Sandstone Press

Live music

Posted by Jamie Whittle on 17th October 2009

There can be punch, balance and deftness in prose and poetry that make me marvel, paintings in whose colours I could willingly drown, angles and light in photography that electrify.  Yet of all the artistic media, it is music that penetrates my being like no other.  In music, it is the live concert that caps all experiences.

The experience is deeply personal to each and every person, and in conversation friends’ faces light up when they narrate “the most amazing concert” they ever attended.  Ask someone to describe the best three concerts of their life, and you’ll see neuro linguistic programming in fifth gear. 

What makes an incredible concert?  Musicianship.  Venue.  The vulnerability of a live performance.  Collective spirit of an audience (concerts in Glasgow are hard to beat for this, and so the artists tend to say too).  Connection between artist and audience.  All of these.  Then there is that transcendental flight that Jack Kerouac described in ‘On the Road’, listening to the improvised solo of a tenor saxophonist and his journey to the “It”, hanging on every twist and turn of the music.

So in a somewhat self-indulgent trip down memory lane (but it is Saturday morning after all), here are my top three in date order:

A Friday night at some point in 1994.  Word had spread amongst friends that Capercaillie had been recording at the Findhorn Foundation all week, and were staying at the Ramnee Hotel in Forres.  There was no guarantee of any music in the hotel that night, but a hope in the air that a tune or two might be played.  Five of us reached the Ramnee at about 11pm to be greeted at the door of the bar by none other than wizard-accordionist Phil Cunningham.  The lounge bar was fairly full, but no music.  So we stuck around.

Time passed.  The doors to the hotel were by this time locked.  12.30am and still no music.  Then someone started opening a fiddle case in the corner of the room, and began playing a tune.  Within a matter of minutes the furniture in the room was spontaneously rearranged to form an auditorium around this corner table.  By the end of the tune, the fiddler was joined by some ten other musicians including members of Capercaillie and Phil Cunningham.  There was a djembe drum, a cittern, a bazouki, fiddles, guitar, accordions. 

Someone introduced me to Karen Matheson, but I was too shy and tongue-tied to speak.  The music flitted from song to song, the occasional call of “which key?”, instruments exchanged, space for solos, encouragement of younger musicians.  With the lock-in, the atmosphere felt somewhat illicit, and those of us lucky enough to witness the music from the makeshift pit knew that we were being treated to a supreme quality of music.  I don’t know if the tune ‘Ramnee Ceilidh’ came out of that night, but I have heard strangers talk of that night with the reverence of folklore.

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I spent the summer of 1999 working as an intern for an environmental law firm in Geneva.  An unforgettable time of work that inspired me totally, and weekends spent in the mountains.  Along Lake Geneva is the town of Nyon which hosts the Paleo festival every July.  I’ve never been to Glastonbury, but I imagine Paleo as being similar but run with Swiss efficiency.  The festival is an eclectic mix of pop/rock and world music, with artists such as Ben Harper, Simply Red and Kruder & Dorfmeister featuring in the programme that year.

Now I had never heard of the phenomenon that is the Buena Vista Social Club.  Cuban music was just something I had missed, and so I was blissfully unaware of its beauty and brilliance.  A Cuban pianist was on the bill that night, a man by the name of Ruben Gonzalez.  Now I realise that I was about the experience arguably the most genius pianist of all time.  I think it was Ry Cooder who described him as being a cross between Thelonius Monk and Felix the Cat.

On he came to the stage, supported by many of the musicians who form the Afro Cuban All Stars.  Intoxicating from the first chord, it was music to fill your soul.  The playing of Senor Gonzalez was indeed sublime, delicate yet deliciously rich.  However it wasn’t his mastery that stole the moment.

Half way through the concert, the conga drummer was replaced by a percussionist by the name of Miguel “Anga” Diaz.  He looked a little like Ronaldo, a big smile, pinstripe trousers and a pinstripe trenchcoat.  He took his place behind five conga drums, and began knocking out a rhythm.  Now this was no ordinary rhythm.  It was a layering of rhythms with a control of speed, pitch and time that is hard to describe.  He played unaccompanied, soloing on the congas for some three to four minutes.

Then it happened, and I don’t know how.  All can say is that he bent time.  Fourth dimensional drumming.  Years later reading Mickey Hart’s ‘Drumming at the Edge of Magic’ he related an Arabian quote that “time is elastic”.  Somehow Miguel Anga delayed the beat, cranked the moment with so much torque, that a pocket of timeless space was opened.  Then with a changeover as slick as the Jamaican relay team, the band kicked in on another trajectory.

People throughout the audience turned to one another asking “what in the hell just happened?!”.  It was a simply extraordinary experience. 

This morning I just discovered that Miguel Anga in fact died of a heart attack in 2006.  I have searched the web and come across this piece on YouTube of him playing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aBuFXnICHY  Ruben Gonzalez has also since passed.  I feel just so honoured to have listened to these maestros.

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So to the third on my podium of all time favourite concerts.  In ‘White River’ I wrote about bluegrass in the downstream scetion of the book, and how a friend in Chapel Hill, North Carolina once introduced me to the supergroup Strength in Numbers and their only ever album ‘The Telluride Sessions’.  Well I became hooked on bluegrass and the newgrass style in particular of Bela Fleck, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Mark O’Connor and Edgar Meyer.  It was bluegrass that introduced me properly to celtic music (a reverse angle from across the Atlantic, but sometimes we have to leave our shores to appreciate and discover the best of home) and stoked a fire when I first heard Aly Bain and Phil Cunnigham play at Brodie Castle.  Then on discovering the ‘Transatlantic Sessions’ series (Aly Bain and Jerry Douglas playing ‘Waiting for the Federals’ - wowzers!), I realised I was tracing trails and meetings already blazed by these musical pioneers. 

Bear with me for a moment.  As a teenager and at university in the States I was mad about jazz.  Then (as mentioned) got crazed on bluegrass in North Carolina, then smitten by celtic music (back home in the Highlands).  Jazz interest fizzled out.  Then I ventured into the music of Bela Fleck’s group The Flecktones - what I can only describe as a cosmic blend of jazz, bluegrass, world and sometimes classical music.  Fleck on banjo (sometimes synthesised banjo), Victor Wooten on bass, Victor’s brother Futureman on percussion via his invention of a synth-axe drumitar, and Jeff Coffin on horns.  From time to time they play with a Tuvan throat singer and a steel pan musician, amongst other supreme musical guests.  The Flecktones made jazz relevant for me again.

Celtic Connections in Glasgow 2007.  Like a kid who had just heard that the circus was coming to town, the excitement of securing a ticket to see Bela Fleck for the first time was incurable.  The Old Fruitmarket was the venue (how I love that place). 

It may be that Victor Wooten stole the show with a display of bass playing that left the audience gasping.  Yet for me, watching the skill (that is quite arguably divine) of Bela Fleck, the fluidity of his runs and precision of his picking, was everything I hoped for and more.  Whether playing jazz-funk, Bach or bluegrass, Bela Fleck is without question my favourite musician.  If you have never listened to his playing try ‘Drive’ for bluegrass/newgrass, ‘Perpetual Motion’ for classical (Evelyn Glennie plays marimba on some tracks), and the Flecktones’ ‘Live at the Quick’ for jazz-funk-world.  I was in seventh heaven at that concert.