A Man of Many Parts

The Arts Journal focuses on the CHRIS STOUT BAND.

The Facts:
The Chris Stout Band are led by Shetland fiddler Chris Stout, a  musician who has been ubiquitous on the Scottish folk (and jazz) scene in a whole host of bands. This is the first group he has led under his own name, and they released their debut album, “First o’ The Darkenin’”, last year. The players are:

Chris Stout (fiddle, viola)
Catriona McKay (piano, clarsach)
Fraser Fifield (saxophone, pipes, whistles)
Malcolm Stitt (guitar)
Ewan Vernal (bass)

CHRIS STOUT was a founder member of the acclaimed Fiddlers Bid while still at school in Lerwick, and is involved in a host of very different projects, including Salsa Celtica, The Unusual Suspects, the Finlay MacDonald Band, Graeme Stephen’s Sextet, and Kevin MacKenzie’s Vital Signs. The fiddler eventually got around to putting together his own Chris Stout Band a couple of years ago.

“These were musicians that I had known or worked with for a while, and I found their music intriguing. They had a similar mindset to my own in that way, especially in the case of myself and Catriona and Fraser. We were all at college together, we studied classical music together, and we all had a strong interest in traditional music as well. Our thoughts on music were very similar – we were very in tune with each other.”

Chris originally decided to put a band together in order to realise what he regarded as very much a solo project, but the group soon began to take on an identity of its own, combining traditional folk with a more contemporary sound and style.

“I could see early on that there was no point in me trying to maintain a high level of control over it in a solo sense. It was better just to enjoy what everyone was contributing together. I’m now at the point where I write for the band specifically with these musicians in mind. The more I think about exploring the style of traditional music, the more I feel the need to write material instead of just expecting the old tunes to adapt to a modern concept.

“You do that to a certain extent, but there comes a cut-off point where basically tunes just won’t bend anymore. I’m interested now in writing melodies that will be more congruent with the kind of accompaniments that we want to use, which is based on traditional music but isn’t strictly traditional.”

His solo debut was a long time coming by present day standards, but his concern lay with quality control.

“I was trying to find a voice – I think that was because of being so eclectic in the nature of the things I’ve done over the years. All of the jazz and the Brazilian music and so on has been very influential, and I have allowed it to be influential, but in the middle of all that I found it quite hard to pin down what was my own voice, and what I wanted to say with it.

“It took me that long to get to a point where I was comfortable with the way I wanted to go, and I felt it was a good time to do it. There are so many recordings made very early in careers now, and not everyone is ready for it when it comes at that stage. There isn’t a rush.”

He studied classical violin at the RSAMD in Glasgow, and his musical interests also extend to the rather more arcane field of electro-acoustic music, which he also studied at the Academy. His New Voices commission for Celtic Connections and a collaboration with Trio AAB both drew on electro-acoustic material, and it is an area he intends to develop.

“It has become a very significant part of the overall way I think I about music, and being forced to think about melody and sound without harmony brought a very interesting dimension to the way I play the fiddle and how I improvise that wasn’t there before. My working life at the moment is very much about thinking of how I can bring the fiddle and electro-acoustic music together in what I’m doing in ways that will sound good, and I don’t think I’m far away now from doing some of that with this band.”

The Chris Stout Band play the following Highlands and Islands venues in May:

An Tobar, Tobermory, Isle of Mull, Tuesday 24 May 2005
Plockton Village Hall, Wednesday 25 May 2005
Invershin House Hotel, Thursday 26 May 2005
Fortrose Community Theatre, Friday 27 May 2005
Àrainn Shuaineirt, Strontian, Saturday 28 May 2005

© Kenny Mathieson, 2005