Väsen Interview
photo by Johanna Harness
Väsen Interview
The Swedish trio Väsen played in Boise earlier this month, and I had a chance to interview them for RootsWorld.
Here’s a video of them performing “Väsen Street” at the Nordic Roots Festival a few years ago.
Bill Rossiter
photo by Johanna Harness
Bill Rossiter
March 18th, 2011
The Caldwell Public Library hosted Bill Rossiter from the Idaho Humanities Council’s speakers bureau. He presented “No Irish Need Apply,” a combination of anecdotes, stories, and songs about the Irish who came to America in the 19th Century. He accompanied himself on banjo, guitar, and autoharp, and brought along a harmonica for good measure.
In the 1840s when potato blight and English politics combined to cause massive starvation in Ireland, millions of Irish came to the US and Canada. In America, this land of immigrants, we have an unfortunate history that continues to this day of not welcoming immigrants. The earliest songs Rossiter sang showed the discrimination that the Irish faced, and how the Irish often turned that around as a defensive posture. If they were going to be portrayed as people who did nothing but drink and fight, they would find ways to play up that image, to say Don’t mess with us Irish.
As the Irish were in this country for a few generations, they started longing for their ancestral homeland, and songs began to reflect a romantic view of Ireland. The audience was invited to sing along on one of these songs that is fairly well-known, “I’ll Take You Home Again, Kathleen.”
In the Q&A session afterward, he gave a great synopsis of the history of the autoharp from its invention by Charles Zimmerman through its use by Mother Maybelle Carter and up to today in under five minutes. He also gave a brief clinic about how he had modified his autoharp to suit his own playing style.
This blend of music, history, stories, and humor suited me perfectly. The only disappointment I had was that the audience was fairly small. I just learned about it the day before, and that was because I happened to be in the library and one of the wonderful librarians who knows me gave me a flyer.
Rossiter is from Montana and appears throughout the Pacific Northwest. If you see him appearing in your town, it’s worth showing up.
Global Grooves Playlist
Global Grooves – March 13th, 2010
Last Sunday I was a guest on Radio Boise’s world music show, Global Grooves. Here’s the playlist of the music I brought.
| Artist | Song | Album |
|---|---|---|
| Baltic Crossing | Firetour | Firetour |
| Sofia Jannok | Vuolvojávrri | Áššogáttis – By The Embers |
| Väsen | Josefin’s Baptism Waltz | Spirit |
| Annbjørg Lien & Bjørn Ole Rasch | The Old Car | Come Home |
| Trygve Seim & Frode Haltli | Redemption Song | Yeraz |
| Geoff Berner | Victory Party | Victory Party |
| Kefir Kvartet | T Kaninus | Kefir |
| James Shipp’s Nós Novo | The Blacksmith | Strange Sweethearts In America |
| Wylie & The Wild West | Hi-Line Polka | Raven On The Wind |
| Vinicius Cantuaria & Bill Frisell | Lagrimas Mexicanas | Lagrimas Mexicanas |
| Yorgis Goiricelaya | Delirios | Elegance |
| Omar Sosa & NDR Bigband | Salida Con Elegba | Ceremony |
| Mulatu Astatke | The Way To Nice | Mulatu Steps Ahead |
| Anouar Brahem | For No Apparent Reason | The Astounding Eyes of Rita |
| Serras | Grund Danmark | Ø |
Väsen
photo by Johanna Harness
Mike Marshall/Darol Anger and Väsen
March 10, 2011
The Boise Contemporary Theater was mostly full for a night of great acoustic music from Darol Anger, Mike Marshall, and the Swedish trio Väsen. Anger and Marshall had already been long-time fans of Väsen when they first met in person and played as a quintet at a folk festival in Indiana in 2004. The five musicians have had several subsequent performances together and have made one recording. This was their first appearance together in 2011 and the first stop on Väsen’s US tour.
The general chatter in the theater before the show began suggested most of the audience was familiar with Anger and Marshall. This pair has performed together as a duo and a part of larger bands including the quintet Montreux. They are very well known in new acoustic music and newgrass circles, music that seems to have a solid fan base here in Idaho.
On the other hand, Väsen had been to Idaho only once before, performing at the Roseberry Festival in McCall a few years ago. The audience chatter was about “some guys from Sweden” and there were a few variants on never having heard of the opening act.
For much of the audience, the first surprise of the even came when the “opening act” was Anger and Marshall. It’s not a surprise that people love these guys. Anger is a great violinist who has been exploring and stretching roots-based acoustic music for decades. He was a founding member of the Turtle Island String Quartet, and has collaborated with with musicians from many musical styles. Marshall is an outstanding mandolin player, known for his wide-ranging styles from new acoustic to bluegrass, classical, and Brazilian choro music. Both of these players know how to involve the audience and bring them along for the ride.
They did a four-song set that must have lasted about 25 minutes. They played one original from each man, a choro, and Marshall switched to mandocello for a beautiful rendition of “Wayfaring Stranger.”
Marshall then told the story about meeting Väsen in 2004 and gave them a very warm introduction. Väsen took the stage – Roger Tollroth on guitar, Mikael Marin on viola, and Olov Johannson on the Swedish keyed fiddle, the nyckelharpa. There was quite a bit of gawking in the audience at the nyckelharpa, which is not an instrument we see often around here. Many audience members were stumped.
Väsen launched into their first tune, “Rob’s Polska,” and I heard three different audience members around me gasp out a “Wow!” The band had the audience completely won over in about five seconds. They sound big, and it’s fascinating to hear the band and realize they only have three players to produce such a broad sound.
They played six songs off their most recent album, Väsen Street, and showed how they too could work the crowd with big smiles, witty banter, and some education about the nyckelharpa. When Anger and Marshall joined them for the first set’s closing number, Bill Monroe’s “Old Dangerfield,” the impact on the audience was tremendous, and there was a standing ovation to take us to intermission.
The second set was all five musicians playing mostly tunes from their recording Mike Marshall & Darol Anger with Väsen. It was a great mix of tunes by each of the five musicians and a few traditional tunes. The interplay was a real joy to watch, especially the way they took turns queuing individual sections of each piece.
The highlight for much of the audience was “Penknife Killer,” which is based on a traditional Swedish tune. They played a few variations on the theme, then let the piece move into some very strange sounds using odd bowing techniques, playing above the bridge, making popping percussive sounds, and generally playing the instruments in all the wrong ways – all of which was extraordinarily enjoyable to the audience for the sounds they produced, they way they produced them, and the facial expressions and interplay between the musicians.
All five musicians stayed after the show to sign CDs and talk to the audience members. One audience member brought a couple of exotic instruments, a mandola and a six-string violin, that Marshall and Anger plunked around with, bringing a really big smile to the owner’s face.
It was a great night for Boise. Over two hours of great music from great musicians who were genuinely happy to be here performing for us.
Geoff Berner
Geoff Berner: Victory Party (2011)
The title track of Victory Party kicks off with the a background of fluttering clarinets and simple percussion under semi-chanted vocals, then adds accordion, bass, and violins one instrument at a time until the full band is supporting the singing. I got caught up in the way the music was building that for the first few times through this song I didn’t listen to the incredible words, the story of a celebration, of a victory won, but won at a great price. The lyrics talk of a blinded veteran, the charred remains of an orphanage, and washtub whisky, leading me to wonder what the partiers must have been fighting against for this to be victory.
That song sets up this brand new record from Vancouver-based accordionist Geoff Berner, full of great lyrics, wonderful arrangements, and most of all some mind-bending juxtapositions. Klezmer and Eastern European folk music is interpreted through a punk lens. Happy party music underlies stories of harsh times and difficult lives. Sometimes these songs make me want to dance, sometimes they make me want to fight, and often they make me want to do both at exactly the same time.
The musicians here are impressive. Berner sings and plays accordion. Wayne Adams provides most of the percussion, while Brigitte Dajczer and Diona Davies bring some great violin playing to the table. Bob Cohen is credited with “some violin, some shouting,” and Jamie Thompson plays “additional suitcase percussion.” A couple of New York-based klezmer musicians, Michael Winograd on clarinet and Benjy Fox-Rosen on bass, do a wonderful job of bringing out the klezmer influences in these arrangements. Together this band really knows how to rise and fall together, how to layer and build and pull back, how to either support or overwhelm the vocals as needed.
I love the way this record combines so many disparate elements. And listening to this music always makes me want to act, always wants to make me do something. As the singer asks in I Kind of Hate Songs With Ambiguous Lyrics, “Don’t you have something you love enough that you wanna clearly defend?” I know my answer to that question.
Here’s the video for the title track from Berner’s previous release, Whiskey Rabbi.
Meridian Symphony
Meridian Symphony Orchestra
March 5th, 2011
I’ve been getting more involved with community radio, so it makes sense that I finally went to hear my local community orchestra. The Meridian Symphony Orchestra is a volunteer orchestra that has been going for the last 21 years. This past Saturday was my first visit to their performance space deep in the suburbs.
The concert opened with Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and continued with the piece that was probably most unfamiliar to the audience, the Concertino by German composer Franz Danzi. Danzi was a bit younger than Mozart, a bit older than Beethoven. The Concertino is a short double concerto for clarinet, bassoon, and strings. Principal clarinetist Larry Reeder and principal bassoonist Kevin Hall gave spirited, musical performances in their featured roles. As a side note, both Reeder and Hall play in the Riverwinds Quintet, an excellent chamber group that is not to be missed when the opportunity arises.
The orchestra continued with the elder Johann Strauss’s most famous work, the Radetsky March. Conductor Tom Phelps encouraged the audience to clap along, “like they do in Europe” he told us. “Just make sure you keep in time!” Next, principal trumpeter Michael Seyler was featured on the Trumpet Concerto by Johann Hummel. This warhorse of the trumpet community seems to be required playing by every trumpet major at every music school in the country. I’ve heard it often as a solo trumpet accompanied by a piano transcription of the orchestra parts; it’s good to hear the piece more as Hummel conceived it.
The finale was the wonderful Capriccio Espagnole of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The party I was with all agreed that this was their favorite piece of the evening. What’s not to love about these Spanish folk tunes set by a Russian composer in the heart of the romantic era? The violin cadenza was especially well-performed by concertmaster Jenny Jones.
The next performance of the MSO will be on Saturday, April 30th at the Centennial Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for students and seniors, and $25 for families.
Bob Wills
Bob Wills’s Birthday
Today is the birthday of Bob Wills.
Through the 1980s and early 90s I listened to almost nothing but jazz. But somewhere in the 90s I saw an article in DownBeat about the western swing band, Asleep at the Wheel. And once I started listening to AATW I was hooked on western swing. The jump to Bob Wills was almost automatic.
Wills pretty much invented western swing back in the 1930s with his first band, the Light Crust Doughboys. He took the swing music of Duke Ellington, Fletcher Henderson, and Benny Goodman and combined it the cowboy and Appalachian string band music of the rural American South and West.
The Texas Playboys became the standard against which all western swing is still measured, and the songs made famous by Bob Wills are still played often – “Faded Love,” “San Antonio Rose,” “Milk Cow Blues,” “Take Me Back To Tulsa,” “Stay All Night,” “Miss Molly,” “A Big Ball in Cowtown,” and so many more.
Here’s a video of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys performing “Ida Red.”
March 2011
March 2011
Every month I make a list of the recordings I’ve been listening to most often over the past few weeks. Here’s my list for March 2011.
Khaira Arby: Timbuktu Tarab (2010) – The desert blues music coming out of Mali these days is incredibly good, and Khaira Arby is at the forefront. Her singing, her energy, her backing band – everything works together perfectly. Watch this video of “Sourgou” and you’ll see what I mean.
Natacha Atlas: Mounqaliba (2010) – Natural sounds, electronics, jazz, and Arabic classical forms are all used to convey her message. This is a dark yet beautiful record. Here’s a video Natacha Atlas created of her music mixed with images of the recent uprising in Egypt.
Väsen: Väsen Street (2009) – This Swedish folk trio will be on tour in the US shortly, and they will be in my town at the Boise Contemporary Theater on March 10th. All you Boiseans had best be there. Here’s a video of the title track from their most recent recording.
Marcus Shelby Orchestra: Soul of the Movement (2011) – Anthems from the Civil Rights Movement and inspiring originals from this San Francisco big band. Great arrangements and great musicians all around. Here’s a label-produced video featuring clips from many of the songs on the record. It’s heavy on the gospel numbers, but also features some stellar instrumental solos.
Yorgis Goiricelaya: Elegance (2010) – Latin jazz from a number of angles with different ensembles all anchored by Goiricelaya’s bass with some very nice textural surprises. Here’s a video of the band performing the tune “El Manicero” at an outdoor festival.
Maria Kalaniemi: Vilda Rosor (2010) – The accordionist from Finland brings along a good-sized band that includes banjo, fiddle, double bass, and electric guitar for an wild spin through traditional Finnish tunes and a few originals.
Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky: The Firebird (1961) – I haven’t written much about classical music on this blog, but I do listen to quite a bit, and lately I’ve been listening to this recording of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Firebird with the composer himself conducting the Columbia Symphony Orchestra. It’s part of the Stravinsky Conducts Stravinsky series that Columbia Records put out in the 1960s. Here’s a video of Stravinsky conducting The Firebird with the New Philharmonia Orchestra.
Natacha Atlas
Natacha Atlas: Mounqaliba (2010)
Natacha Atlas conveys a state of reversal using natural sounds, electronics, jazz, and Arabic classical forms. My full review is on RootsWorld.
Here’s a video Natacha Atlas created of her music mixed with images of the recent uprising in Egypt.
Jane Ira Bloom
Jane Ira Bloom: Wingwalker (2010)
My first encounter with Jane Ira Bloom was through an article in Saxophone Journal in 1985. I was intrigued back then by her use of multiple microphones in performance and recording. I still like the effects she creates with microphones. I also love her compositional skill and her dedication to the soprano saxophone.
It’s rare to see saxophonists play only the soprano. More often it’s a secondary horn for someone who plays primarily the tenor sax or the alto. Bloom has concentrated her playing on the soprano, and I both appreciate that dedication and really enjoy the sound she gets from this difficult instrument.
The compositions on Wingwalker are really good and cover a range of styles. Groove reigns on “Life on Cloud 8″ and “Rooftops Speak Dreams.” “Live Sports” is plain old funky, while “Adjusting to Midnight” is a very nice ballad.
The band she has put together here is very good: Mark Helias on bass, Bobby Previte on drums, and Dawn Clement on piano. I especially like Previte’s work on “Wingwalker,” a ballad of sorts with a melody that takes interesting turns. Previte keeps the tune precarious with just barely enough support, exactly what I feel wingwalkers must experience. On other tunes, Helias and Clement work together very well to lay down solid grooves. And Helias’s solo on the opening tune “Her Exacting Light” is perfect.
My favorite tune here, one I often find myself humming, is ”Freud’s Convertible.” It has a great melody built on a blues harmonic platform, and it also swings hard while moving freely through time signatures. Bloom also uses her multiple microphone recording techniques. Then in the middle the band moves into a whole new world with funky Latin percussion, hard-grooving bass, and snippets of saxophone. It all works together really well and shows off Bloom’s composing and arranging skills as well as the playing of each band member in both solo and ensemble passages.
Wingwalker ends with the lone standard, Lerner and Loewe’s “I Could Have Danced All Night.” Bloom dismisses the rest of the band and plays solo soprano for a beautiful and sweet close to this wonderful record.
Here’s a video of “Freud’s Convertible” done as live as a trio.
A big thank you goes out to Jason Crane, host of the incredible podcast The Jazz Session, for sending me this CD. Here’s Jason’s interview with Jane Ira Bloom.
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