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"We
thought we'd ease into the evening,"
said Eileen Ivers, as her audience wiped
the sweat away after the opening tunes.
A set of reels featuring fiddle, guitar
and percussion: the first played slowly,
then picking up the tempo for the second
to reach a million miles an hour!
It was fast, but it wasn't frantic.
When Ivers and her bandmates play,
they have time. Time to explore unexpected
avenues opened up by the tunes, time
to develop ornamentation and intricacies
with their instruments, time to surprise
and move the audience and perhaps most
of all, time to share and swap ideas
with each other.
For most of the evening, Ivers played
the "blue fiddle," her trademark
Zeta electric violin. She passes this
through a series of attachments and
gadgets, expanding the sound range of
the instrument: wah-wah, reverb and
more. So she doesn't just play melodies.
She wails, she harmonizes, she distorts,
she takes traditional Irish tunes into
a completely different realm. This
is why she is known as the "Hendrix
of the fiddle."
But when she picked up her quaint-looking
wooden fiddle -- the kind most Irish
fiddlers use -- she showed why she has
won nine All-Ireland fiddle championships.
Although she has followed her musical
intuition into other styles, she has
not lost touch with or respect for the
old ways.
Her new directions involve collaborating
with a quintet of topnotch players.
Dubliner James Riley played his Martin
guitar with an incessant drive on the
fast tunes, yet with a delicate lightness
on slower ones. He produced imaginative
chord progressions which introduced
elements of jazz without losing touch
with tradition; and on the one occasion
he flatpicked, he created an intricate
dance across the strings plucking the
melody with drones and harmony lines
thrown in for good measure.
Puerto Rican Emedin Rivera is a percussionist
who has played with such performers
as Harry Bellafonte and Gregory Hines.
He adds a Latin touch with a wide range
of effects, at one point, even recreating
the image of a rain forest in sound.
Emanuel Chulo Gatewood is a bassist
with flair as well as a supportive harmony
singer. He never intruded, but always
provided a fascinating, highly listenable
accompaniment.
Pipes, flute and whistles were provided
by another Dublin man (but now of Queens,
New York), Ivan Goff. With perhaps the
most traditional approach of all the
musicians, he still proved capable of
inventive improvisation during his solo
spots. His duets with Ivers showed compatible
but contrasting interpretations, usually
with him retaining a more conventional
style for her to bounce off with her
adventurous explorations.
The band is rounded out by ex-Blues
Brother, Tommy McDonnell, a big man
with a big voice. He takes an Irish
song like Ron Kavannagh's classic "Reconciliation",
and turns it into a blue-eyed soul song.
He holds the audience spellbound, even
with a simple "toura-loura-lay"
chorus. He's also not bad on harmonica
and percussion!
When you mix Irish with rock, salsa,
blues and more, you'll either wind up
with a musical stew which tantalizes,
tempts and excites your listening buds
or with a mess. With these musicians,
there is no chance of the latter.
Percussion, bass and picked chords
on the guitar provided an African sound
on "Afro-Jig": a simple, repetitive
accompaniment that sways the body and
moves the soul, you just have to start
dancing. Enter the fiddle and then pipes
and suddenly, there are the green fields
of old Ireland. Yet when blues harp
entered the mix, we were in Chicago
or some such place. The tune gave space
for each musician to move freely within
a genre, a kind of musical mix'n'match
that built images to transport the listeners.
An emigration set began with Goff reciting
a poem called "My American Wake",
his warm baritone voice accompanied
by an organ-like guitar, echoing far
off chords. This then slipped into a
Turlough O'Carolan harp tune, "Parting
of Friends". Ivers performed this
slow air, its lonely melody echoing
the sentiments of the poem. Then McDonnell
sang to Riley's accompaniment before
droning pipes, a growling bass and McDonnell's
vocal effects moved into overdrive and
led the whole band in a set of lively
polkas. It was an epic presentation,
linking recital with tunes, lament with
dance.
Ivers is a true character. She retains
much of her older life, the days of
straight up Irish traditional music:
she chats freely with the audience,
joking, reminiscing on her childhood,
explaining origins of the tunes and
more, rather like a fireside chat over
a glass of beer. But then, she swings
and sways across the stage, her body
contorting and twisting, no separation
between musician and instrument; she
feeds her band musical ideas and responds
freely when they give ideas back; her
duets with guitar, with harmonica, with
flute, completely engulf her; and perhaps
best to watch, Q&A sessions with
her partners when she plays a riff and
they throw it back with a bit more,
only for her to develop it a stage further
for them to answer.
A two-hour long show ended with an
epic vocal and instrumental medley.
She wouldn't let the audience sit, but
instead had them clapping, waving arms
and chanting along with "Dance
All Night". Performed in an Irish
calypso style, even the most staid present
were rocking away. This led into a series
of improvisations on rocking reels before
McDonnell took over again with a hypnotic
"Will the Circle Be Unbroken",
again with delirious audience participation
- an Irish revival meeting, except this
was pure fun!
Eileen Ivers has come a long, long
way -- from a young student of Irish
traditional fiddle into seasoned interpreter
of fine music. But she hasn't lost touch
with her roots, she is as gracious as
ever, and her performance continued
in my head, hours after the theater
emptied.
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