Celtic Connections, Glasgow, January 2006

James Ross

THE FALLOUT FROM a troubled opening weekend which saw Celtic Connections having to cancel their major opening night concert at 24 hours notice amid a rash of other cancellations, worryingly poor attendances for some major events, inadequate provision of information in the brochure, and accusations of administrative and organisational failings will rumble on long after the event.

Away from the controversy, the artists who did turn up were getting on with the business of making excellent music. Mind you, Shetland fiddler CHRIS STOUT (Strathclyde Suite, 12 January) almost added to the list of no-shows. Near the end of a superbly creative and highly energised set from his innovative Quintet, Chris revealed that he had almost not made the gig at all.

He had begun the day on the other side of the world in the Dominican Republic. A six hour delay in his flight home launched a frantic quest to juggle flights, culminating in the plane from London almost having to divert to Newcastle because of high winds in Glasgow. A white-knuckle second attempt at landing allowed him to join his waiting band only 45 minutes before they were due to take the stage after an opening set from Irish piper John McSherry’s At First Light.

The fiddler betrayed no outward sign of a traumatic day when he launched into the rousing opening tune using the dark, biting A-E-A-E Shetland tuning, initially on his own and then in tandem with Fraser Fifield’s plangent soprano saxophone. Their invention and rhythmic power set the benchmark for the full band sets to come, and the momentum never faltered.

The music was grounded in Shetland traditions, but never limited by them. Stout’s interest in jazz and various shades of ethnic music is shared by his collaborators, notably Fifield but also pianist and harpist Catriona McKay, guitarist Malcolm Stitt and bass player Neil Harland.

The resulting hybrid continues to develop as the players add further layers of richness to the concept. His own fiddle playing has now reached a very high level in both technical and artistic terms, and he was equally compelling on careening up-tempo tunes and delicate slow material like the lovely Norwegian hymn ‘Jeg Der Deg Sote Lam’, while his mid-set duet with McKay on harp reflected their notable musical empathy.

Piper FRED MORRISON (Strathclyde Suite, 16 January) opened last year’s festival with his ambitious epic of the Gaels, ‘Paracas’. A segment from it, ‘The New World’, worked very impressively in a stripped-down version with guitarist Tony McManus and pianist Mark Sheridan.

The piper joked that when the festival asked him to put together a Fred Morrison and Friends concert, he assumed they were looking to fill a 10 minute slot. Fred, however, has no shortage of willing collaborators, and ended up with a storming ten-piece band on this occasion.

They had to stretch their intended single set to two when it transpired that the great Chicago fiddler Liz Carroll, billed as support, was already on her way back to America (another item in the catalogue of first-week hitches). Fred mused about the possibility of calling an unnamed new tune he was about to play ‘Liz Carroll’s Farewell to Glasgow’.

There is no more exciting piper around than Morrison. He began proceedings with a stirring solo set of tunes on Highland pipes, but alternated thereafter between Borders pipes and low whistle. His collaborators included Gaelic singer Alasdair Codona, guitarist Ross Martin, fiddler Kenny Fraser and whistle and bodhran player Mark Duff.

The piper juggled various permutations of personnel throughout the concert. He played a brace of tunes with the deft finger-picking of guitarist Tony McManus and percussionist Paul Jennings, then repeated the formula with bouzouki player Steve Byrne and Mark Duff on bodhran.

Several vibrant instrumental sets with a larger ensemble included a number of Morrison’s own excellent tunes. The exhilarating finale with all nine musicians began at full throttle and revved up to supercharged, followed by an equally powerful encore that included Scott Skinner’s ‘Hector the Hero’, another Gaelic song, some reels and a jig.
JAMES ROSS (Tron Theatre, 20 January, see top picture) hails from the opposite side of the country to the Benbecula-based piper. The young Caithness-born pianist and composer is forging a distinctive musical signature, and his concert here reflected several impressive aspects of that style.

He used the first half of the concert as a showcase from the material on his debut CD, launched by Greentrax to coincide with the concert. He alternated between highly resourceful and inventive elaborations of traditional tunes on solo piano and sets with various members of his band, including a duet with soprano saxophonist Susan Mackenzie, a song with young Irish singer Michelle Burke, and several sets with a percussive underlay supplied by bassist May Halyburton, bodhran player Martin O’Neill and drummer James McKintosh.

His diverse influences weaved in and out of his inventions at the keyboard, revealing a touch of Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin here, a hint of Keith Jarrett there. Those who favour simplicity of line might find some of his reworkings a little disconcerting, but his invention, touch and technical mastery always carried they off with total conviction.

In the opening reel of the final set before the interval, he challenged us to identify the tune going on in his left hand, complementary to the principal melody. It sounded like ‘The Barnyards of Delgaty’.

The second half was given over to a repeat performance of ‘An Cuan’, his New Voices commission for this festival last year. Mackenzie, Halyburton and McKintosh were retained from the opening set, and augmented by fiddlers Jenna Reid and Anna-Wendy Stevenson, Chris Stout on viola, and Wendy Weatherby on cello.

The music demonstrated both a fine grasp of overall flow through the six sections and an acute ear for telling details of instrumental texture and timbre, as well as a fine capacity for inventing good melodies.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2006

Link

• Celtic Connections website