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December 27, 2003 On December 8, 2003, I had the good fortune to witness a live performance, at Kitchener’s posh Centre in the Square, by Canada’s First Lady of the Fiddle, Natalie MacMaster. What I found very commendable, apart from her hard-earned virtuosity and versatility, was her onstage presence and demeanour, suggesting a woman in total control of her musical presentation, but with a genuine love and enjoyment of it, not as a means to parade her coincidental good looks or physique – a true professional and a classy one at that! Refraining from an initial greeting to the audience, the band got right down to business by launching into an instrumental medley, followed by a fiddle-guitar duet with Toronto-born, Gander-raised Brad Davidge, whose brand-new daughter has already attended her first gig! After offering a warm hello to the nearly sold-out crowd, Natalie participated in a bit of one-to-one interaction with the crowd, which included as many Cape Bretoners as it did Newfoundlanders (“but they’re just louder”). Natalie, a Cape Bretoner herself, has recently become a permanent resident of Ontario, having just married Donnell Leahy, lead fiddler of the famous 9-piece musical extravaganza known as Leahy. She made no bones about how delighted she was with this turn of events and proudly directed the audience to the flashy new accoutrement on her left hand! Imagine the future prodigy of this particular matrimonial union! Many of the selections played that evening were from Natalie’s just-released (and seventh) CD, Blueprint, which highlights the connection between bluegrass and Celtic music, an observation brought to Natalie’s attention by Alison Krause. Blueprint features a long list of guests such as bassist Jerry Wooten, octave violinist Darol Anger, Bela Fleck and Alison Brown on banjo, Sam Bush and Matt Flinner on mandolin, Jerry Douglas on dobro, and multiple guitarists and pianists. Mr. Fleck’s appropriately titled 'Bela’s Tune' is also included on this CD. While Crowbar drummer Larry Atamaniuk performs on Blueprint, Natalie has recently enlisted the aid of Miche Pouliot, formerly with Heaven’s Radio (a blues-reggae band I heard at Le Hibou in Ottawa, on a double-bill with Murray McLachlan, way back in the early ’70s)! The first tunes showcased from Blueprint were compositions by Scottish accordionist Phil Cunningham - 'Eternal Friendship' and 'Appropriate Dipstick' (co-written by Iain MacDonald and featuring 23-year-old award-winning bagpiper Matt MacIsaac on a mysterious tubular instrument held at his waist but fingered like a flute - it was quite interesting to hear and observe! Natalie then asked if we were familiar with the East Coast tradition of partying in the kitchen, which got a great response, and that led to a recital of the 'Jig Party', featuring the wildly energetic tapdancing/jigging of Tiffany (Hughson?), from Woodstock, Ontario. That kind of dancing is not for the faint of heart! Bassist (electric and modified upright) John Chiasson (Lennie Gallant Band; The Rankins, John Chiasson Quartet), sang a charming version of 'Autumn Leaves' (popularized by Johnny Mercer but originally composed by poet Jacques Prévert as 'Les Feuilles Mortesor'). Born in South Africa, to Cape Bretoner parents, he has years of experience, culminating in a solo smooth jazz CD entitled 'Here in the Moonlight'. Lead guitarist Brad Davidge (Soul’s Road; Mary Jane Lamond; Terry Kelly) is also a solo performer in his own right and has recently released his début CD, Unfolded, produced by Gordie Sampson, who plays guitar on Blueprint and who also produced Natalie’s In My Hands, a prior CD with guest Jesse Cooke. A Myra Brooks Welch poem, “Touch of the Master’s Hand” (jokingly referred to as Touch of MacMaster’s Hand), was transformed by Natalie and Brad into a magnificent musical opus, along the lines of Charlie Daniels’ 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia' (on the Coyote Ugly soundtrack LP) and featured Brad on lead vocals that could melt one of those East Coast glaciers. The well-attended concert (one of the few scheduled in Southern Ontario that was not completely sold-out) closed with the 300-year-old 'Coyle’s Field House', that morphed into a funkadelic funfest featuring Antigonian pianist Allan Dewar, which liberated Natalie to kick up her heels, but without her fiddle! .........................................................................................................................................
December 11, 2003 LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Natalie MacMaster has built an unlikely career playing obscure, 250-year-old fiddle tunes that are ignored by most U.S. radio stations and almost never heard by the all-important, music-buying teens.
That's
hardly a blueprint for fame and fortune in an MTV world. It's a tradition kept alive almost entirely on her native Cape Breton Island on the tip of Nova Scotia, where the 31-year-old MacMaster first picked up a fiddle at the age of nine and has hardly put it down since. "When I was nine and I started to play the fiddle I just knew -- I don't know why or how or what -- I just knew that I would be playing forever," MacMaster told Reuters in an interview. "There has never been a moment in my life when I've thought otherwise. It's the only job I've ever had."
Cape
Breton's musical traditions date to the mid-1700s, when Scottish
settlers came to the island during the Highland Clearances -- bringing
with them their culture, Gaelic language, dances, and fiddle music.
While that music survives in Scotland as well, many believe that it's
truest form is found in Cape Breton. "There's lots of things I could do, starting by the way I dress and my appearance," MacMaster said. "You know, the lack of clothes could propel the career -- it's been tried, tested and true -- but there would be no way that thought would ever even cross my mind. AFTER 250 YEARS, A NEW DIRECTION "I'm a musician. I love music," she said. "I want to be known as a musician. I would love to have my career just keep growing and growing and 'break through,' as people call it, but ... I enjoy being able to be myself 100 percent, to dress the way I want to dress, look the way I want to look, play the way I want to play."
But
while MacMaster may never surface on pop radar screens, she has earned a
reputation as one of the top fiddlers in the world -- along with
critical acclaim, a Grammy nomination and two Juno awards, the Canadian
equivalent of the Grammies. And now, oddly enough, MacMaster has won some of the best reviews of her career on an album that changes directions. For "Blueprint," on Rounder Records, MacMaster reached beyond the shores of Cape Breton to collaborate in Nashville with some of America's best bluegrass musicians, including Bela Fleck, Edgar Meyer and Jerry Douglas.
It's
a strange and beautiful cross-pollination of two musical genres that
share some of the same roots, all springing from what MacMaster says was
a revelatory moment two years earlier while she was listening to an
album by Grammy-winning bluegrass fiddler Allison Kraus. "Music is not supposed to be painful. It's supposed to be joyful. Music is not supposed to be difficult. It's supposed to be easy". .........................................................................................................................................
December 5, 2003 Natalie MacMaster has had a second show at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts added to her upcoming Ontario tour, proving that her East Coast fiddle-based music is striking a chord with the Oakville audience. MacMaster is pleased by the addition of a show to her already hectic schedule. "When there's an extra date added," she said, "it shows that all the time and effort, it pays off. That means the audience is going to be on fire." If the audience has listened to her new album, Blueprint, they're probably already on fire. It is a departure for MacMaster, who has never really been known to cage herself in with just one style of music. Blueprint is a mixture of bluegrass and Celtic music, and for the album MacMaster brought in some of the best bluegrass musicians, making Blueprint a pleasure to listen to, and different than her other albums. "It's not as rock as my other (non-traditional) CDs," she said in a telephone interview, "but it's much more progressive, more worldly." The idea to incorporate bluegrass into her repertoire was inspired by Alison Krauss, who MacMaster has worked with before. Having heard Krauss' CD hundreds of times, it wasn't until MacMaster bought a new stereo that she truly heard the beauty. The Cape Breton native then decided on a similar approach to Blueprint, focusing less on the production and more on the playing. The result is a clean album of great musicianship, though it isn't full of easy hits, MacMaster admits. "People have to be prepared to work, to take the time to listen to it," she said. The album also shows how much MacMaster enjoys working in the studio. "I prefer recording (to performing) only slightly," she said. "I love the fact that there's so much control. I love that my fiddle actually sounds like a fiddle," because there's no pick-up necessary. Though she does enjoy recording, she needs to go out and perform in order to sell albums. That is exactly what she has been doing. Just back from four weeks of touring, MacMaster has about a week before heading to New York to play Carnegie Hall and then coming back to Ontario for a two-week tour. That's when she'll be playing her two local shows at the Oakville Centre for the Performing Arts, a stage she has become familiar with, having played it, she said, about half a dozen times in the last few years. The sold-out show is on Dec. 12, and the newly-added show is on Dec. 14 at 8 p.m. Tickets cost $59.99, $52.99 for Big Ticket subscribers and $48.99 for Big Ticket Plus subscribers. To order tickets, visit the box office, 130 Navy St. or call 905-815-2021 .........................................................................................................................................
December
3, 2003 MacMaster, a distant cousin of Ashley MacIsaac and niece to Cape Breton fiddle legend Buddy MacMaster, learned how to step-dance at the age of 5, and started playing the fiddle at the age of 9. By 12 was playing in festivals with the likes of Carlos Santana, Paul Simon and Luciano Pavarotti. It was there she also met singer Alison Krauss, whom she credits with introducing her to the bluegrass sound that influenced her sixth album, Blueprint, her first studio effort in four years. "There's a misconception that it's a bluegrass record, which it isn't, it just has a lot of great bluegrass musicians on it," said MacMaster. "We took that influence and made it into something all our own. It's still pure Natalie stuff, but maybe a more mature version of myself than people are used to." In the past year, MacMaster, 31, married to Donnell Leahy of the band Leahy and moved to Ontario, away from the East Coast and it's 250-year tradition of fiddling with which she is so strongly associated. "Interestingly enough, I haven't lived in Cape Breton for nearly 10 years, although I was always in Nova Scotia," she said. "I still go back to Cape Breton every couple of months, to get my quota, and there's also something called a CD player, and I just pop my fiddle CD in and it's like being home again." She said she's never far from the music of her youth. "I'm always listening to Celtic and fiddle music, because I want to grow and learn, and be the best player I can be," she said. "Of course, I like lots of types of music. Last night, I was listening to a country Christmas CD, then a guitarist from Africa, then an Irish band, then a Canadian girl group, and I also like Prince, Def Leppard, Eva Cassidy, James Taylor, Frank Sinatra, all types really. It all influences my music somehow." With Blueprint only a few weeks old and already doing snap business in both Canada and the United States, MacMaster said she's very excited about playing the new songs, and is even thinking about adding in a few holiday numbers for the Heritage Show, provided she can figure out the perfect line-up. "Our show is really tight, and if we insert a Christmas song, it will have to fit just right," she said. "I'm really intrigued by the power of the set list, and once we find the right order of the tunes, it stays like that forever, because I want it all to be perfect. The right order can really bring out the emotions." With 20 years of performing under her belt, MacMaster's got it down to an art.
"I
always start with two or three lively tunes, because there is a certain
level of audience excitement at the beginning of the show," she
said. "They've bought tickets, they've come out to the theatre,
maybe they went out for dinner, and now they've waited for us to come
out. By the time we appear, it's like 'Let's get this party started,
let's see what we all got After a couple of high-energy numbers, MacMaster like to slow things down. "That intial rush has worn off and people are calmer and ready to listen," she said. "I love the slow ones, because there is so much emotion. You can express so much with just one pulled bow note." She tries to keep the slow pieces to a minimum though, she said. "Only about three of the 16 in our current show are slow, because too many can make a show drag," she said. "Because of that, people probably think I don't like the slow airs, but they are probably my favorite to play." Now that she is married to a musician, MacMaster said life is all about music and she couldn't be happier. "I love music, I want to do it all the time," she said. "Even when I come off tour, I've got the tunes cranked right up. Being married, being in love, has only heightened my love of music. Love makes everything better, it makes babies cuter, it make days brighter, even chocolate tastes better when you are in love." The pair will be performing together at the New Year's Eve celebrations in Ottawa, but then they are off on their separate ways, with their respective groups. "We'd love to work together all the time, but it's not just ourselves who are involved," she said. "Both of our bands are doing very well, and that has to be a priority for us, but we do try to find spots that make sense for us to work together." She said though it's hard to leave her sweetheart behind, she's enjoying getting out and promoting the new CD with her band, which includes drums, guitar, bagpipes, banjo and piano, and, of course, fiddle. "I'm very excited and proud of this new album, it's very different for me," she said. "It's much more worldly and creative than anything I have ever done before. It has a lot of firsts for me, first time recording in America, first time I have five of my own compositions on it. I called it Blueprint, because it's the start of something new, and I hope people will really connect with that." .........................................................................................................................................
December
1, 2003 Part of Nova Scotia, the isolated island of Cape Breton boasts one major export: fiddlers. Early on, Scottish colonists' music and dance flourished. Even today, late-night kitchen parties are alive and well. Compared to its British Isles parent, Cape Breton music has fiercer accents, greater informality, and a certain rough-hewn quality. The fiddle-guitar-piano trio is the sound's instrumental bed rock. Similarly, the island's step dancing is more percussive and less balletic than the better-known Irish variety.
MacMaster
experiments in a milder way on her new album. In this past, she's had a
few pop-leaning radio numbers, but usually she modernizes Cape Breton
music by upping the pace and throwing in some drums and showy step
dancing. This time around she explores newgrass -- contemporary
bluegrass-based music with a jazz tinge-- and achieves an intriguing
mosaic. "The Ewe with the Crooked Horn" lays down a bluegrassy banjo/bass/guitar jam to start, over which MacMaster's Scots fiddle plays little riffs. Even the full-out country-rock song "Touch of the Master's Hand" leaves MacMaster on her own as the voice of a neglected master instrument. Maybe this separation shouldn't work, but it does -- on "Ewe," where distinct voices swap solos, as well as the more unified "Josefin's Waltz," in which MacMaster and mandolinist Matt Flinner play one melody on their two instruments. Famed dobroist Jerry Douglas and banjo player Béla Fleck give"Blueprint" much of its newgrass quality. "A Blast" sounds like MacMaster's usual Cape Breton routine, until the banjo and dobro crash in and play by their own rules. It just goes to show how inextricably instrumentation evokes genre. When MacMaster turns the reins over to Douglas, the slow air "Eternal Friendship" transforms from a Celtic ballad into a piece of Americana. The bass also makes a difference: in "Appropriate Dipstick," Edgar Meyer plays a rough-sounding counterpoint that gravels out the fiddle and pipes. Victor Wooten's funky bass adds extra bounce to the fine "Minnie & Alex's Reel." Paradoxically, "Blueprint" also includes some of MacMaster's most down-home traditional material, including "Jig Party" and "Silver Spear." "The Devil and the Dirk" starts with a nimble child's storybook feel, just fiddle and piano, and then breaks down into a reel. Fusion is often maligned as shallow experimentation: six of one, half-a-dozen of nothing. But this album give that stereotype the lie. On "Blueprint," MacMaster pursues both her upbringing and her interests and comes out sounding authentic. Danielle Dreilinger reviews folk and country music for WBUR, Boston's NPR News station .........................................................................................................................................
November
19, 2003 Although she is only 30, Rounder Records recording artist Natalie MacMaster is considered one of the top fiddle players in the world. Raised on Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island (rated the most beautiful island in the world by Conde Naste Traveller), she grew up amid a 250-year tradition of fiddling. She has been listening to, and playing, music her entire life and claims to have first heard music from her mother in the womb. MacMaster will be appearing Wednesday (Nov 19), 7:30pm, at the Taos Community Auditorium. Maggie Considine, head of MC Productions, is responsible for bringing MacMaster to town. "We have been focusing on the extraordinary talents of women in music," Considine says. MacMaster is extraordinary. Winner of a Juno Award (Canadian equivalent of the Grammy), several Canadian Country Music Awards for Fiddler of the Year, and nominated for a Grammy, she has released seven acclaimed albums in the past 10 years. Her most recent CD, "Blueprint," hit the streets last month and features a "Who's Who" of bluegrass music: banjo legend Bella Fleck, mandolin great Sam Bush and dobro master Jerry Douglas, among others. "Blueprint" is a spectacular blend of bluegrass and Celtic music. It reflects her career which has moved in and out of contemporary world music, traditional and Celtic. "Irish music affects me the same way as Cape Breton music because those are the sounds and instruments that I've heard since I was a child," MacMaster said. "It's the same thing with bluegrass music, which has many of the same sounds and instruments and, in a way, bluegrass musicians play reels, breakdowns and jigs, too, so it's all very similar." Considine manages to set up shows that would otherwise never come to a town this size. She does it by coordinating and networking with dozens of friends and associates in the music and promotion businesses. They often team up to book an artist in three or four smaller markets and/or scheduling a show here between two large markets such as Denver and Phoenix. Many people don't realize that these events can be years in the making and it is almost impossible to make money promoting in the small venues around Taos. "I do it for selfish reasons, it always comes down to that, I work very hard because the reward is so incredible," Considine said. "I grew up surrounded by music always playing and learned what going to concerts adds to quality of life. Music makes life worth living and takes me to a higher consciousness. It's important to share that." MC Productions has been instrumental in bringing more than a hundred shows to the region, including the annual Taos Jazz and Latin Music Festival. MacMaster isn't necessarily a household name in this country, "but she is someone people need to see," Considine said. "Anyone can record a CD, you can make one in a garage. It's the art of presenting music live - giving themselves to the audience and transforming the listeners through the performance." MacMaster is a superstar in Canada and other parts of the world, Considine said, and she'll sell out shows across America, which is remarkable for a fiddle player. "Her CDs are incredible but you have to see her live, you won't believe the power and passion in her performance," she added. The trail of positive press that follows MacMaster's tour uses words like breathtaking, whirling flashes, combustible virtuoso, and fiery. Consodine will soon be in New York looking for more shows to bring us and will be working on the Taos Jazz Festival for the spring. She also has a renowned Irish music duo planned and is finalizing a Leo Kottke show for March. "Music transcends everything, brings you to another border and all obstacles melt." It may sound like a cliche but Consodine believes "Tao audiences are the best in the world. I've had stars tell me they want to take this audience on the road with them." .........................................................................................................................................
November
15, 2003 TORONTO -- With her blond hair flying, her feet tapping vigorously, and her hands dancing in the air, Natalie MacMaster doesn't so much play her fiddle as she attacks it. During a recent showcase in a Toronto bar to launch her new album Blueprint, the Cape Breton darling tore through an energetic set of jigs and reels. The audience was left feeling musically satisfied yet strangely exhausted, having watched the tiny figure bounce across the stage non-stop for 45 minutes. Afterward, looking like she's on top of the world, MacMaster beamed brightly as the audience gave her an extended standing ovation. And why not? Her new disc is being hailed by some reviewers as career-defining work. It features some of Nashville's leading bluegrass pickers including banjo star Bela Fleck and mandolin master Sam Bush. MacMaster even co-wrote several of the album's 13 feisty tunes, which lovingly blend bluegrass with traditional Cape Breton Celtic jigs, strathspeys and reels. Even though MacMaster has been playing fiddle since age nine, she seems to be entering a new phase of musicianship. She's writing more and more (something she first took a stab at four years ago), and trying more complex tunes. The 31-year-old has also left her beloved East Coast island and is building a home base in Lakefield, Ont., with new husband fiddler Donnell Leahy of the acclaimed family group Leahy. MacMaster says despite all her previous accomplishments -- including two Juno Awards and a Grammy nomination in 2000 -- she feels at the top of her game with Blueprint, her first studio album in four years. "I just feel great," she said, lounging on a sofa in label BMG's game room. "I feel musically that I want, I want, I want. Give me more music, more ideas, more everything. I'm high on it." For Blueprint, the fiddler's sixth album, MacMaster explained her goal was to highlight strong musicianship and acoustic sound. "Oftentimes you have these great records with great players and you don't get a chance to know that because there's so many bells and whistles going off. I didn't want any of that," she said, her East Coast accent still strong. "As much as I love playing pop or rocky Celtic stuff I wanted to do this record without relying on everyone else to create that rocky vibe. I wanted to keep that rock vigour and that pulsing beat through the use of a mandolin, the banjo and all these instruments." To that end she hunted down the industry's most respected pickers and when it seemed she'd lose the chance to work with them because of distance, she packed a bag and headed to Nashville. Two quick weeks later, Blueprint was ready. Alongside Fleck and Bush, the album features dobro player Jerry Douglas, bassist Victor Wooten and singer John Cowan. "I feel the musicality of this record is harder than any of my other records," she said, adding she feels it's her best work to date. "It's a very artistic record. It's very worldly. It's very broad for me." MacMaster says she was thrilled to share Cape Breton's unique musical stylings with the veteran crop of artists. "Not many people in the world play that music. Not even many people in the world know about that music," she said, her eyes widening when she talks of her birthplace. "I think they saw it as an opportunity to play with a new style that they had never played with before." A further example of her new outlook on life is co-production credits with her husband on the track, My Love, Cape Breton and Me. Written by her cousin Bob Quinn, it was performed and recorded by his daughter Kate after the MacMaster-Leahy wedding last fall. She said she predicts future collaborations with Leahy. "I can easily see Donnell producing a record for me, no problem. He's just on my wavelength. It's a great thing. I love that element of our marriage," she said, the bliss of being a newlywed evident from her radiant smile. "We totally understand one another. It's just awesome." .........................................................................................................................................
November
6, 2003 Mindful of the fiddling tradition she represents, Natalie MacMaster gracefully adapts catchy phrases from the pop and jazz idioms to modernize her brand of Cape Breton music-making, a cross between Celtic and bluegrass. At its core, the music is already a hybrid, what with Irish, Scottish and Acadian influences a hearty part of "the tradition," and as she reminded her audience throughout a buoyantly energetic opening night of a 28-city tour, that tradition is being served with her music. MacMaster, a violin virtuoso since childhood who hails from the northeastern Canadian isle, has just released her seventh disc, "Blueprint" (Rounder), on which she ups the bluegrass content. Her concert, which featured a healthy dose of new numbers but also included clog dancing and a bagpipe solo, showcased the music's diversity with spirited linear runs and gentle waltzes. She came up with one of the most apropos album titles ever in 1998 with "My Roots Are Showing" and that's a considerable key to her charm; much as she's following a trail blazed by banjoist Bela Fleck with his Flecktones, MacMaster doesn't broach any truly uncharted waters. Fleck, on the other hand, will embrace improvised jazz and electronic commotion with his bluegrass-looking-outward act. MacMaster works like a bluegrass vet, knowing the direction and duration of every solo and duet exchange. She has a lively stage presence, dancing and skipping about the stage in what appear to be designer combat boots. MacMaster is tall and thin with blond ringlets cascading around her near-constant smile, which certainly helps her stand out in a field populated by not-so- attractive men. Physical attributes don't affect her playing, which is pinpoint sharp, but it may well open doors for her and this tradition-bound music that have previously remained shut. .........................................................................................................................................
October
14, 2003
One of the hottest tickets at this year's annual Cape Breton music festival, Teacher's Pets: A Tribute to Stan Chapman, brought out the big guns to salute the Antigonish-based instructor at the Judique Community Centre on Monday night. To call the lineup "all-star" would be something of an understatement, with Jackie Dunn, Stephanie Wills, Wendy MacIsaac, Kendra MacGillivray, Mairi Rankin and Natalie MacMaster all turning out for the class reunion, while pianist Troy MacGillivray and guitarist Dave MacIsaac added their own unique rhythm. A school desk piled high with textbooks and polished apples graced the stage as a bit of tongue-in-cheek decoration. "Stan Chapman, this is your life!" joked Dave MacIsaac, a longtime friend who's been trading tapes with the educator since the mid-'70s, when they met at a Gaelic gathering in Glendale. MacIsaac co-hosted with Dunn; perhaps ringleading is a more appropriate verb, considering the bit of clowning that opened the show, with the assembled ex-students tuning up torturously and mocking their earliest days with an assault of off-key sawing. MacIsaac poked fun at his co-host, whose married name is also MacIsaac, asking "Which MacIsaac did you Dunn?" while Dunn remarked that she was the oldest of Chapman's students there, but not the oldest musician, thanks to the presence of a certain grey-haired guitarist ... But the assembled multitude were in all seriousness when it came to sharing their experiences with Chapman and playing sets which demonstrated how he shaped their talents without constricting individual styles. You didn't have to be a fiddle expert to notice that no two musicians sounded the same, each bringing their own sense of heritage and identity to their playing. Dunn kicked things off with the help of guitarist MacIsaac and Wills on keyboards, with a set that included strathspeys by John Morris Rankin and her great uncle Dan Hughie MacEachern. Kendra MacGillivray popped out from backstage for a spirited bit of stepdancing, while Dunn tore through the tunes like a sports car hugging the twisty curves of the Cabot Trail. "Where was the fire at?" Dunn quizzed herself afterwards, practically pulling herself over for speeding, but no one seemed to mind the headlong rush. Creignish native Wills took her turn next, shy about speaking but visibly moved by Chapman's contribution to her life. "He brought music alive in my life, he's more than a teacher," she said. "Thank you for believing in me," she said to Chapman, beaming in the front row with his wife Gert. As for Wills's playing, her seasoned skills deliver a high sweet tone, but with a tough edge that mirrors life in a hillside village on Cape Breton's windswept western shore. "How about a round of applause for girl power?" roared Wendy MacIsaac, noting the bill's feminine bent. (Although to be fair, Chapman's students also included MacIsaac's cousin Ashley, Glenn Graham and Rodney MacDonald.) "Maybe we should have called the show 36C or something." "Then some of us would have to leave," laughed Dunn. Wendy MacIsaac recalled driving to lessons in Antigonish with Ashley in the back of uncle Angus's truck - "like the Clampetts" - before playing a mixed set that displayed her poetic approach to slow airs and sharp attack on strathspeys and reels. This time it was MacMaster's turn to dance, in a black cocktail dress with an artfully shredded hemline, no less. Lt. Governor Myra Freeman handled the door prize draw at intermission - or recess, as Chapman called it - noting that as an educator herself, there is no greater satisfaction than seeing your students become successful at what you've taught them. Case in point, Antigonish's Kendra MacGillivray, both a player and a teacher, whose buoyant sound has lit up rooms from Tokyo to Barbados. She remarked that Chapman encouraged her to discover the music of her own grandfather, noted fiddler Hugh A. MacDonald, while playing with a touch that's genteel, but lacking nothing in momentum. Mabou's Mairi Rankin played a mix of Scottish and Cape Breton tunes with a keen, yearning sound marked by sly sliding notes and a gentle vibrato. Achingly dirty on a slow air learned from Cameron Chisholm or down and dirty on a John Campbell Strathspey, Rankin showed how her time spent touring with Beolach has honed her crowd-pleasing style. The closing slot belonged to Troy fiddler MacMaster, arguably the brightest light among Chapman's angels, starting with a dramatic air that spoke of folk music traditions beyond Cape Breton island, then morphing into a strathspey that was pure Ceilidh Trail with no two passages alike. Building in speed and intensity over Dave MacIsaac's arpeggios, MacMaster's notes began flying even more freely off the neck of her violin, until she felt the need to stand up and make it a full-body experience. So lost in the music was she, she forgot to mention that one of the reels she'd played was one she'd written for Chapman. "Play it again!" came from the audience, so the jaunty tune got a second airing. Things really got emotional during a presentation to Chapman by the Cape Breton Fiddlers' Association in honour of his contribution to the music. "I told Buddy MacMaster that my head was going to swell up something awful with all this attention," said the unassuming teacher. "But Buddy told me, 'Don't worry, it'll be back to normal in the morning.' "I've learned as much or more from them as I've taught them," he said, indicating towards his former students. Later that night, back in St. Ann's, Wendy MacIsaac, Mairi Rankin and Natalie MacMaster closed down the Festival Club at the Gaelic College with a no-holds-barred set that saw the trio playfully bounce variations off each other while pianist Mac Morin. guitarist Fred Lavery and drummer Cheryl Smith held down the rhythm, grinning madly at the manic interplay. It's clear they worked very hard at their lessons, but they didn't forget how to play after school. .........................................................................................................................................
October
12, 2003 Sydney - AFTER SEVEN YEARS you'd think the Celtic Colours gala opening concert at Sydney's Centre 200 would get to be old hat, or rather old tam o'shanter, but the 2003 installment on Friday was a real topper with some of the best variety, sound and presentation of any of them. Certainly the 3,000 music lovers in attendance would be hard-pressed to disagree, if three separate standing ovations are anything to go by. According to the concert lineup, the Cape Breton festival's definition of Celtic includes island fiddling (natch), Scottish balladry, instrumental guitar, an Irish ensemble, Newfoundland shanties and Spanish bagpipes. Opening honours belonged to Lt. Governor Myra Freeman who praised visitors, musicians and sponsors for helping to make the festival possible before handing the mic over to the evening's hosts, CBC's Ian MacNeil, showing more leg in his kilt than co-host Laurel Munroe in her long, shimmering red number. Their enthusiastic "Ciad mille failte" was amplified by the massed violins of the Cape Breton Fiddlers' Association, celebrating 30 years of preserving the island's most famous tradition. As for the stage, ringed with trees and shrouded in smoke, it resembled Birnam Wood from Shakespeare's Macbeth, which suited Scottish singer and artist-in-residence Mairi MacInnes to a tee. A native of South Uist, MacInnes's textured lilt floated like wind through the barley on the a capella I Am a Gael, a song about maintaining your cultural identity no matter where you roam. Fellow artist-in-residence, guitarist Dave MacIsaac, joined MacInnes on stage, tearing off a set of tunes with the help of bagpiper Matt MacIsaac, pianist Troy MacGillivray and dancers Sabra MacGillivray and Kelly MacArthur whose lithe fling provided a graceful contrast to the bluesy inflections MacIsaac slipped into his six-string manipulation. Irish quintet Lunasa lit up the stage with breakneck playing and precision timing, as the uillean pipes, tin whistle and fiddle got their kick from syncopated guitar chords and the deep groove of a stand-up bass. While a typical set of Irish tunes called Good Morning Nightcap highlighted Lunasa's bright spirit, its versatility shone through on a set of Galician tunes from northwest Spain, full of sunlight and warmth as it found earthy joy in the strange-yet-familiar melodies. The second half kicked off with a bang thanks to Natalie MacMaster and her five-piece band. Having recently celebrated the first anniversary of her marriage to fellow fiddler Donnell Leahy and about to enjoy the launch of the new bluegrass-themed CD Blueprint on Nov. 5, the Troy musician had plenty to smile about as she struck a jaunty pose with her hips and drove 'er with effortless abandon. "I was just flipping through the book," said MacMaster of her first glance at the Celtic Colours program guide. "It looks just wicked!" Expressing her eagerness to reunite with members of her family - both musical and blood-related - MacMaster took pains in her set to highlight the skills of her bandmates, including piper MacIsaac who dueted in perfect unison, and former guitarist Chris Corrigan, filling in for Brad Davidge whose wife happened to be giving birth in Halifax. It's no surprise the Celtic fireball earned herself a standing ovation. The rich, lusty voices of Newfoundland's A Crowd of Bold Sharemen provided a respite for the changeover from MacMaster's setup to that of the final headliner, Carlos Nunez, and their tales of bold crews and mercenary pirates were a refreshing blast. Rich with the history of the island and the perils of working at sea, both ancient and modern, the vocal quintet's two songs served as a tasty appetizer for its appearances later in the week. Wishing the audience a hearty "Buenos noches!" Galician piper Carlos Nunez proceeded to blow away the Celtic Colours for the second time in two years, this time with a full band that included fiddle and bouzouki, along with brother Xurxo on drums. Taking his ensemble through a blur of changing time signatures, Nunez went through an arsenal of instruments including flute, whistle and bagpipes, his fingers dancing on the holes like Fred Astaire doing the beguine. Dedicating the tune Don't Trust a Man's Love to the late Chieftains harpist Derek Bell (whose passing occured during last year's festival), Nunez played a passionate fandango, while his tale of learning pieces from a 100-year-old Cuban piper was followed by a spicy rhumba that lived up to the story. Finally, there was a Galician hoedown during which the ebullient Spaniard turned his band into a high-stepping chorus line and a bagpipe finale with a blistering drive that was practically punk rock in its intensity. Nunez acted as pied piper for the grand finale, conducting a huge ensemble that was practically spilling off the stage, from the Technicolor-clad Fitzgerald Irish Dancers to square dance caller Burton MacIntyre, who even managed to get Lt. Gov Freeman up on her feet and whirling around. After hours at the Festival Club in St. Ann's, the Gaelic College's Hall of the Clans wasn't as densely packed as it will get later in the week, but it was only the first night and people are likely pacing themselves. The music was certainly of the highest standard, with fiddle guru Brenda Stubbert leading an ensemble that included fetching Newfoundland fiddler Lisa MacArthur, guitarist Doug Johnson and pianist Melissa Emmons, while born fiddler Andrea Beaton (daughter of Kinnon and Betty Lou) kept it going until after 3 a.m. with pianist Troy MacGillivray and drummer Sheryl Smith. All in all, a roaringly successful first day for Celtic Colours 2003 and a good omen as the shows spread out to widespread communities across Cape Breton. .........................................................................................................................................
September
13, 2003 Natalie MacMaster is very attractive, she has a pretty curl, and when her tour reaches Boston she sometimes plays a little folk club called Symphony Hall. That's about all I know, I'm afraid, except for what's on her records. But maybe a couple years ago, she released an album called My Roots Are Showing; and it's a real knockout. Nothing else by her, that I've heard since, has disappointed. MacMaster is one talented fiddler/band leader. The producer position, on the new release, was ably filled by Darol Anger; and the supporting musicians include Alison Brown, Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, and Bela Fleck, to name a few. With such a cast of characters, it seems a little jazz-roots fusion would be bound to creep into the music, probably by design. On Blueprint, the musicians do some marvelous genre blending. And since, collectively, they represent serious musical firepower, it should come as no surprise that, at times, the players set off a remarkable instrumental crossfire, featuring expert dobro shadings and virtuoso banjo picking among much else. The piano, too, when included, has an important supporting role, serving as the music's foundation. MacMaster comes out of the gate racing, with the quick-paced and aptly-named medley, "A Blast." From there, the fiddler shows herself to be best on the faster numbers, though throughout the album there are dynamics galore. The sophisticated "Gravel Shore," the centerpiece of this album, has a section with an interesting "What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor" beat. In many ways, the material on Blueprint reminds me of some of the livelier, more playful passages to be found in the classical repertoire (though there's nothing in the composer/source credits that hints at such a thing). One theme in "The Ewe with the Crooked Horn" -- hardly what I would normally think of as pastoral -- seems to suggest a feisty determination, maybe even a certain devilishness. "Minnie and Alex's Reel" starts with a rumbling bass, then the fiddle kicks into a brisk Cape Breton reel, and a fantastic fiddle and bass duet ensues. This cut has a spirited rhythm and an attractive melody with many little twists and turns to keep listeners on their toes. Blueprint is a wonderful album. Enthusiastically recommended. .........................................................................................................................................
September
12, 2003 When Scottish Canadian fiddler Natalie MacMaster got married last October, the first song played after the wedding was called "My Love, Cape Breton and Me." Written by her cousin Bob Quinn and sung by his 18-year-old daughter, Kate, it celebrates the island on the northeastern edge of Canada's Nova Scotia province that MacMaster lived in or near for the first 30 years of her life. That song turns up at the end of MacMaster's new CD, "Blueprint," released last Tuesday on Rounder Records. "I hear the sound of sweet melody," Kate Quinn sings. "Carry me home, carry me home." MacMaster will headline the 7th annual Celtic Fest Chicago in Grant Park Saturday evening. Her husband, Donnell Leahy, also will perform when his family's eponymous band opens the show at the Petrillo Music Shell at 4 p.m. Both "My Love" and "Blueprint" mark major changes in MacMaster's life. "Cape Breton is very important to me. I've been a Nova Scotia girl all my life," she explains. "After the wedding, I knew I was moving to Ontario." Moving beyond Cape Breton Musically, MacMaster already was moving beyond Cape Breton's boundaries as well. Although her musical roots lie in the island's 250-year-old tradition of fiddling, which she says is the oldest surviving form of Scottish music, MacMaster recorded "Blueprint" in Nashville, accompanied by a who's who of contemporary bluegrass musicians. Yet the music of Cape Breton remains the cornerstone of MacMaster's art, whether she's incorporating elements of contemporary pop and dance music, as she has in the past, or adding Bela Fleck's banjo playing, Jerry Douglas' dobro, and Sam Bush's mandolin to it on "Blueprint." "I just play Cape Breton fiddle music, that's all I do," she insists. "It's the world around me [that] affects the sound." Growing up in Cape Breton, MacMaster says she first began hearing music "in the womb." Her mother passed her love of music to her daughter and also taught her to step dance when she was 5. Her father came from a family of musicians and dancers that included Natalie's uncle, Buddy MacMaster, a famed Cape Breton fiddler. "I've got a bloodline," she says. "Genetics and environment gave me this passion for traditional music, particularly the fiddle." She started taking fiddle lessons when she was 10, learning traditional tunes by ear, most of them off her mother's hundreds of cassette and reel-to-reel tape recordings of fiddlers entertaining at Cape Breton house parties. For all this immersion in traditional fiddle music, MacMaster also was exposed to the same pop acts as most teens in the U.S. who came of age in the 1980s. "Our house was surrounded by fiddle music and surrounded by Michael Jackson," she recalls. "I have two brothers, and I was influenced a lot by what they listened to. AC/DC and Def Leppard were common in my house, and I still love AC/DC and Def Leppard." These influences are evident in the shimmering keyboards and the funk bass-and-drums rhythm section that are included in much of the music on the first disk of "Natalie MacMaster Live!," which was recorded with her band during a concert in an Ontario concert hall in the summer of 2001. It's also on the second CD of a two-disk set, recorded at a Cape Breton square dance in 1997 with only piano and acoustic guitar for accompaniment, in which MacMaster fully, gloriously displays the propulsive energy, intense attack, escalating dynamics and melodic lyricism of the island's fiddle style. "She's a great, great player, and I'll tell you what, she's one heck of a performer," says renowned Chicago-area Irish fiddler Liz Carroll, who has played with MacMaster at music festivals. "I've met a lot of great players who, like me, put their head down and play. Natalie lifts her head up and looks at the audience and puts on a show. I think a lot of fiddle players would give their eye teeth to have that ability. "It seems to be a trend with these Cape Breton players that they all are fireballs," Carroll says. "She certainly has made a splash, blond hair flying, looks great, loves the music, and I think she saw that it could be popular to anybody anywhere and went for it." Taking a new direction While showmanship and pop music embellishments have become a larger part of MacMaster's performances, she steered her music in a different direction on "Blueprint," inspired by listening to Alison Krauss' "Forget About It" CD and admiring the pure, simple sound of the record's acoustic arrangements. "It wasn't dressed with all sorts of stuff, just really clean, clean sound," MacMaster says. "I wanted to have a more intimate environment, amazing musicians, really clean sound, simplified acoustic instruments." To realize this goal, she recruited fellow fiddler Darol Anger, a leading figure in the style known as new acoustic music, who in turn suggested she come to music city and work with what he calls "the Nashville mafia." In the end it was MacMaster who prodded the formidable accompanists Anger assembled to new heights. "To hear Natalie crash into there is like watching a nuclear reaction," Anger says. "She's a very strong personality. Natalie puts out so much energy, and got everybody a little bit more inspired than they usually get." That energy is evident as MacMaster's and bassist Edgar Meyer's fierce bowing parry with each other like a pair of swashbucklers on "Appropriate Dipstick," as she takes flight on Anger's swinging, jazz-flavored composition "Gravel Shore," and as her fiddle dances alongside Fleck's rolling banjo on "Bela's Tune." "I'm not intentionally trying to bring Cape Breton to the world," MacMaster says. "I'm just playing what I love to play, and I'm following my path, and everything is unfolding. I'm traveling, I'm playing for audiences, and they're coming to hear Cape Breton music, they're visiting Cape Breton island." .........................................................................................................................................
It makes sense that Natalie MacMaster has three-fourths of the classic New Grass Revival lineup on her new album, "Blueprint," as the 30-year-old fiddler is trying to update Cape Breton music in much the same way the new-grass movement modernized bluegrass. She isn't trying to graft her family's traditional music from the northeast corner of Nova Scotia onto synth rock. No, she has returned to an acoustic string-band setting and has found that she can update the music by pursuing freer improvisation and trickier chord changes than are usually heard in Cape Breton dance halls. When she traveled to Nashville to co-produce "Blueprint" with new-grass legend Darol Anger, she brought along her favorite Cape Breton musicians so they could interact with such American stars as Jerry Douglas, Mike Marshall, Edgar Meyer, Victor Wooten, Bryan Sutton, Alison Brown and the New Grass Revival alumni -- Bela Fleck, Sam Bush and John Cowan. The music is rooted in the Scotch and Irish folk music that was transplanted to both Cape Breton and Appalachia, but it gains a contemporary edge from the vigorous give-and-take between the musicians, who challenge each other to come up with ever-fresher variations on the themes. The star of the session is MacMaster's fiddle. Even on the briskest tunes, there's an effortless flow to her playing as she slides into strange tangents and adds unexpected grace notes as if they were the most natural thing in the world. Eleven of the 13 tracks are instrumentals, several of them composed by MacMaster, Anger or Fleck. "Touch of the Master's Hand" is an auction fable turned into song and sung by Cowan. "My Love, Cape Breton and Me" was composed by Nova Scotia pianist Bob Quinn and sung by his daughter, Kate, at MacMaster's wedding last year; they reprise the performance here. .........................................................................................................................................
June
5, 2003 Four years ago, Natalie MacMaster introduced local people to the notion of a folk festival. Many people suspected those events have ancient banjo players; often, that's correct. What they didn't expect was someone like MacMaster, who will be back in town Friday. She headlined the 1999 National Folk Festival in East Lansing. She was 26 at the time, with long, blonde curls wrapping around a sunny face. She wore jeans and offered full-throttle fiddling and dancing. "I love festivals," MacMaster said by phone. "They're so friendly. You don't have to behave in a certain way." Now her return visit - 8 p.m. Friday, at the Wharton Center - has two purposes: It's a fund-raiser for the second Great Lakes Folk Festival; it's also a summer startup, a hint of the big festivals ahead. These days, MacMaster is a lot like she was in 1999, with one key difference: She's 30 now, has been married for a few months and lives along a dirt road in rural Ontario. "I love being a wife," MacMaster said. "Now I'm in a house for the first time. "You need to have some commonality in your life; you need to have friends. I love being home. I actually am not a bad cook." Still, don't worry about her turning into an old-timer soon. Besides, Friday's opening act Feufollet (pronounced fuh-FOE-lay) will bring the age way down; its oldest person is 19. "We kind of mix modern and traditional," said Chris Stafford, the Feufollet accordionist. "There are not a lot of Cajun bands that have a female singer." He's 15 and lives in Lafayette, La.; he's been wailing on an accordion since he was 8. "I used to watch Steve Riley (a former accordion prodigy) a lot," Chris said. "My uncle was trying to learn the accordion and I asked if I could try. ... It just came to me." MacMaster knows that prodigy feeling. She was 9 when she took up the family tradition of Scottish-style fiddling. "There was nothing else," she said. "It wasn't a decision. There was only one style (of music), only one instrument." She grew up in the Scottish section of Nova Scotia's Cape Breton. Her uncle, Buddy MacMaster, already was a fiddling great. "My mom was a dancer," MacMaster said. "My dad probably has one of the best ears for music." By 12, she was playing festivals. Soon, she was expanding to perform with Carlos Santana, Paul Simon, Alison Krauss, even Luciano Pavarotti. "I always like to perform with someone who is from a different style," MacMaster said. "I enjoy the variety. They have no pre-conceived ideas. It's all fresh." She also speaks highly of a non-fiddler, ABC news anchor Peter Jennings, who's a fellow Canadian. "He actually invited us on his New Year's Eve show," MacMaster said. "I got home and there's Peter Jennings on my answering machine. ... He's just a very nice guy. He's not intimidating, although he does speak very well." MacMaster has never been limited to Scottish styles. One example is her friendship with fiddler Eileen Ivers. Their backgrounds are different - MacMaster is rural and Scottish, Ivers is from New York City and Irish - but they exchanged riffs in East Lansing and remain friends. "We've gotten together a lot," MacMaster said. "People wonder what we talk about. We don't (talk); musicians just play music." She gets along fine with another Irish fiddler. That's her husband, Donnell Leahy. Donnell is the leader of Leahy, a collection of nine siblings. That group once toured with Shania Twain, opening for her at the Breslin Center; its music - high-energy Irish - is a lot like hers. "Donnell is fifth-generation (Irish-Canadian)," MacMaster said. "I'm probably 10th-generation (Scottish-Canadian). Mostly, we're just very Canadian." .........................................................................................................................................
May
3, 2003 Natalie MacMaster came to town this week. She took in the lake and the weather, had some ice cream and went shopping. Then she stopped by the Flynn Center to play some fiddle in her Vermont kitchen. "I love that place," she said before the show. "I do 150 shows or more a year -- and some places you go and you just remember. ... The crowd was so receptive. I felt so loved." Tuesday was MacMaster's fourth visit to the Flynn in five years. On stage, after the opening number, MacMaster wandered to the mike to say hello to her friends in the audience of 1,100. Casual, familiar. "Is the Sock Lady here?" she asked. She was, announcing to all she had another gift of knitted woolies with nice cows on them. Then there was a Gaelic hello to two old friends. And a casual cast in the pond: "Are there any folks from Cape Breton here?" Two loud hoots. "Holy smokes," she said. "And proud of it." She talked about her recent wedding, "I got him," she said with glee, fist up. "All the time he thought he was chasing me." With that MacMaster got down to business. Strathspeys, reels and jigs; traditional, thumping medleys, a country twang tune, a surprise cool jazz tune. Pipes -- was that really the "Canadian key of eh?" -- and, of course, dancing. Three Burlington area kids came on stage for some traditional step dancing. And then, finally, the trademark, the solo few would dare do, double-, triple-time bowing, total control. Shock and awe on the fiddle. For those who weren't there, sorry .... For those who were, aren't you lucky? The culture I went with a Vermont fiddler, Pete Sutherland, to pick his brain, to hear what he heard. Born and raised in Vermont, Sutherland also plays the banjo, guitar and piano. He had his own sellout a week ago at the Vergennes Opera House. Sutherland and MacMaster have crossed paths several times through the years, beginning in 1989 when they played in Washington, D.C. She was kind of a "fiddling Barbie," a mass of blond hair aflutter as she did her steps and played. "She had chops even back then," Sutherland said. "Her guitarist, David MacIsaac, kept teasing her a bit, calling her 'girl wonder' and 'our fiddling genius.' "There are a lot of fiddlers like her up in Cape Breton, and she'd be the first to say it. They say it's something in the water. But it's the culture. There's a lot of music around. ... They play for dancing. They play in the homes, the kitchens. The kids have big ears and pick it up." MacMaster did. Her uncle, Buddy, once a boy wonder and fiddling genius in his own right, got her started when she was 9. Her mother had a vast collection of recordings she'd listen to over and over and over again until she learned -- the tune, the bowing, the style. All by ear. Big ears. At 16, Sutherland said, MacMaster was about 90 percent at the plateau the good ones reach in traditional fiddling. After that level, he said, there simply isn't much more you can do. "You and I would have trouble discerning how she's improved on her traditional playing since then," he said. MacMaster puts it a slightly different way: "You learn in increments. ...The increments have gotten smaller." MacMaster, now 30, has come a ways. Her start was traditional -- the Scottish-born Cape Breton style, the rhythmic, driving, accelerating instrumentals -- with a piano player and guitarist. Her athletic playing -- and dancing -- set her apart, made people notice. Over time, she "crossed the line," as Sutherland put it, not intending to make that sound like a bad thing. "I play on both sides of the line," he added. The line? Bringing in a drummer (currently Miche Pouliot). "Drums give a sense of authority, kind of rock and roll energy, 'We're here and we're not folkies any more.'" She's also added a bass player (John Chiasson). And, more recently, Matt MacIsaac on whistle, bagpipes and banjo. MacMaster's show attested to the change. Strong bass lines. Throaty drumming. Tight, strong pace. The show displayed something else: Influences from other music genres often voiced by the leads of her guitarist, Brad Davidge. It was clear MacMaster might be on the verge of a cross-over. To what? "Country, most likely," said Sutherland. Maybe bluegrass, pop. Wider music. Wider audience.
Beauty
in mistakes She learned by playing in kitchens, in the dance halls, in people's parlors. She learned the old tunes, the ones from Scotland. She learned how Cape Breton fiddlers had changed those songs over time -- in fact, Cape Breton took those songs back to their more traditional roots, stronger beats, more energy. At the same time, she was a kid with a radio; she was listening to Duran Duran, Prince and Michael Jackson. Those musicians' marks emerge in her show -- the choreography -- not only with dance but even in the guitar flourishes, the cymbals at her more dramatic movements; she even did a moon walk, something she developed in fourth grade. "Some of her show, you could almost see it as a rock show, something to an audience of 20,000," Sutherland said. MacMaster says she practices an hour a day. She says that with a little guilt, conceding it's enough to stay even, to keep at the same level. We should all be so lucky. She quickly adds, though, that she puts more time in when she's recording or preparing new music. Her CDs reflect that, from her traditional "My Roots are Showing" (2000) to the more eclectic "In My Hands" (1999) with Alison Krause on several cuts and her own lyrics on another to her recent "Live" (2002) with one CD from concerts and the other from square dances. Now she has cut a recording with Darol Anger, a fine fiddler and producer in Nashville, Tenn. He paired her up with Sam Bush (mandolin), Alison Brown and Bela Fleck (banjo) and Jerry Douglas (dobro) and Edgar Meyer (bass). Her own band is featured as well. MacMaster said Anger taught her the value of imperfection, of accepting the mistakes -- the missed bowing, a "wrong" note, an unintended inflection -- as something that comes from within. "I am maturing in my sound, broadening. ... At the same time, my ears are becoming more finely tuned and my leniency towards mistakes is getting better. "Darol finds beauty in a mistake, he says it's about what you are feeling at the time ... so even if it doesn't come out perfect, it comes out beautiful."
Living
for music "In the studio, you are creating and hearing things come back at you. You have this great studio sound ... good headphones and good acoustic room and you hear it back and it's inspiring and you can't hear that on stage. ... You have the control. And you can do it again until you have it right." On stage, though, that's where the life comes, the energy. She's gregarious. She feeds off other people's energy, attention. She puts on a show, that's why she dances, she says. She loves to wow 'em; she loves to get to the point where she's "drivin' 'er." Sutherland calls her "a pure spirit," a performer with "a sense of fun." Yet she also comes across as shy, down-to-earth, girl-next-door. "That's real. That's how she is." That's where the culture comes in. She grew up in Troy, a town of 500. As she puts it, "when I'm not there, you can tell." "She is very tied to the family, to the neighbor thing," Sutherland said. "That's the way it is up there. We don't really have that here. In this town, the closest we had was the French Canadians in the South End, but they've mostly gone now. The music was what tied them together. It was the glue, the social grease." Tuesday's finest moments came when the drums receded, when the texture, the personality of her playing was clearest. There were also some wonderful little spaces, moments when the tightness, the precision, the skill came through. Sutherland had fun watching the rest of the band, whom he described as remarkable musicians. The guitarist was "incredibly versatile ... strong." The bassist's voice and jazz song was a startling change from the previous number, "a palate cleaner," as Sutherland put it. In the second set, toward the end, MacMaster played a medley with Allan Dewar on electric piano. As the song gained energy, shifted, Dewar stood up and walked off stage, but somehow, in that moment, the piano seemed to still play, the notes still coming, perfectly, and then you realized the sound was coming from MacMaster's violin. She moved center stage, out to the edge, closer to the audience, building to a startlingly acrobatic solo. A bit of Cape Breton drive and Scottish one-upmanship, a hybrid, a show stopper, a Natalie MacMaster. The audience sat still -- not able to keep up with their own meager foot tapping -- and watched, listened, took it in. Big ears. "Very few people could pull that off," said Sutherland, "the bow control at that speed." A prayer for the gift Earlier, MacMaster had tried to explain what it's like on stage. "I need to play for people. ... I just have to play live. ... Sitting in my kitchen is OK for a month or so -- a lot happens in the kitchen -- but I've got to go, get out, play for people. I love the thought of a great show. I really want to share the music. "An hour before I go on stage, I like to get ready, practice, warm up, do some exercises, get supple. I say a short prayer. ... "I thank God for the music." .........................................................................................................................................
May 2, 2003 I don't know about the rest of the more than 2,000 people who filled the National Arts Centre's Southam Hall to capacity last night, but for a few minutes there I was worried that Natalie MacMaster's fiddle might burst into flames. In a solo near the end of her first performance of a three-night run with the NAC Orchestra, the star fiddler from Cape Breton offered up a frenzied solo performance of some traditional tunes, somehow managing to dance around the stage in her high heels and clingy bell-bottom jeans while she played. When it was over and the normally staid NACO pops audience erupted with whoops and whistles, MacMaster barely seemed out of breath. She's been doing this for a while now, and the years of musical aerobics have obviously paid off. MacMaster's concert is part of the orchestra's regular pops series, but it was also part of the NAC's two-week Atlantic Scene Festival, which wraps up Sunday and has offered an impressive variety of established and emerging artists from across the Atlantic region. MacMaster joined the orchestra and guest conductor David Warrack for the second half of the program, and Cape Breton miners' choir Men of the Deeps played the first half. Both scored big hits with the crowd. But MacMaster was a charmer, and it was nice to see that she's still folksy and down-home in her comments from the stage. Her success hasn't made her plastic or showbizzy in the manner of Celine Dion. Tuning her fiddle briefly, she offered a variation on an old joke: "That's close enough for Celtic," she said. In one highlight, she was joined by two Ottawa children, Hannah Davis and Dakota-Arthur Beirness, who arrived on stage in their plaids and danced up a storm. In another, she and violinist Martin Riseley joined for a delightful duet MacMaster called Bach meets Cape Breton. In the first half, John C. O'Donnell led the Men of the Deeps in a pleasant selection of tunes dealing with the life of miners. One of the choir members even told a few jokes, displaying ace timing. "I had to explain that joke in Toronto," he said, pausing before adding, "along with how to play hockey. "The Men of the Deeps will also present a concert of their own on Saturday afternoon at St. Andrew's Church. .........................................................................................................................................
May/June, 2003
Now 30, MacMaster has been bringing the Cape Breton style of Celtic fiddle music to a steadily growing audience since she was in her late teens. It has remained the cornerstone of her art, even as she's incorporated elements of contemporary pop and dance music over the course of seven CDs. Now MacMaster ventures into the realm of contemporary North American string-band music on her much-anticipated upcoming collaboration with Anger, due for release in September on Rounder Records. In the Blood Growing up in Cape Breton, MacMaster says she first began hearing music "in the womb." Her mother passed her love of music, which she played at home constantly, to Natalie and also taught her to step dance at age five. Her father came from a family of musicians and dancers that included Natalie's uncle, famed Cape Breton fiddler Buddy MacMaster. "I've got a blood line," she says. "Genetics and environment gave me this passion for traditional music, particularly the fiddle. I can remember as a kid not wanting to go to sleep until I heard music." MacMaster started taking fiddle lessons when she was ten, learning traditional tunes by ear, most of them off her mother's hundreds of cassette and reel-to-reel tape recordings of fiddlers, including her uncle, entertaining at Cape Breton house parties. "There's the bulk of what I learned, and it's by ear," she says. "Stop and rewind. There's no mechanism to slow it down, just repeat, repeat, repeat." MacMaster can't even count the number of fiddle tunes she's learned in this way. "Would I be at a thousand," she wonders. "I don't know. I'll tell you this, I've forgotten more than I remember." Many of the jigs, reels, and strathspeys she performs also are so old she doesn't even know their names. Yet for all this immersion in traditional fiddle music, MacMaster also was exposed to the same pop acts as most teens who came of age in the 1980s. "I grew up listening to all the popular bands, Duran Duran and Michael Jackson. I was a huge fan of Prince when I was young, when that Purple Rain record came out," says MacMaster, who understandably scoffs at the perception of Cape Breton as an isolated, self-enclosed environment. These pop influences show themselves in the shimmering keyboards and funk rhythm section that are incorporated into much of the music on the first disc of last year's album Natalie MacMaster Live! (Rounder), which was recorded in 2001 at the Arts Centre in Mississauga, Ontario. It's on the second CD of the two-disc set, recorded at a Cape Breton square dance in 1997 with only piano and acoustic guitar for accompaniment, that MacMaster fully, gloriously displays the propulsive energy, intense attack, escalating dynamics, and melodic lyricism of the island's fiddle style. "It's fun, but after the second hour of it, it becomes tiring," MacMaster admits. "It's three or four hours. It's challenging. You have to have a lot of tunes, you have to have a huge repertoire." 'A Lilt in There' At first, when asked what makes the Cape Breton style distinctive, MacMaster answers simply, "It's just good music." Then, warming to the question, she elaborates: "Cape Breton music is Scottish [in origin], but it's very different from music in Scotland. I'm told the music in Scotland had strong classical-music influences at some point in the last couple hundred years, and as a result you have the existing style of Scotland music. Cape Breton doesn't have that, so you have a more traditional style of Scottish music [there]." She points to the music's rhythm in particular as its distinguishing feature. "I guess it's a bit more even, there's a lilt in there." MacMaster notes that traditional Irish fiddle music takes the same tunes at a faster tempo that requires more slurred notes in a single bow and lots of rolls. By comparison, "Cape Breton has what you call the cut," she says, "a triplet in the bow that's very typical. . . [and] I hardly play a roll at all." "It's as if the gang in Cape Breton didn't have as much contact with Irish music, because it's not as smoothed over," concurs Chicago-area Irish fiddler Liz Carroll, who played with MacMaster in the String Sisters, an all-female fiddle supergroup that performed at the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow in 2000 and 2001. "The Scottish players play smoother. They attack more 'dah-dah' versus 'BUH-DA.' It's almost as if there's a bounce in the bow." Darol Anger echoes Carroll's sentiments. "She's a melodist, but she's also a drummer," he says of MacMaster's fiddle playing style. "She pounds her foot pretty hard when she plays. She's got that kind of magical thing where the fiddle appears to be simultaneously driving the beat and pulling it back." Given Cape Breton fiddle music's strong rhythmic emphasis and its role at the center of communal dances, it's no wonder that dancing is a regular part of MacMaster's concerts, as she bursts into a flurry of dance steps while sawing away at her instrument. "Most people at home dance-can do a step-it's very common," MacMaster explains. "I do it in my show because I like to think it's fun to watch, it provides the show element of the performance. I do some steps outside of the traditional steps, little booty steps," and the Michael Jackson-inspired moonwalk, which she learned in fourth grade. "She's a great, great player, and I'll tell you what, she's one heck of aperformer," Carroll says admiringly. "I've met a lot of great players who, like me, put their head down and play. Natalie lifts her head up and looks at the audience and puts on a show. I think a lot of fiddle players would give their eyeteeth to have that ability. "It seems to be a trend with these Cape Breton players that they all are fireballs,"" Carroll continues. "She certainly has made a splash-blonde hair flying, looks great, loves the music-and I think she saw that it could be popular to anybody anywhere and went for it." Something New While showmanship and pop-music embellishments have become a larger part of MacMaster's performances, she steered her music in a different direction on her new recording, inspired by listening to Alison Krauss' Forget About It CD and admiring the pure, simple sound of the record's acoustic arrangements. "A lot of times when I go into the studio, I think big," she explains. "Big sound, big production, lots of players, and more drums. I think drums. But my style of music doesn't need a rhythm section to get out the rhythm. So I just wanted to focus more on embellishing those qualities of the music a little more naturally."
In pursuing this aim, she recruited Darol
Anger, whom she's known for nearly a decade through Mark O'Connor's
fiddle camp and melting pot. Anger in turn brought MacMaster to Music
City to work with what he calls "the Nashville mafia," among
them banjo players Alison Brown and Bela Fleck, mandolinist Sam Bush,
dobro player Jerry Douglas, bassist Edgar Meyer, and many other session
aces, plus Cape Breton musicians and members of "She wanted to make a Nashville record with the people who are at the front of creating a North American string band style," Anger points out. "It was really the time for her to do that. It was time to put her with world class string musicians, put her in a larger context." While the formidable accompanists he'd assembled have decades of combined experience playing together, Anger reports that newcomer MacMaster held her own with them. "To hear Natalie crash into there is like watching a nuclear reaction," he says. "She's a very strong personality. Natalie put out so much energy, and got everybody a little bit more inspired than they usually get." Anger wrote several new tunes for MacMaster's CD, as well as arranging her own compositions and traditional material in ways that stretched their usual melodic and harmonic boundaries. "He writes from a totally different perspective than I do," MacMaster observes. "He's got a bit of a jazz perspective. I was playing notes and movements that I'd never done before, and it challenged me. After you've been playing tunes for years, you don't have to practice them, but this gave me something to sink my teeth into."
Yet from all reports, MacMaster's
personality remains evident amid the unfamiliar arrangements and new
accompanists. "What I love about it is there's no denying me,"
MacMaster says. "Yes, I'm playing with different musicians and
they're playing different styles that I've never played before, but it
works so well, it embellishes and flatters Cape Breton "She's really capable of playing anything," marvels Anger. "The very best fiddle players have their own personal energy and self-expression. If you talk about the Cape Breton style, she does it as well as anybody and stays true to the style, but you don't notice it. You notice this foundation of energy, this very individuated personality that is expressing music. "The depth is already there," he continues. "She can get wider. She's got a lot of integrity. I think however she goes, she's going to take on musically what she feels at the time. That's going to grow in a very organic way. I think she's doing herself a favor by stepping out into the larger world of musicians." Liz Carroll concurs. "She's continuing to grow, you don't know where she's going to end up," she says. "I'm sure she's going to take a whack at a lot of different types of music." Meanwhile, MacMaster is introducing audiences to the distinctive sounds of her home. "I'm not intentionally trying to bring Cape Breton to the world," she muses. "I'm just playing what I love to play, and I'm following my path, and everything is unfolding. The result of that is I'm traveling, I'm playing for audiences, and they're coming to hear Cape Breton music, they're visiting Cape Breton Island." What Natalie MacMaster Plays Natalie MacMaster plays a 1927 Marc Lebert fiddle. "It was given to me by a very generous man," Ontario accordionist Bill Burnett, who was willed the instrument by his late friend, the fiddler Bill Crawford. "For my wedding, he gave me another one; that one's in the shop now. It could be a great fiddle, we don't know yet." MacMaster uses Pirastro strings, a Hill bow, Hill rosin, a Shure wireless unit, and an L.R. Baggs pickup. .........................................................................................................................................
March
7, 2003 A hand shot up out of the audience and waved emphatically, attempting to catch the celebrity’s attention. The spotlit fiddler peered out into the darkness and candidly asked, “Do I know you? Am I related to you?” The whole room burst into laughter and I felt like I was right there with Natalie MacMaster in her kitchen enjoying a homespun “ceilidh,” (kay-lee) Celtic dance. This “kitchen” had a world-famous celebrity, a top-notch symphony orchestra and over 450 paying guests, but that’s beside the point. It was still Natalie’s kitchen. She went on to tune her violin patiently, though hundreds of eyes watched anxiously. Perhaps she sensed the urgency when she joked that her tuning was, “Close enough for Celtic,” and the room chuckled again. Then this sweet, down-to-earth gal from Cape Breton Island picked up her fiddle and the “kitchen” went up in flames! There wasn’t a foot within earshot that could resist tapping to her phenomenal playing and dancing. Earshot, but not eyeshot. Unfortunately, most of the audience could only see the virtuoso from the waist-up due to the level seating arrangement of our community center. Natalie’s legendary clicks and clacks of tap shoes on the hollow stage stirred me to leave my seat and watch the entire concert from the side aisle. Soon after standing, I ran back to fetch my young violin students, who were too short to catch the fancy footwork from their seats. In true Celtic tradition, our quiet observation from the sidelines grew into louder foot stomping, which rapidly escalated into energetic circle dancing and jigs. Natalie’s own dancing featured high kicks, quick spins and rhythmic tap dancing. As the show progressed, her traditional Scottish step dancing morphed into groovy modern hip-hop and disco moves, including the notorious and difficult “Moonwalk!” Much to my surprise and delight, the music also went through a breathtaking metamorphosis. The concert started with traditional Celtic melodies played by the silky string sections of the symphony. Next was a Cape Breton fiddle tune in what Natalie called the “Canadian key” of “A.” After such traditional pieces, we learned that she was more multifaceted than imaginable. From a Latin mix to the gorgeous jazz ballad, “Autumn Leaves,” we were all captivated by her versatility. Concertmaster, Denis Letourneau, was as mesmerized as the audience was! The classical virtuoso beamed from ear to ear and repeatedly shook his head in awe and admiration of Natalie’s fiddling fireworks. Then he contributed to the pyrotechnics when he joined Natalie for a musical goulash where “fiddling met violining.” Their duet blended the popular fiddle tune “Devil’s Dream” with the intricate Bach Violin Partida in E! “Denis, we have an expression back in Cape Breton,” said Natalie afterwards, “When we really dig in, we say we were ‘driving ‘er.’ Now you can go home and say last night you were really ‘driving ‘er!” Denis blushed. Natalie smiled. We all felt two worlds converge and it felt wonderful. As our cultures blend, I think we’ll be seeing a lot more “Traditional fusion” in music. Diverse forms of music, polar as they may seem now, will soon merge and create new genres that people of all ages and walks of life can appreciate. Put a symphony orchestra, a fiddler, a funk band and a bagpiper playing on stage at the same time and everyone from Grandma to the teenager with the spiked hair will approve. There will be growing pains, naturally. As in Natalie’s concert, there will be an obvious polarity in the audience in deciding proper concert protocol. Some people won’t know whether get up and dance in the aisles, or to be content in sitting in quiet appreciation. Like any pioneers, we’ll find a middle ground that works for everyone. Heck, a friend of mine once created “seated dancing” in such an awkward situation. Natalie’s charm and talent, coupled with her obvious love of music, were enough to inspire this violinist to explore new avenues of expression and technique. My students talked about the concert for weeks and have found a role model who will guide them into wonderful new directions. Thank you, Natalie. You are one amazing Canadian pioneer and we love you for it! .........................................................................................................................................
February
20, 2003 VANCOUVER - Natalie MacMaster, the Celtic step-dancing and fiddling genius from Cape Breton, and 2003 Grammy-Nominated Recording Artist will perform with the Vancouver Symphony on February 14 and 15 at the Orpheum Theatre and on February 17 at the Bell Centre for the Performing Arts in Surrey. The thing about Natalie MacMaster is not only is she a world-class fiddle player, dancer and internationally renowned concert performer, but she is so down-to-earth in her approach to her success that it’s like speaking to the girl next door. The last time Natalie spoke with The Celtic Connection was July 1999, when she was in town to promote her CD, In MY Hands. Since then she has toured extensively overseas and fulfilled a childhood dream when she played before 100,000 people at Canada Day celebrations on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Another highlight was playing at the Juno Awards and playing with Pavarotti was a huge thrill. MacMaster has won two Junos, 11 ECMA’s and last year received the “Entertainer of the Year” award and she was single. Last year, on October 5, Natalie married Donnell Leahy, a fiddler with the internationally acclaimed group Leahy, in Creignish, Nova Scotia. It was a fairy-tale wedding when two Celtic musical dynasties were joined in holy matrimony. They were surrounded by talented musicians from both sides of the family, friends and many other local musicians, including the famous U.S. fiddler Mark O’Connor. It looks like Donnell Leahy wants to ensure continuity and talent in his family since like his father, he chose his bride from Cape Breton. The 11 Leahy siblings grew up on a farm in Lakefield, Ontario, settled by Irish ancestors in 1825. The father taught the family to play fiddle, while his Cape Breton mother Julie, passed on her singing and step dancing skills. The family band exploded onto the Celtic music scene in 1997 with their hit song The Call To Dance, going on to win Junos, crack world music charts and tour with Shania Twain. Natalie MacMaster spoke about how marriage would impact her future career plans and husband Donnell. And also to answer the question that many of her fans want to know...will MacMaster and the Leahy family combine musical forces? “Well, I would imagine somewhere in our lives we will play together, we’re both focussed on our careers right now”, Natalie said. “We have all invested so much of our lives into our music and we will continue to do that. In fact, last year we felt like we wanted to work more. We’re young, healthy, and excited by the music and touring and we want that to continue. “Donnell and I play very different fiddle styles and so when we do get up on the stage together we want to do it right. Actually, we have started working on writing some material that we can feel good about for the day when we do take the stage together. We’re both in love with the creative side of music so Lord knows what’ll happen”. When asked about arranging their busy schedules, so she and Donnell have time together, Natalie replied, “I think it’s not really about the time, it’s about the person...you find the right person, you find the time.” MacMaster is still touring with concerts in February and March and she goes to China in April. The summer schedule is usually festivals that take place on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sundays, which she likes because she gets to spend a couple of days at home, either in Lakefield or Cape Breton. Fans can look forward to the release of Natalie MacMaster’s new CD and DVD in the fall, which was recorded in Nashville. Natalie said, “this CD has quite a different vibe for me, I guess all my records do tend to have a different theme, except my traditional tunes, or traditional CD’s. This recording is not yet titled but has some big cat players on it like Bela Fleck, Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas, along with a lot of other great musicians”. The tours now are mostly in the U.S. along the eastern seaboard but MacMaster has future plans to again resume her overseas touring. “I want to try and maximize my time at home now, it’s a matter of trying to find a balance between all that. When Donnell and I got married, we sort of set a rule that we would try not to be apart any longer than a week. So what’s ended up happening is he will join me on some of my tour and I will join him on some of his tour”. When asked if there were any plans for a wee MacMaster-Leahy fiddling genius in the future, Natalie laughed and said, “Well, we’ll see what happens”. ...and so will the whole world. .........................................................................................................................................
February
18, 2003
The reaction of the 500 packed into the auditorium for the symphony’s special fund-raiser told the story. It wasn’t long before heads were bobbing and toes tapping. In the opening piece, conductor Dennis Colpitts led the 27-member orchestra with “Overture...The Rock” by Maritime composer Scott Macmillan. MacMaster entered playing a traditional tune, the iodine wail of her bowing filling the auditorium. The OSO quietly joined in as the tempo increased. MacMaster strutted around stage and by the end of the number had raised the gathering to a frenzied pitch. Under blue and pink lights, the tall and slender Juno-award winner was dressed for a party: black sleeveless top, sequined acid-washed pants and red leather dancing boots. There was an easy rapport with the audience. She asked if anyone was from Cape Breton. Hands went up and people named their home towns. To one person she replied, “Do I know you? We’re probably related.” She described her music as “a blend of Cape Breton, Scottish and all sorts of things.” And the evening, a weave of “yours, mine and ours,” covered the map musically. “If Ever You Were Mine,” a haunting Scottish love song, featured a swirling melody that was introduced by MacMaster then picked up by symphony in a gentle and moving collaboration. Matt MacIsaac, the newest member of her five- piece band, showcased his bagpipe skills at several points in the evening, earning him spontaneous applause. She played the light and graceful “Blue Bonnets,” featuring an introduction by the symphony horn section and dramatic echoing by the timpani. Eric Clapton’s “Lay Down Sally” leant a rock flavour to the evening. For the last chorus, both audience and orchestra members were invited to stand and sing a cappella. The symphony began the second half with “Cape Breton Sunrise,” another Macmillan arrangement. Bach met back porch when MacMaster invited Concert Master Denis Letourneau to join her in a duet. The complicated arrangement wove together Bach’s Preludio in E Major with fiddle standard Devil’s Dream. “Back home,” she said in response to Letourneau’s talents, “we have a term for really getting into the fiddle. It’s called ‘driving her.’” The performers broke from tradition with jazz vocal piece “Autumn Leaves” and “Flamenco Fling,” a fast Latin number with a Celtic twist. In the final medley of reels and jigs, the performers pulled out all the stops. MacMaster step-danced and moon-walked around the stage before taking her fiddle to the audience. The OSO was “driving her,” while the crowd clapped and danced. A troupe of dancers from Vancouver joined in. The receptive and welcoming audience truly appreciated the innovation and co-operation that went into bringing the ‘cousins’ together. Also featured in the evening program were students of The Shuswap Community Academy under the direction of symphony violinist Susan Aylard.
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Old
adages die hard. But if there's one thing that the Celtic Colours
tribute to fiddle teacher Stan Chapman proves, it's that whoever wrote
"those who can, do; those who can't, teach" was an idiot.
Steven
Mazey - The Ottawa Citizen
It
was like a family reunion last Tuesday evening when Cape Breton fiddler
Natalie MacMaster got together with the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra at
the Salmon Arm Community Centre. The refined, urbane musicians of the
OSO, in their black formal attire were hosting the eastern country
cousins. The big question was, after pleasantries were exchanged, would
there be anything to talk about? Would everyone have a good time?