Buckwheat Zydeco, Lay Your Burden Down (Alligator, 2009)
Genticorum, La Bibournoise (Mad River, 2009)
Le Vent du Nord, Mesdames et messieurs (Borealis, 2009)
KGB, The Red Light of Evening (Mole, 2008)

OK, time to clear the decks of some CDs. Here we have four that seem to have very little of a common thread. See if you can guess what that is.

I thought I had given up on zydeco. I discovered it in the late 1980s in the person of Clifton Chenier, the King of Zydeco. Also at about that time, I was fortunate to see in concert some superb zydeco acts: Queen Ida, Zachary Richard, and C.J. Chenier. It's just great party music and dance music, full of soul, rhythm and funky rock. The problem is, most zydeco music that I have reviewed since then has been in more of a rut than a groove. Most of the young bands are making zydeco-inflected funk, repetitive, even monotonous to my ears.

Now along comes Stanley Dural, Jr., and his band Buckwheat Zydeco, breathing new-old life into the music with Lay Your Burden Down. It's everything that's good and right about zydeco music.

A mix of covers and originals, this album is Buckwheat Zydeco's first since Hurricane Katrina, and it's a tribute to the spirit of New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast. It starts with a huge drum intro from Kevin Menard (now there's a Cajun name for you), then with Sonny Landreth wailing on his bluesy slide guitar and Dural on the mightly Hammond B-3 (which he first played in Chenier's band back in the '70s), they absolutely rip up the Memphis Minnie classic "When The Levee Breaks." After that, Dural picks up his accordion for a tour of all the various styles that make up zydeco. The bluesy R&B of "Don't Leave Me" (with a great solo from Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews), the Mardi Gras party song "Throw Me Something, Mister," swampy blues from Don Van Vliet's "Too Much Time" (from his Captain Beefheart Clear Spot album), and swampy gospel in Warren Haynes's title track, which features Haynes on guitar. Reggae pops up in "Let Your Yeah Be Yeah" and in a cover of Springsteen's "Back In Your Arms." Producer Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) plays some soulful bari sax on several numbers, and has a particularly hot solo in "Time Goes By." And there's just plain funky zydeco in songs like JJ Grey's "The Wrong Side" (which has some more smoking Landreth guitar), "Ninth Place" and the swamp pop instrumental "Finding My Way Back Home" which closes the album.

This is music you need to dance to, but it also makes you feel. Come Lay Your Burden Down at the feet of the master, and he'll cleanse your soul.

Genticorum plays Québécois music that displays its connections to Celtic folk music more than most, due largely to the presence of flute on many tunes. This young trio features Pascal Gemme on fiddle, feet and vocals, Alexandre Moulin de Grosbois-Garand on flute, fiddle, bass and vocals, and Yann Falquet on guitar, jew's harp and vocals. The 12 tracks are about evenly divided between tunes and songs; the tunes are all but one written by Gemme; the lyrics of the songs are all traditional.

I'm divided in my feelings about this album. On one hand, I absolutely love some tracks, particularly the uptempo call-and-response songs. Of particular note is the title track, an a capella gem accompanied just by foot percussion, about a prison made entirely of foodstuffs -- the floors of ham, walls of mutton and plenty of barrels of wine to wash it down with. Other songs I like include "Le Moine Blanc," about a monk secretly entertaining a young lady in his chambers; "Pinson et Cendrouille," a droll song about a pair of lovebirds and their wedding party -- a bit of a variation on "Froggy Went A-Courtin' "; and "Les Culottes de V'lour," about a man who ends up wearing his wife's lover's pants. And some of the instrumentals are wonderful, particularly "La Gigue À Pierre Chartrand," part of a tune set, which is a 5-4-3 tune; it has three sections, one in five beats, one in four and one in three. I also like "Le Brandy Culotté" a reel in three-four time for stepdancing; and the closer, "Le Pommeau."

Some of the tunes and songs, though, veer a bit too near to New Age Celtic for my taste, particularly the opening song "La Ligue d'Vieux Poële," and the slower songs "Le Vingt D'Avril" and the tune "Valse Beaulieu." The tracks that have a lot of flute or fretless bass seem farthest from the traditional, which I guess is what I like best about this type of music.

Still, it's a great album of Québécois folk music overall, and one that I'll be sure to return to in the future.

Le Vent du Nord's live album Mesdames et messieurs! had me concerned that it would be too New Agey when the opening track started with tinkling piano, but as soon as the accordion and fiddle kicked in and the crowd started cheering and whistling, my fears evaporated. This superbly rhythmic quartet was joined by a raft of friends on stage in July 2008 at the Festival Mémoire et Racines in Lanaudière, Québec for a night of magic and music. That first song was a tribute to their friend Denis Fréchette, who had recently passed away -- after that, things really take off.

Passionate fiddling and accordion pumping, rhythmic foot percussion, and lovely multi-part vocal harmonies feature prominently. The influence of Parisian chanson shows up in songs like "La Veillée Chez Poirier." Nicolas Boulerice brings out the hurdy-gurdy for the uptempo song "Les Amants du Sant-Laurent." There's an a capella workout in "Cré mardi." And members of several other groups, including De Temps Antan, Les Langues Fourchues, The McDades and Bernard Simard, all join in for the two final numbers, "Vive l'amour" and "Au Bord de la Fontaine."

This is Québécois music as it was intended, fast, hot and sweaty and live, with a partisan crowd dancing and cheering at the lip of the stage. Wish I'd been there!

KGB is a Seattle-area contradance trio featuring Julie King on piano, Claude Ginsburg on violin, concertina and viola, and Dave Bartley on guitar, mandolin and cittern. They're a very popular band in a region full of top-notch contradance bands, and their CDs demonstrate why. They're not flashy, but good, solid, melodic and rhythmic dance music performers. For their fourth CD -- all on their own Mole label -- they've done an album of waltzes.

If that sounds as though it could be tedious, fear not. There's plenty of variety, in style and arrangement, to keep things interesting through 15 tunes, all penned by band members. It starts with the lovely "Sunny Day" on piano, guitar and fiddle, followed by "Flathead Lake," featuring mandolin on the melody and lovely throaty viola. The fast English-style tune "Speak of the Deverills" has lots of jazzy blue notes on cittern. "February/Just In Time" has a bit of a newgrass feel to it; Bartley plays some lovely classical guitar on "Broken Chair," backed by eerie squeals from the edge of Ginsburg's violin bow. "Wilderness Waltz" is a sprightly country waltz that briefly dips into a minor key. "Gracia/Claude's Waltz" is a Latin-tinged set of uptempo tunes. The cool Scandinavian sonorities of "Waiting for Green" sound like winter waiting for spring, but Bartley says what he had in mind was the "lowest level of American terrorism alert."

And, since every regular contradance set traditionally ends with a waltz, this set of waltzes ends with ... an air, King's lovely Celtic-themed "To the Edge," led by Ginsburg's emotive fiddle.

KGB's The Red Light of Evening is a superb addition to the CD collection of anyone who enjoys contradance music, or just a good waltz.

So there you have four CDs of dance music, from three different North American traditions: Louisiana Creole, Québécois and New England-style contras. It's all designed to move your feet and your whole body, and it's all balm for the soul as well.

[Gary Whitehouse]