Wednesday, March 09, 2005
MacMaster drives away dull care, also clouds
The huge tour bus backed up to the stage entrance at the First Flight High School on a cloudy Saturday evening was a good sign.
Inside, out of the drizzling rain, the Outer Banks Forum stage was set for the Nova Scotian fiddler Natalie MacMaster and her band. Her bus had disgorged a veritable music store, including guitars, banjos, basses, drums, keyboards, PA systems and monitors.
Such exotica as bagpipes and a tripod-mounted solid-body electric standup bass were also well-represented.
While a lively packed house thrummed, a stagehand went around dropping set-lists on the floor next to each microphone stand.
Forum Executive Director Amy Huggins opened with remarks recognizing the contributions of the evening's underwriters and volunteers who helped put together the 22-year-old Forum concert series. Before she stepped into the darkness at the back of the stage she introduced Natalie MacMaster.
First MacMaster's band came onstage, Matt MacIsaac, John Chiasson, Miche Pouliot, Brad Davidge and Allan Dewar, and settled into a quiet piano and flute air, MacIsaac's Irish flute playing low in a minor key to Dewar's spacious piano.
Dewar joined in with a sprightly march beat on drums, and Natalie MacMaster hit the stage running. In bell-bottomed jeans with a huge silver belt-buckle and a black top with long flowing sleeves, she hardly stood still all night.
As she played she danced a little ˆ la Bill Monroe, her golden locks and black sleeves twirling.
Her long legs reached clear to the ground, when they touched down, but her fiddle-playing was muscular and precise even in mid-air. When the tempo picked up and she joined in a fast duet with MacIsaac, the band now in full roar, an audience member turned to her companion and said, "This is going to be a wild night."
It was rare for a piece to be singled out with a title; as MacMaster said, the band liked "medleys" and the songs ebbed and flowed into each other - jigs, marches, reels and hornpipes.
The concert was kept fresh by the varied arrangements. After a little speech by MacMaster on the importance of tradition, she sat down next to Dewar's electric piano for a duet of traditional songs as played at her parents' parties in their house on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia.
Asking if anyone from the audience was from Novia Scotia, and receiving a surprising affirmative, she ascertained that some of those were indeed from Cape Breton Island.
"Are we related?" she asked, peering into the darkness.
Her party medley began with a quiet, beautiful Scottish lament that showcased MacMaster's clean technique.
This piece was almost certainly the inspiration for Jay Ungar's "Ashokan Farewell," which was written in 1982 and made famous in Ken Burns' "Civil War" television series.
As it progressed to a jig, it was possible to imagine dancers at a house party in full swing. The taps on MacMaster's platform shoes helped.
She sat for this medley, but her irrepressible feet were tapping out some fairly complex rhythms on the piano riser.
The first piece identified with a title, "The Appropriate Dipstick" - that's right - came with a story about getting a grant from the Canadian government to shoot its video. The grant came on the conditions that two of the following conditions be met: that the composer, performer, producer or lyricist be Canadian.
MacMaster fulfilled only one; she, the performer, was Canadian, while the composer was British, the producer was a Californian, and as a fiddle tune, it had no words. But when she found that the lyric "didn't have to be heard," she wrote one. She sang it quickly, ˆ capella, to the audience. "Remember, it doesn't need to be good."
That accomplished (in about 20 seconds), she and the band played "the instrumental version," for which the video was in the works.
The individual musicians had their own solo and feature turns, too. MacMaster came on stage sans fiddle for a step-dancing duet with Pouliot's drums. And we thought she could dance while fiddling! She could teach Savion Glover a thing or two. And she will never have a weight problem.
Guitarist Davidge rolled out a beautiful, slightly jazzy, acoustic vocal version of "Danny Boy," accompanied by Chiasson on bass and MacMaster taking a pretty solo. Davidge hit the high notes spot-on, the words especially dramatic in the simple setting.
And, for the first time since this reviewer has attended the Forum, the band was rewarded with a standing ovation before intermission.
MacIsaac appeared onstage alone for the second set wrapped in bagpipes and let loose a medley of his own. To those who cringe when bagpipes are mentioned, remember that an early usage was as battlefield intimidation.
MacIsaac's melodies were free of the intentional dischords of the warriors. One tonic-note drone was all that reminded that this was not a fiddle. (Indeed the night's performances featured many fiddle-bagpipe duets.)
By the end of MacIsaac's performance his hands were fingering furious magical polyrhythms and his toe was tapping away, while his curiously deadpan face seemed elsewhere as it rhythmically, passively, supplied air to the bellows.
The other (accompanied) vocal performance of the night was from bassist Chiasson, who with quiet backing from the others, sang a great version of Joseph Kosma, Jacques Prevert and Johnny Mercer's "Autumn Leaves" in a clear, ringing baritone.
While a long evening, the variety of styles and performances made it pass quickly. At the last piece the audience, powerless to resist, rose in a standing ovation and would not be quieted save by a return of the musicians to the stage.
They played a piece slated for their next album, which had "never--ever--been performed before," and which is already taking MacMaster's music in some new directions.
The audience, ragged from an evening of toe-tapping, hand-clapping and hollering, stepped into the cold, clear night.
The clouds were gone.
©2005 Womack Newspapers Inc.
Inside, out of the drizzling rain, the Outer Banks Forum stage was set for the Nova Scotian fiddler Natalie MacMaster and her band. Her bus had disgorged a veritable music store, including guitars, banjos, basses, drums, keyboards, PA systems and monitors.
Such exotica as bagpipes and a tripod-mounted solid-body electric standup bass were also well-represented.
While a lively packed house thrummed, a stagehand went around dropping set-lists on the floor next to each microphone stand.
Forum Executive Director Amy Huggins opened with remarks recognizing the contributions of the evening's underwriters and volunteers who helped put together the 22-year-old Forum concert series. Before she stepped into the darkness at the back of the stage she introduced Natalie MacMaster.
First MacMaster's band came onstage, Matt MacIsaac, John Chiasson, Miche Pouliot, Brad Davidge and Allan Dewar, and settled into a quiet piano and flute air, MacIsaac's Irish flute playing low in a minor key to Dewar's spacious piano.
Dewar joined in with a sprightly march beat on drums, and Natalie MacMaster hit the stage running. In bell-bottomed jeans with a huge silver belt-buckle and a black top with long flowing sleeves, she hardly stood still all night.
As she played she danced a little ˆ la Bill Monroe, her golden locks and black sleeves twirling.
Her long legs reached clear to the ground, when they touched down, but her fiddle-playing was muscular and precise even in mid-air. When the tempo picked up and she joined in a fast duet with MacIsaac, the band now in full roar, an audience member turned to her companion and said, "This is going to be a wild night."
It was rare for a piece to be singled out with a title; as MacMaster said, the band liked "medleys" and the songs ebbed and flowed into each other - jigs, marches, reels and hornpipes.
The concert was kept fresh by the varied arrangements. After a little speech by MacMaster on the importance of tradition, she sat down next to Dewar's electric piano for a duet of traditional songs as played at her parents' parties in their house on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia.
Asking if anyone from the audience was from Novia Scotia, and receiving a surprising affirmative, she ascertained that some of those were indeed from Cape Breton Island.
"Are we related?" she asked, peering into the darkness.
Her party medley began with a quiet, beautiful Scottish lament that showcased MacMaster's clean technique.
This piece was almost certainly the inspiration for Jay Ungar's "Ashokan Farewell," which was written in 1982 and made famous in Ken Burns' "Civil War" television series.
As it progressed to a jig, it was possible to imagine dancers at a house party in full swing. The taps on MacMaster's platform shoes helped.
She sat for this medley, but her irrepressible feet were tapping out some fairly complex rhythms on the piano riser.
The first piece identified with a title, "The Appropriate Dipstick" - that's right - came with a story about getting a grant from the Canadian government to shoot its video. The grant came on the conditions that two of the following conditions be met: that the composer, performer, producer or lyricist be Canadian.
MacMaster fulfilled only one; she, the performer, was Canadian, while the composer was British, the producer was a Californian, and as a fiddle tune, it had no words. But when she found that the lyric "didn't have to be heard," she wrote one. She sang it quickly, ˆ capella, to the audience. "Remember, it doesn't need to be good."
That accomplished (in about 20 seconds), she and the band played "the instrumental version," for which the video was in the works.
The individual musicians had their own solo and feature turns, too. MacMaster came on stage sans fiddle for a step-dancing duet with Pouliot's drums. And we thought she could dance while fiddling! She could teach Savion Glover a thing or two. And she will never have a weight problem.
Guitarist Davidge rolled out a beautiful, slightly jazzy, acoustic vocal version of "Danny Boy," accompanied by Chiasson on bass and MacMaster taking a pretty solo. Davidge hit the high notes spot-on, the words especially dramatic in the simple setting.
And, for the first time since this reviewer has attended the Forum, the band was rewarded with a standing ovation before intermission.
MacIsaac appeared onstage alone for the second set wrapped in bagpipes and let loose a medley of his own. To those who cringe when bagpipes are mentioned, remember that an early usage was as battlefield intimidation.
MacIsaac's melodies were free of the intentional dischords of the warriors. One tonic-note drone was all that reminded that this was not a fiddle. (Indeed the night's performances featured many fiddle-bagpipe duets.)
By the end of MacIsaac's performance his hands were fingering furious magical polyrhythms and his toe was tapping away, while his curiously deadpan face seemed elsewhere as it rhythmically, passively, supplied air to the bellows.
The other (accompanied) vocal performance of the night was from bassist Chiasson, who with quiet backing from the others, sang a great version of Joseph Kosma, Jacques Prevert and Johnny Mercer's "Autumn Leaves" in a clear, ringing baritone.
While a long evening, the variety of styles and performances made it pass quickly. At the last piece the audience, powerless to resist, rose in a standing ovation and would not be quieted save by a return of the musicians to the stage.
They played a piece slated for their next album, which had "never--ever--been performed before," and which is already taking MacMaster's music in some new directions.
The audience, ragged from an evening of toe-tapping, hand-clapping and hollering, stepped into the cold, clear night.
The clouds were gone.
©2005 Womack Newspapers Inc.
