Scottish Fiddle Orchestra, At The
Royal Albert Hall (REL 1996) The
Scottish Fiddle Orchestra, The Scottish Fiddle Orchestra Plays
Toronto (REL 1997 )
Scottish Fiddle Orchestra, The Fiddlers Dance (REL2000)
Various Artists, Music of The Fiddle Volume 1 (Ross 1999)
Elke Baker, Glenelg (Habbit Tracks 2001)
Ray Ellis, More Like Me (Own Label 1999)
Richard Wood, Firedance (Iona 1998)
Richard Wood, Come Dance With Me (Richard Wood 1999)
Celtic fiddle music comes in all shapes and sizes, but this time around we are looking at the relationship between Scottish and Canadian styles. From massed fiddles blazing vapor trails to Cape Breton players keeping the tradition alive and stretching its boundaries, to Native Americans who can handle strathspeys as easy as a native Scot, this is a wild and exhilarating ride.
Its 'Brigadoon'! Its bloody 'Brigadoon'! Simon Callow enthused in the Scottish wedding scene of 'Four Weddings And A Funeral'. Mr. Callow's observations on entering the hallway and viewing the kilt clad spectators bobbing and weaving to country-dance bands presented an obvious specatcle to the curious eye. The Scottish Fiddle Orchestra, under the baton of John Mason M.B.E. offers an alternative Scotland to the one inhabited by the folk revival and the latter-day Celtic Tiger. This material harks back to a pre-folk revival period when Kilt clad tenors sang of 'Grannies Heilan Hames', Jimmy Shand inspired ceilidh bands and The White Heather Club touring company was a regular feature on Scottish concert stages. You will have undoubtedly guessed that this is popular Scottish entertainment as opposed to folk music we are talking about here, but do not let that put you off.
Founded in 1980, The Scottish Fiddle Orchestra makes its home in traditional music. While the massed fiddles might sound like a Strauss-like Orchestra it is no less effective an organism for spreading folklore than a Battlefield Band or a Tannahill Weavers. The success of the SFO is obvious, selling out London's Royal Albert Hall and Toronto's Molson Amphitheatre to ecstatic crowds, many of whom are likely of the the expatriate variety. Musically these release present different aspects of the The Scottish Fiddle Orchestra's oeuvre. At The Royal Albert Hall is a blast of raw energetic Scots dance music, with high-octane fiery performances with the same cavalier spirit that characterized Elvis's Sun recordings and the first utterances of The Bothy Band or the Ramones. This is hellfire pure and simple - massed fiddles, thumping drums, some vaudevillian twists and buckets of attitude. Miss it if you dare.
The Scottish fiddle Orchestra Plays Toronto is less successful, with better recording quality and greater variety of material -- even including a swing set -- but the greased lightning bluster so common on the Royal Albert Hall show is only confined to a few numbers. Here I cannot help but think that they held back on their best suit an all out barrage of sound -- making this is an experiment that fails. The Fiddlers Dance is their most sophisticated effort yet. All instrumental as precious recordings featured tenor James Nicol and soprano Mary Sandman (who enjoyed pop success as Anika in 1981 with Japanese Boy). But, this album works as a primarily listening exercise, and while the fiddles mass and multiply, the overall sound is rounder, more cosmopolitan and urbane. Things flow with a symphonic, almost classical approach and while it may lack the fire and brimstone of the London show and the sweetness and light of the Toronto concert, it's no less valid an exercise bringing the SFO sound to a more sophisticated plane.
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Charlie McKerron, in his life prior to Capercaillie, recorded an album with fellow fiddler Keith Collins, pianist Jennifer Wilson and bassit George Cowie called Music Of The Fiddle, Volume 1 in 1981. This is a selection of tunes rendered in straightforward fashion with two fiddles, bass and piano. At times it drives along on selections of reels and familiar dance pieces like the 'Gay Gordons', and at other times as in the slow air ' Margaret Annie Robertson', it adopts an approach more suited to the drawing room. Solo spots are limited, with Keith Collins playing two sets and Charlie McKerron doing a single solo spot: it is interesting hearing him outside a Capaercaillie context with Jennifer Wilson's piano accompaniment. Generally speaking the results aren't bad as the clarity of the playing makes the tines resound. Anybody buying this on spec with Charlie's name on the sleeve expecting pyrotechnics won't get an Afro-drum rhythm or sampled beat in sight. What they will hear however, is good straight down the line Scottish fiddle music.
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Taking geographical distance into context, the emergence of American players using the Scottish style and calling themselves Scottish fiddlers is an interesting phenomenon. Elke Baker is one such person and her music not only borders on the Scots influence but has healthy doses of Cape Breton and Irish influences as well. Glenelg, her second solo album, presents a strong individual style and approach. Steering away from the classical styles adopted by some musicians of this genre, she empowers her music with a sense of her own personality. She doesn't just know the tunes dots and all, she KNOWS the music's inner self, its moves, twists, turns, and nuances - in fact the very nature of it. This sense of personality and style helps to make Glenelg a CD worth spending dollars or shekels on.
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Candian fiddle music from Nova Scotia to Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton Island again offers a fiddle tradition with many faces. The familiar rousing pairing of fiddle and piano is known to everyone who fingers a violin string and learned their first jigs. No matter if they became an Ashley Mac Isaac or just played for dances in Mabou on a Saturday night. Ray Ellis's fiddle playing style is of the down home kind . It is fast, attacking, and loaded with energy and bite. The music is up-tempo buoyant and passionate and J.P. Cormier's accompaniments always err on the right side of inspired. Shades of Gerry Holland and Bill Lamey appear at times and make More Like Me an even better experience.
Prince Edward Island's Richard Wood is both a traditionalist and an experimenter. Not quiet as outre as Ashley Mac Isaac but he's got his thinking cap on and his leather suit is fresh from the cleaners -- so the image is firmly placed in the contemporary mould. Beneath the sartorial elegance, however, there lies a musician who paints pictures but knows the roots of his music. His fourth and fifth albums Firedance and Come Dance With Me follow his ongoing experimentalism. Both sets mix straight keyboard and fiddle duets with rocking band arrangements, thumping rhythms, petrol can percussion, sampled samplers, off key voicing as on the title track of Come Dance with Me based on the traditional 'Julia Delaney' and other kinds of varied alternative wallpaper. Both sets are good but he never fails to leave the impression that the core of the music is the tune and the rest is just window dressing no matter how overdosed or accomplished.
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Well, we've seen some different approaches to fiddle music. Exposure to the Scottish Fiddle Orchestra on form is a powerful reminder of the richness of the folk tradition (somebody had to write these tunes down in the first place didn't they?) and the vaudevillian era approach of Scottish entertainment in pre-folk revival times. The solo albums deliver some pleasing and eye opening moments and the Music of the Fiddle Volume 1 offers an interesting glance at Charlie McKerron in a more formal setting. All of these varied albums together make an interesting listen!
