If Boston sports fans are celebrating these days -- what with three pro teams of championship pedigree -- then the area's Celtic music aficionados have equal, if not greater, cause for cheer. A recent concert at Harvard Square's Club Passim showed (yet again) how well-off Boston is when you measure its wealth in musicians.
The event was in celebration of the long-awaited CD release by Annalivia, a splendid quartet comprising Flynn Cohen (guitar, mandolin, vocals), Liz Simmons (vocals, guitar), Brendan Carey Block (fiddle) and Stuart Kenney (string bass, banjo), all with solid Boston/New England connections. Celtic-Appalachian crossover has become quite the popular trend these days in the trad music scene, but Annalivia does it in a way that is seamless, completely natural and unforced.
Cohen is an obvious focal point, since he is so obviously at home in both genres: If you encounter him at a session or house party, you'll find he's as likely to pick out an old-timey tune on his mandolin as he is to give prodigious backing to an Irish reel or jig. But he by no means overshadows the other Annalivians: Simmons, who counts Karan Casey and Aoife Clancy among her mentors and is the daughter of two talented musician parents; Block, a former US National Junior Scottish Fiddle Champion who can churn out Cape Breton tunes with the best of 'em; and Kenney, a mainstay of the contra dance circuit with bands such as Wild Asparagus and The Sevens.
All those assets were on display at their Passim concert as they performed selections from the CD -- highlights included "A Sailor Being Tired," featuring a thrilling fiddle break; an instrumental set that included a jig composed by Block in honor of the weekly Irish music session up in Groton; and, to the delight of all, "Lazy John," a humorous, infectious song from the repertoire of Kentucky fiddler Clyde Davenport. Annalivia also has strong ties to the late 20th-century folk music revival, as evidenced by their renditions of "Sailor Boy" (a nod to the Bothy Band) and "When I Was in My Prime" (a Pentangle standard), and the Richard Thompson composition "Walking On a Wire." Happily, the band affirms its local ties with a cover of "The Wind Is an Angry Friend," by local songwriter and tunesmith Mark Simos.
Prior to the Annalivia set, Cohen provided accompaniment for opening act Emerald Rae, who last fall returned to the Boston area after completing her graduate studies in Scotland. Rae, all of 22, is an astonishingly accomplished and poised fiddler in the Cape Breton/Scottish style, as she showed to great effect. To complement her singing talents, Rae has lately ventured into songwriting territory, and trotted out two of her compositions during the set, one of them a maritime tale of love and desperation (inspired by her family's move back to Gloucester earlier this year) that is built on a complex, shifting rhythmic foundation. Oh yes, she can dance, too.
Rae's presence on the bill was no coincidence: She is about to become a full-fledged member of Annalivia -- Simmons noted that this concert was "the last when Emerald and Annalivia perform as separate entities -- and at the end joined the band for a couple of instrumental medleys that offered a most enticing preview of further joys to come.
In fact, odds are very good that ICONS will see the debut of the "new" Annalivia -- not that there was anything lacking in the "old" Annalivia.
--Sean Smith
No comments:
Post a Comment