Eden Court Theatre, Inverness, 17 February 2004

THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS began life at Celtic Connections as an improbable 30-some mega band, but the enthusiasm of Tyneside-based promoters Folkworks (and support from the Scottish Arts Council) allowed them to hit the road for their first UK tour shortly after their appearance (for the second consecutive year) at the Glasgow festival in January.

The Unusual Suspects

It has been a tale of standing ovations the length and breadth of the country, and Inverness duly obliged with another. Rightly so. This was very impressive stuff, both musically and visually – the touring band may only be 22 strong (and was reduced by one more when accordionist and singer Emily Smith couldn’t make this final hurrah), but it is still quite a sight.

Inevitably, many Highland musicians figured in a band drawn from the top ranks of Scottish folk musicians, with an extra loud cheer reserved for a local hero, Bruce Macgregor, one of a stellar six-strong fiddle section which also featured fellow Blazin’ Fiddles members Aidan O’Rourke and Catriona MacDonald, Chris Stout of Fiddler’s Bid’s, Deaf Shepherd’s Claire McLaughlin, and Eilidh Shaw, who plays in umpteen bands.

It was like that all the way through the band, with Findlay MacDonald, Rory Campbell and Annie Grace on pipes and (mainly) whistles, Brian McAlpine holding the fort as the remaining half of the accordion section, Marc Clement and John Morran on guitar and bouzouki respectively, Capercaillie’s Ewan Vernal on double bass, and James MacIntosh and Donald Hay alternating between drums and percussion.

Throw in a horn section of top jazz players – trumpeters Colin Steele and Ryan Quigley, saxophonist Phil Bancroft and trombonist Rick Taylor – who all entered wholeheartedly into the very folk-oriented spirit of the music, and you have a unique combination. Big groups are not new in traditional music, but they tend to be single instrument conglomerations (pipe bands, massed fiddle and accordion bands) rather than genuine multi-sectional orchestras.

A big band needs direction and arrangements, and both were supplied by the co-leaders of this enterprise, pianist David Milligan and harpist Corrina Hewat. Their imaginative arrangements introduced welcome light and shade within the music, a contrast that made the impact of the band in full flight all the more dramatic. Their chosen tempo for Burns’s song ‘Parcel O’ Rogues’ seemed too fast, giving the rhythm a rumpty-tumpty feel and reducing the song’s potent emotional charge; otherwise, the arrangements worked very effectively.

Hewat, Grace and Morran shared the vocal duties on a selection of other songs as well, including ‘Duncan McGillivray’, ‘Fair Helen of Kirkconnel’, ‘Cold Blow and the Rainy Night’, ‘Say Will We Yet’ and Morran’s evocative ‘The Pairtin’’, but it was the instrumentals which were most impressive. They did succumb to the temptation to show off just how fast and furious they could play at times (including a boys vs. girls tussle in the fiddle section on an extended set of nine tunes in the second half), but with players this good, that is no great hardship.

The horns and pipes engaged in a good-humoured ‘battle’ of their own on the most unconventional set of the night, which opened with Hewat’s ‘Bass Strathspey’ and also included Steele’s ‘The Sidestep’. Phil Bancroft was allowed to reveal his hand as a jazz player in a set that took both horns and pipes into some strange tonal and sonic territory.

Elsewhere, the horns added a more conventional colour and richness to the music. It all added up to a memorable night for the near 600 strong audience, and leaves the Arts Council with the headache of finding ways to continue funding projects on this scale now that the Lottery cash cow has all but dried up.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2004