Summer Part 6: Newgrass and Old Time

Newgrass, spacegrass -- bluegrass went through a lot of permutations during the Seventies. Groups like The Seldom Scene and New Grass Revival expanded the material and performing styles of bluegrass, offering more rock influences and band-composed material. Never been much of a fan...
Another offshoot was influenced by mandolinist David Grisman's work with Jerry Garcia (Old and In the Way) and especially his own melding of bluegrass and Django Reinhardt gypsy jazz, as revealed in the classic David Grisman Quintet. My man Tony Rice, featured on the Quintet album, carried on with his version which he dubbed 'spacegrass'.





As much as I enjoy Grisman, I like Tony's albums a little more because Tony's lightning guitar runs are featured more prominently. Tony is the master of the clean line, no matter how fast he plays.
Norman Blake is also a guitar master, but he inclines more toward 'old-time' music, which is more string band blues and country rather than bluegrass. Norman writes a lot of his own material in a kind of 'new Southern old-time' style, and while his nasal vocals takes some getting used to, a lot of his music sounds like traditional front porch picking, best exemplified in "Whiskey Before Breakfast".






The 2 albums that Norman and Tony made together disappointed me at first because I was expecting all sorts of dueling acoustic guitar pyrotechnics, but these guys are more subtle than that. Even though their own work is very different from each other, they find common ground that really is a sublime pleasure to hear.




Tony Rice seems like he'll play with just about anybody, and two of my favorite of his collaborations show his range of styles. "Skaggs and Rice" is a collection of 'brother duets', high-harmony acoustic gospel. Tony's rich baritone melds well with the high lonesome sound of Ricky Skagg's bluegrass tenor. "The Pizza Tapes" brings it all full circle: David Grisman brings his buddy Tony along for a relaxed jam session with Jerry Garcia. Their version of Miles Davis' "So What" is genius, and the infectious enthusiasm is palpable. The noodling that precedes some of the tracks influenced much of Tony's own "Unit of Measure" album, which concludes with a live recording of a fiery bluegrass breakdown by Tony's best group.

Summer Part 5: Sorta Bluegrass

Bluegrass is as much a part of summer as watermelon and hot dogs, and nothing sounds better played outdoors -- but these CDs are certainly a good second option. Alison Krauss was winning fiddle contests in her teens, and her first 'solo' album (backed by Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas and more) only hints at the amazing growth of her career. Alison's always had a knack for picking great songs and surrounding herself with sympathetic and talented compatriots. Even though her fiddle talents won the contests, it's her pure-as-a-mountain-stream voice, similar in many ways to Dolly Parton's, that completely blows people away. Alison's early albums are good, "Two Highways" from 1989 being a particular favorite with the first version of her band Union Station. The band was revamped for later albums including 1992's "Every Time You Say Goodbye", and again around 1995, which has been her current band since. "New Favorite" is probably half a great album (and it's a very very good half) but Alison's generosity in letting the band take the lead half the time doesn't pay off for me as much.
The best thing about Alison Krauss for me is her taste; she chooses great songs (many by current and former band members), and the band's arrangements are tasteful and outstanding. Songs like "Oh Atlanta" and "I Will" (the Beatles tune) aren't the least bit 'bluegrass' and they aren't shoehorned into what would be considered traditional bluegrass arrangements, but instead they're just great songs played with bluegrass instruments.
The second best thing about Alison is her loyalty -- she's stayed with tiny Rounder Records from Day One, when I'm sure any number of labels wanted to woo her away when she hit it big.

Summer Part 4: Maria Bethania

Brazilian women vocalists tend to favor the high, clear, precise tones of a Gal Costa or Rosa Passos, but Maria Bethania's voice is low, throaty and honey smooth, richly romantic. Maria has almost attained Grand Dame status, with a long and varied career: she performed early with Gilberto Gil, Gal Costa and Caetano Veloso, her brother (and if you get the chance to see the DVD of their reunion performance, it's worth the hunt.)
"Maria Bethania Sings the Vinicius de Moraes Songbook" is a tribute to her mentor and the father of the Bossa Nova movement: classic, classic songs, interspersed with her readings of lyrics as poetry. So much to love about this CD, but the stunner for me is her performance of "Tarde em Itapoa", a longing reverie about time spent in Itapoa, with the sea and the sun -- it's the ultimate in languorous romance.
"Tempo Tempo Tempo" is a DVD of 2 1/2 hours of Maria in concert. She sings a variety of composers and styles (MPB, samba, bossa nova); she commands the stage with her relaxed sensuousness and that voice. (I've had problems accessing the English translations on some copies of this DVD, but listening to the Portuguese lyrics you can almost intuit what the songs are about -- did I mention romance?.)

Premonitions of Fall

I know it's still summer, but all it takes is a few damp days, and my mind drifts ahead to fall, and when that happens, the BritFolk goes back into the CD changer. Not just any BritFolk either, but what you might call the Fairport Axis, artists who came to prominence in the stirrings of British folk-rock as exemplified by Fairport Convention and fellow travelers like John Martyn, John Renbourn, Al Stewart -- and Bert Jansch. Now, Bert Jansch wasn't really "folk-rock", not that he didn't attempt it at times (with less-than-stellar results) but his forays into "folk-baroque" and "folk-jazz" (especially with the band Pentangle) are exemplary.




"Bert Jansch" was the first, recorded in someone's apartment: essential. "Bert & John" sounds like it could have been recorded after hours in a pub, intimate and a great showcase for 2 distinctive guitar styles.




"Moonshine" and "Rosemary Lane" are two favorites; Bert's in good voice (at his worst, he tends to be nasal), a good mix of songs ("Moonshine" includes Bert's definitive cover of "The January Man"), and nice instrumentals sprinkled through "Rosemary Lane". "Birthday Blues" is also wonderful, proabably my favorite if I had to choose (despite 1, maybe 2 duff tracks) but it has been reissued combined with "Nicola", (which has some awful groovy sixties production disasters amongst the good stuff). Still, at 2 for 1, it's worth the investment, though they have both been reissued since separately.



Bert continues to record (with varying degrees of success) and tour (in Seattle in June and I MISSED HIM!!! and he's also touring in support of Neil Young), but these recordings are from his classic period. He never broke through to mega status, but his influence casts a long shadow.

Early Music

The performance of what is called "early music" is closely tied to the "original instrument" movement. "Early music" usually includes music from the 12th - 15th centuries, and groundbreaking classical researchers, whose extensive scholarship helped sketch out undiscovered performing styles, were pretty much on their own. David Munrow's work arguably began the whole movement, and his "Music of the Gothic Era" is seminal. For many people, their first exposure was David Munrow's soundtrack work for the BBC series "Henry VIII and His Six Wives" (mid- to late-70's).
Researchers eventually realized that they could come up with a reasonable facsimile of what Handel's listeners (for instance) may have heard by performing on instruments of the time, rather than current modern instruments. The earliest experiments were a bit, er, 'pitchy' and many critics wrote off the whole movement as wrong-headed and unmusical, but the best kept getting better, and now the "original instrument" crowd is crowded indeed. The Dufay Collective play a mix of vocal and instrumental pieces, and the vocal style, while a bit "plummy" for my taste, fits well with the overall program.





Istanpitta (there are 2 volumes) by New York's Ensemble for Early Music is an older album than the Dufay collection, so it's not recorded as crisply, but I still think it's a great album. It's more meditative than rousing (though there are some dance pieces).
The grand-daddy of them all is "La Spagna" by Gregorio Paniagua and the Atrium Musicae de Madrid, which is a stunning collection of 41 versions of the "La Spagna" melody from the 15th through the 17th centuries. One thing this disc shares with almost all the others is the wide dynamic range, so when the lutes lull you into a state of calm, there's a barrage of crumhorns and tambors just around the corner. Many variations on this Spanish melody sound Middle Eastern to my ears, but that's the beauty of a well-travelled melody, and no, 41 versions does not make you want to bludgeon yourself senseless.
Part of what made unearthing the performance style of early music difficult was the fact that beyond the basic melody, much of the performance was based on improvisation, tempered to the skill of the musicians. Hesperus experiments with "Neo-Medieval", a mix of scripted and unscripted variations.






Piffaro do a fine juggling act with the subtle and the brazen, with crumhorns buzzing and bagpipes wheezing. Who knew that the bagpipe could play well with other instruments? The Italian collection gets the slight edge for me over the French one, and to round it off, "Lo Splendore D'Italia" by The Whole Noyse covers mostly brass (cornett) and recorder music of the late 15th century.
And we top things off with the Broadside Band, who perform tunes Dickens would insert into "A Christmas Carol" -- party at Fezziwigs!
You may be surprised listening to some of these stellar collections hearing how close the tie is to traditional Irish and English folk; later 'baroque folk' Brits like Bert Jansch and especially John Renbourn rediscover some of these pieces, rearrange them for solo guitar, and suddenly, everything new is olde again!