “at home” music into professional on-stage entertainment, transforming a solo form into an ensemble style, combining elements that wouldn’t normally be combined and creating a unique synthesis of separate vocal and instrumental traditions. Huun-Huur-Tu makes the best kind of world music—the kind that makes you shake your head and appreciate what a wonderfully weird old world we live in.

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February 22, 2010

Le Vent du Nord

The French-speaking people of Canada have known the short end of the stick. The city of Quebec, the “capital” of French Canada and one of the oldest cities in North America, was founded in 1608. Troubles with the British Empire and its far-flung emissaries have been a constant almost from the beginning and have done much to shape the culture, history and philosophy of French Canada.

The province of Quebec was first explored by French trappers, traders and voyageurs in the mid-1500s and eventually became the center of New France, that country’s largest colony in the New World. The province was settled primarily by people from the north of France—the area now called Brittany—who brought their musical culture, Catholic religion and allegiance to the French crown with them. But with the conclusion of the Seven Years War (also known as the French and Indian War in the U.S.) in 1763, French rule ended in Canada and the entire country was suddenly an English colony.

As a cultural minority, an island of French-speaking people smack dab in the middle of a country of English-speaking Anglo-Canadians, the people of Quebec have been fighting cultural assimilation ever since. Preserving the traditional music and dance of the Quebecois is very important to these folks for both historical and cultural reasons, and the exciting young band Le Vent du Nord (The North Wind) has earned widespread recognition and respect as the foremost conservators of the fascinating musical heritage of Quebec.

“A lot of people call us guardians of the tradition,” says Nicolas Boulerice, a founding member of Le Vent du Nord. “The old people want to know if you are respectful, if you sing those songs in the way of the tradition.”

Le Vent du Nord was formed in 2002 by Nicolas Boulerice (hurdy-gurdy, piano accordion, piano, vocals) and Olivier Demers (fiddle, foot percussion, guitar, vocals) after the two had done an album together, Le vent du nord est toujours fret peu importe de quel bord y vient (“The North Wind is always cold wherever he’s coming from”). Boulerice and Demers are both veteran musicians who had performed in a wide variety of styles and genres, including stints with traditional Quebecois bands La Bottine Souriant (Demers), Ad Vielle Que Pourra (Boulerice) and Montcorbier (both).

“Nicolas and I wanted to form a group out of the duo project,” says Demers, so they went looking for like-minded players. Simon Beaudry (guitar, Irish bouzouki, vocals), who comes from a musical family from the Lanaudière area, a region in Quebec that is especially rich in traditional music and dance, joined Le Vent du Nord in 2004. He is a former member of the folk dance group Les Petits Pas Jacadiens.

The newest member of Le Vent du Nord is Réjean Brunet (button accordion, acoustic bass guitar, vocals), who joined the band in 2006. Brunet’s experience includes recording and performing with his brother Andre (of La Bottine Souriante and Celtic Fiddle Festival fame) as Les Frères Brunet and with La Volée d’Castors.

With a repertoire of “antiques” (Boulerice’s term) that includes old-time instrumental dance tunes for contredanses, quadrilles and square sets, traditional chanson à respondre (call and response) songs, a cappella quartets and more, Le Vent du Nord has been enthusiastically received at the many major music festivals the band has played. Since its formation, the band has toured extensively throughout Canada and the U.S. and in Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Spain, France, the U.K. and Norway.

Foot percussion is a big part of the Le Vent du Nord sound, just as it is for La Bottine Souriante and other traditional Quebecois ensembles. Olivier Demers believes that this practice is rooted in the Saturday night farmhouse dances of his forebears, where a solitary fiddler had to provide his own rhythmic accompaniment. “There was one fiddle player in every village,” says Demers. “Sometimes they put the fiddler on a chair, and put the chair on a table in the middle of the kitchen, because it was the largest room in the house. People would dance around the table while the fiddler played and tapped his feet to keep time for dancing.”

Another key part of the sound of Le Vent du Nord is the hurdy-gurdy—known in French as vielle à roue, or “wheel fiddle”—an ancient instrument dating to the Renaissance (ca. 1300s-1600s) or before. The instrument is found in many traditional cultures and is different in each one, but the one played most commonly in France has six strings, four melody and two drone strings, and produces a buzzing tone that sounds something like a cross between a fiddle and a set of bagpipes.

The hurdy-gurdy is played by turning a crank, which rotates a wheel over the strings, producing sound much the way a fiddle bow does. The player’s other hand, meanwhile, plays the melody on a keyboard mounted beside the instrument’s sound board. When a key on the keyboard is depressed, a small wooden wedge presses against one or more of the strings to change their pitch. Boulerice, who has studied the hurdy-gurdy and its history in Canada, France and Ireland, is one of the few hurdy-gurdy players on the modern folk circuit, and the instrument’s distinctive and unusual voice helps give Le Vent du Nord a sound of its own.

The third key element of the Le Vent du Nord sound is what former member Benoit Borque called “the pleasure aspect” of music. The band’s music strikes many listeners as a blend of Irish and Cajun styles, but with a distinct air of high-spirited good times that’s missing from much Celtic music. The folk music publication FROOTS declared that “Le Vent du Nord epitomizes the infectious verve and bonhomie of the current roots music revival in Québéc.” Or, as Nicolas Boulerice explains it, “Our musical tradition is a unique mix of joy, fine colors and powerful energy.”

The band’s vocals, especially the group harmonies, are warm and accessible, even if you don’t understand the songs’ French lyrics. The singing has a sturdy, good-humored manliness that ably conveys the idea of having fun despite the hard times. Le Vent du Nord represents that concept nobly.

Le Vent du Nord made its recording debut in 2003 with Maudite Moisson, which won the Juno Award (the Canadian Grammy) for “Roots and Traditional Album of the Year” and was hailed as “absolutely essential” by Penguin Eggs. The band’s follow-up effort, Les amants du Saint-Laurent, was named “Best Traditional Album” at the first annual Canadian Folk Music Awards in 2005. Subsequent recordings include Dans les Airs (2007), Mesdames et Messieurs (2008) and La Part du Feu (2009).

The band’s most recent recording, Le Vent du Nord Symphonique (2010), stretches the boundaries of traditional music in a new direction. Recorded live in December 2009 at Le Grand Théâtre de Québec, the album captures a joint appearance by Le Vent du Nord and the Quebec City Symphonic Orchestra, one of Canada’s oldest symphonic ensembles, performing a set of Le Vent du Nord favorites. Released at the tail end of 2010, the album made many critics’ “best of the year” lists. La Part du Feu is nominated for a Juno Award in the “Roots and Traditional Album of the Year: Group” category; the awards will be presented March 27.

The members of Le Vent du Nord, which won the Canadian Folk Music Award for “Ensemble of the Year” in 2010, take seriously their roles as cultural preservationists and keepers of the musical flame. “We don’t change the melody or lyrics much, or even the way the old people were playing it—this is its magic,” says fiddler Olivier Demers. “We want to keep the real soul of the fiddle tune.”

Demers also explains that the band’s repertoire is not just of French origin, but an amalgamation of French, Irish, Scottish and Native American influences, with a bit of country and bluegrass from the U.S. thrown in for good measure. Some of the songs and tunes played by the band are as much as 400 years old and many of the old French songs have been preserved in Canada long after they had disappeared in France. The band members search for the old songs and tunes wherever they travel, looking for unusual material that has not yet been collected or recorded.

Fans around the world have responded warmly to Le Vent du Nord, which makes perfect sense to Olivier Demers. “I think it is because the atmosphere of Québec music is friendly and welcoming,” he says. “Our life, our laughter, our society, you will be able to find a part of it in the way we play our traditional music. That makes our music exotic in a way because it is different.

“In the global economy, everything tends to be identical. We want to stimulate an opposite direction. We want to look to the specifics of our country and our culture and share it with people.”

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March 6, 2011

The Chieftains
These notes were provided by the Chieftains

Six time Grammy winners, The Chieftains, are now recognized for bringing traditional Irish music to the world's attention. They have uncovered the wealth of traditional Irish music that has accumulated over the centuries, making the music their own with a style that is as exhilarating as it is definitive.

The Chieftains were formed in 1962 by Paddy Moloney, from the ranks of the top folk musicians in Ireland. Paddy brought together musicians such as fiddler Martin Fay, flautist Michael Tubridy, tin whistle virtuoso Seán Potts, and bodhrán player David Fallon. They recorded a supposedly one-off instrumental album but five years later were reunited with some additions - fiddler Seán Keane, and Peader Mercier replacing Fallon. Derek Bell, harpist came on board in 1973. It wasn't until 1975 that The Chieftains began playing together full time and they marked the event with a historic performance in Albert Hall in London. The following few years saw the departure of Mercier, and the addition of bodhrán player and vocalist Kevin Conneff, and another lineup change in '78/79 with the departure of Potts and Tubridy and a new flautist, Matt Molloy.

Although their early following was purely a folk audience, the range and variation of their music very quickly captured a much broader public, making them today the best known Irish band in the world.

Never afraid to shock purists and push boundaries, in their 40 years together The Chieftains have amassed a dizzyingly varied resume. They have been involved in such historic events as a tour of China (the first Western group to perform on the Great Wall), Roger Waters' "The Wall" performance in Berlin in 1990, became the first group to give a concert in the Capitol Building of Washington DC, (at the invitation of former Speaker, Thomas "Tip" O' Neill), and more recently, Paddy performed a memorial service in October in New York for the victims of September 11th 2001. They have performed with many symphony and folk orchestras worldwide, and have broken many musical boundaries by collaborating and performing with some of the biggest names in rock, pop and traditional music in Ireland and around the world.

On top of their six Grammy awards, they have been honored in their own country by being officially named Ireland’s Musical Ambassadors, performed during the Pope's visit to Ireland in 1979 in front of a 135,000,000 strong audience, and were the subject of a tribute Late Late Show in 1987, their 25th anniversary.

The trappings of fame have not altered The Chieftains' love of, and loyalty to, their roots - they are as comfortable playing spontaneous Irish sessions as they are headlining a concert at Carnegie Hall. After all these years of making some of the most beautiful music in the world, The Chieftains' music remains as fresh and relevant as when they first began.

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May 6, 2011

Paul McKenna Band

When it comes to Celtic music, Ireland has always been the big dog. The music from the rest of the Celtic world—Scotland, Wales, Cornwall, Brittany, the Isle of Man, Nova Scotia and Galicia in Spain—often gets overlooked and undervalued. This situation is probably most unfair to musicians from Scotland, whose contributions to modern Celtic music include such bands as the Boys of the Lough, Battlefield Band, Tannahill Weavers, Silly Wizard, Capercaillie and Wolfestone; singer-songwriters Dougie MacLean, Dick Gaughan and Archie Fisher; and instrumentalists Aly Bain, Tony McManus and Alasdair Fraser, among many, many others.

Scotland, which occupies the northern third of the island of Great Britain, is home to some five million people. (A note here about terminology: Scotch is a kind of whiskey; people from Scotland are properly called Scots or Scottish.) Traditional music has a long history in Scotland, centered until fairly recently around singing.

That folk singing tradition has drawn many folklorists and song collectors to Scotland over the years, including pioneers like Gavin Grieg and the Reverend James Duncan (who collected and published more than 3,000 folk song texts in Last Leaves of Traditional Ballads and Ballad Airs in 1925) and later such folks as Hamish Henderson, Calum McLean and the American folklorist Alan Lomax.

The folk instrumental tradition in Scotland is concentrated on three primary instruments: fiddle, bagpipe and the Celtic harp known as the clarsach. Legendary Scottish fiddler James Scott Skinner, known as the “Strathspey King,” made his first recordings in 1899 and from then until his death in 1927, Skinner’s recordings were highly popular on both sides of the Atlantic. Like Michael Coleman’s recordings did with the traditional Irish repertoire, Skinner’s discs helped keep the Scots fiddle tradition alive until the folk revival of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s breathed new life into many moribund musical traditions. Important historical figures on the other instruments include competition pipers Donald MacPherson and Willie McCallum and harpist Marjorie Kennedy-Fraser.

The Paul McKenna Band, based in Glasgow, is fast becoming one of Scotland’s leading traditionally rooted bands. Led by a charismatic singer and songwriter, the young quintet has already been hailed as “the best band of their generation” (The Living Tradition) and, even more lavishly, as “a band with the potential to dominate the Scottish/Irish traditional scene for the next twenty years and be spoken about in the same breath as Boys of the Lough” (Fatea Magazine).

Formed in 2006, the band consists of Paul McKenna, vocals, guitar, bouzouki ; Ruairidh Macmillan, fiddle; Seán Gray, flute, whistle, guitar, backing vocals; Ewan Baird, bodhrán, cajon; and Sean Ernest, bouzouki, who is standing in on this tour for David McNee. Originally from Nairn in the Scottish Highlands, Ruairidh Macmillan was named the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician of the Year in 2009; he has also recorded a solo album, Tyro, released by Greentrax in 2010.

The Paul McKenna Band made its recording debut in 2009 with the album Between Two Worlds. The album, which helped the band to win the award for Up and Coming Artist of the Year at the MG Scots Trad Music Awards, is a mix of traditional songs and tunes, Paul McKenna originals (“Dancing in the Dark”), old favorites (Ewan MacColl’s “Ballad of Accounting”) and, this being a band of Scots, a requisite Robert Burns song, “The Lea Rig.”

Between Two Worlds was a hit with both fans and critics. Typical of the reviews was one from Fatea Magazine that predicted big things for the band: “It’s an album that draws on an extensive history of Scottish music and adds to it. Whilst the likes of the Battlefield Band, Planxty and Boys of the Lough defined Celtic music for the last third of the 20th century, it will be the likes of the Paul McKenna Band that will end up defining it for the first third of the 21st one.”

The band has toured extensively over the last five years, playing throughout Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom as well as in Germany, Canada and Italy. This is the band’s second visit to the U.S., having conducted a three-week tour of the U.S. in 2010. The band has performed at the annual Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow and at the Irish Heartbeat Festival in Germany and looks forward to more festival appearances.

The second album by the Paul McKenna Band, Stem the Tide, was released earlier this spring by the Scottish label Greentrax. Like the band’s debut, this album is a mixture of traditional songs and tunes and new songs written by Paul McKenna, and like Between Two Worlds, the new album is getting rave reviews. “Stem the Tide is a geography lesson, history lesson and a lesson in political science rolled into one and given a really good shake,” writes a critic for Fatea Magazine. “Add some bitterness, anger and unrestrained passion and you’ve got an album with the potential to really explode into life and it does…an exceptional set of songs.”

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