Bachué & Unusual Suspects

20 Dec 2004 in Music

Folk Meets Jazz

The Arts Journal profiles BACHUÉ and THE UNUSUAL SUSPECTS.

Bachué (formerly Bachué Café) are the duo of harpist and singer Corrina Hewat and pianist David Milligan. The pair met on the jazz course at Leeds College of Music, and formed the band in Edinburgh in 1995. Percussionist Donald Hay is the regular third member of the group, and their new CD also features contributions from trumpeter Colin Steele.

Bachué’s fusion of folk and jazz music reflects the influences of the founders, and has developed into a well-integrated but folk-centred combination that has also been mirrored in one of their other bands, The Unusual Suspects, albeit at the opposite end of the size scale.

The Unusual Suspects is a folk big band drawing on many of the top players on the Scottish folk and jazz scene, and will appear at Celtic Connections 2005 in January in a 30-strong International version with guests from Canada and Denmark augmenting the ranks.

Bachué

The Unusual Suspects made their bow at Celtic Connections in 2003 to massive acclaim, and undertook their first national tour earlier this year, but the idea is one that the principals had in their minds long before it came to fruition on stage.

“Corrina and I had been talking about doing this for maybe the last ten years or so,” David explained. “As you know, we met while we were studying on the jazz course at Leeds, and big band concept was part of what we were working on at that time. We both had the idea of trying to introduce the same format into the folk or traditional side of things, but we never had the opportunity until Colin Hynd took it on for the 10th anniversary of Celtic Connections – as you can understand, it’s not the kind of thing where you just get a few people together and thrash it out.”

Bachué has often had to take a back seat to the big band (and their many other commitments, including Corrina’s work with Mary MacMaster and Alyth McCormack in Shine and the Scottish Women project, and David’s jazz commitments with his own groups and Colin Steele’s Quintet, among others) . They are now back with a new album, ‘The Butterfly’, on their own Big Bash Records label, and will be touring next year. The first Unusual Suspects recording is due out on Foot Stompin’ Records pretty much as I write.

Usual Suspects

“The Unusual Suspects name came from the fact that we wanted to put these musicians together on a very different scale to the usual folk band, and that is also why it ended up so big,” David explained. “You can’t really realise the idea on a smaller scale. Ultimately it could even be three or four times that number, but I don’t think anyone is ever going to take that on!

“The idea was always that it would be a folk-oriented affair, and Corrina was maybe more the driving force behind that, but the way we both like to hear things and to arrange things demanded the inclusion of the horn section. We both wanted that sound as part of the whole thing, and it was always going to happen that way.

“Having said that, I don’t really think of it as a crossover thing, or as having a strong jazz element. One of the things that had to happen with this project to make it work is that the people involved had to be playing the music they are best at doing. We have all seen big projects that end up with musicians on stage playing music they are not particularly comfortable with, and we wanted to avoid that at all costs. We brought together great musicians, and let them do what they do best.”

Bachue’s “Khazie / Trip to London / Cleveland Park” can be downloaded as an mp3 audio file below. It is taken from their new CD, “The Butterfly”, and is used here with permission of the band.