Scottish music a different way: The Unusual Suspects

The Old Fruitmarket in Glasgow offers both welcome and whimsy, and a sense of connection with history, as well. The arc of the Victorian ceiling and the ironmongery and grocer’s signs from the days when the building was the city’s produce market remain, in what is now a venue whose atmosphere is infused with music.

History, whimsy, and welcome were all fully present one January night during Celtic Connections as a packed out standing room only crowd joined the Unusual Suspects to mark the completion of their album Big Like This.

Pipes and more pipes, whistles, fiddles and more fiddles, accordion, trumpet, flugelhorn, drums, percussion, piano, bass, flute, trombone, guitar, saxophone, harp, and voice: these were the instruments the Suspects brought to make their sound that night, and what a sound it was indeed. Completely contemporary, completely traditional, altogether Scottish, and completely engaging, as many of the best musicians in Scotland joined up to show just why they are the best musicians in Scotland, each giving their unique gifts, and in complete service to the music.

That music included a high energy blast of a set which paired Gordon Duncan’s Pressed for Time with John Morris Rankin’s Hull’s Reel and from the tradition, Saint Kilda’s Wedding. Also from the tradition and fully respecting that, but very likely not sounding like any way you have heard it done before, was Fair Floo’ers, with Corrina Hewat taking lead vocal, backed with harmonies from Ewan Robertson and Calum MacCrimmon.

The heart of this band is collaboration among the gifted musicians, and the creative vision they all share with Corrina Hewat and Dave Milligan. Hewat and Milligan had the idea for a folk orchestra, folk big band, a dozen or so years ago. As the years unfolded they worked on the thought, and were offered a slot at the Celtic Connections Festival in 2003. A recording followed, but even with festival commissions and invitations from the likes of Celtic Colours on Cape Breton and L’Orient Celtique in France, it has proved challenging to work with a twenty two piece band, each of whose members has other commitments and careers and who live and travel to all sorts of different places.

They do it, though. “This is a passion David and I have, to work on this band,” Hewat says. The couple, who are married, each have their own full slate of musical commitments beyond the Suspects too, but it an idea and a passion they continue to build upon. That passion, from Milligan and Hewat and all the musicians on stage, was evident that evening at the Old Fruitmarket, and it radiated into joy shared with those who came to listen, who gave it back to the band in full measure. The music is rather complex stuff, actually, containing elements from jazz and folk, and varied Scottish traditions from alla cross the land. No worries, the audience was with the artists every step of the way, and wanting more, as they played a set of tunes comprising Grappa Groove from Eilidh Shaw, who was one of the fiddlers on the night, Not Only But Oslo by Milligan, and Elmo Lives Downstairs, which was written by Hewat.

In addition to Fair Floo’ers there were other songs on the program, including May Thy Morn from the pen of Scottish national bard Robert Burns and Both Sides of the Tweed, written by Dick Gaughan. There were tunes from fiddler Anna Massie, who was also in the band on the night, and Calum MacCrimmon, who was playing pipes and whistles with the band. Catriona Macdonald, Patsy Reid, Mairearad Green, Ewan Robertson, and Colin Steele were among the other players on stage to contribute to the powerful closing, a five set work composed by Hewatt and Milligan called the L'Orient Suite, which allowed every part of the Suspects full measure of participation.

One of the things the Unusual Suspects were doing that evening was celebrating the completion of their album called Big Like This. That album is out now, and one of the best ways to describe the music on it is through a remark Corrina Hewat made when speaking of her own composing style and understanding of music: “You know, I think jazz is really folk music too. I don’t see it as merging folk and jazz, I actually think it’s just one big music. I don’t distinguish between them,” she said. The musicians’ joy in exploring that idea nd meeting the challenges that go along with that comes across as clearly on the recording as it did on that Glasgow night. Take a listen -- take several. You will be well rewarded.

photographs were taken with permission of the artists and are copyrighted. thank you for respecting this

.
Quite a few of the musicians you’ve met here along the music road, in addition to those mentioned above, have taken part in the band over time
visit the Unusual Suspects web site to see a list


you may also wish to see
Bahrain and Scotland: a musical connection
Music Road: Scotland on the harp: Corrina Hewat
Music Road: Music for St Andrew's Day: music of Scotland

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Scotland on the harp: Corrina Hewat

Corrina Hewat is an artist whose vision encompasses both solo performance and composing for large ensembles, who believes in the interconnectedness of jazz and folk music, and who relishes the collaborative nature of working with other artists and the solitary time needed to create on her own. She also an artist with a full schedule: she’s appeared on more than thirty albums in the last dozen years in addition to composing several major commissions and keeping up her own practice in performing and teaching.

Hewat is from Scotland, and her chosen instrument for her own playing is the harp, both the small harp and the big pedal kind. On her solo album Harp I Do she offers tunes that are at once melodic and percussive, and, if you need categories, would fit into both jazz and folk. “You know, I think the jazz thing is really folk music too. I don’t see them as merging folk and jazz, I actually think it’s just one big music. I don’t distinguish between them,” she says.

Hewat grew up in the Scottish Highlands, in the Black Isle north of Inverness. Her family moved there from Edinburgh when Hewat was eight, “and it was a really good thing for me. There was a real community there, a sense of sharing our lives, and of sharing music, in the Highlands,” she recalled. She was led to the harp “because I saw this woman sitting and playing one. I said to her ‘I like that, can I have a go?’ and she let me try, and it was like I could do this. I was twelve, and knew some piano and some fiddle, but the harp immediately made total sense. it just made total sense to me.”

The harp player, Christine Martin, offered the young Corrina lessons, “and so once a week for a year, we did that. My mum would drive me over, and Christine lent me a harp, and later on her husband built me a harp -- which exploded six months later! But if it wasn’t for their kindness, I don’t think I’d be playing the harp, ‘cause it’s kind of an expensive instrument,” Hewat pointed out. To own her own harp, she recalled, “it took eight years -- my family and I, and my granny too, we all saved up for the harp.” She followed traditional music through Feis Rois weekend workshops and a time at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. Her love of jazz took her to the University of Leeds, where she received an honors degree in jazz and contemporary music on the harp and studied with respected Irish harp player Maire Ni Chathasaigh.















She and her husband David Milligan, who plays piano, formed a duo which became a quartet as a trumpet player and a drummer joined in. The group, called Bachue, was about to add another aspect to Hewat’s musicianship, as well.

”We were booked for a gig at the Celtic Connections festival, and we were playing all instrumental music, involved, complex stuff. The festival director suggested that we add some songs. People relate to songs, he said, they'll connect to you if you do some songs. So we did. I was the singer. That was that!” says Hewat of her early experience singing from the stage. “My mum and dad played a lot of music around the house, Neil Young, Bob Dylan -- that’s where I learnt my first harmony singing really, singing along and finding different harmony parts to those recordings,” Hewat said. It hadn't been something she’d done in public much until that gig at Celtic Connections, though. These days she’s known as much for her singing as for her playing, and is in demand as a teacher of lively and engaging harmony singing workshops. You can also catch her singing as part of the trio Grace, Hewat, and Polwart, in which she joins fellow Scots Annie Grace and Karine Polwart for evenings of music that are very musical and often also very funny.

Singing songs has another benefit for Hewat. “It’s one of the times when the music going on inside my head stops and I focus on that song,” she says. “It’s like I have this constant flow of music, like an orchestra going in inside my head all the time -- which is grand!” It’s also sometimes hard to keep up with the flow of ideas. “I use my mobile phone a lot, sing myself messages, and I have a little half size manuscript paper that I carry around to make notes, too. They might just be phrases or lines. Then, when I have a moment, I’ll start looking a t batches of them and seeing what works and what doesn’t, and six pieces might all go together to make one big grand piece of music -- or they might end up being six different things!” she says, laughing.

One place her musical ideas go is to the band she and Milligan started, The Unusual Suspects. It’s a folk orchestra of sorts. “There’re twenty two of us, each coming form different regional traditions.-- I love hearing how which one is from the Borders, who’s from Aberdeen, who’s from Inverness or Shetland, all comes out in their music,” she says.

A commission to compose and play at L 'Orient Celtique festival in France gave the group time to play and rehearse together, something they don’t often have, or have the budget for. “As a composer, and musical director, it’s hard. We don’t get to rehearse much, and then when we do something has to work right away or drop it because the time’s so short. But this is a passion David and I have, to work on this band,” Hewat says. With the quality of their music and performance, they are igniting that passion in others, too. Audiences and music writers alike call The Unusual Suspects one of the most exciting bands working today.

Hewat conitnues to perform with Grace, Hewat and Polwart, as well as teach workshops. The Unusual Suspects are just launching a new recording, and Hewat and Milligan are working on a new project called The Gordon Duncan Experience, a youth big band based in the Perth and Kinross area. Hewat will also conitnue composing, and listening to the music. “Just walking down the street, I can hear rhythm and music in the sounds around me, and it’s grand,” Corrina Hewat says.


you may also wish to see
Music Road: Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen
Music Road: Catriona McKay: Starfish

-->Your support for Music Road is welcome and needed. If you are able to chip in, here is a way to do that, through PayPal. Note that you do not have to have a PayPal account to do this. Thank you.

Tuning up for Burns Night: four Scots musicians

Robert Burns’ work still touches people’s hearts after more than two centuries, and in countries far beyond his native Scotland. His themes ranges from the wry wit of The Shepherd’s Wife to the haunting beauty of My Heart’s in the Highlands, to the connections of friendship in Auld Land Syne. As Scotland and the world gear up to mark the 250th anniversary of Burns’ birth, here are several equally creative Scots musicians you’ll want to get to know.

Jim Malcolm's
latest recording is a collection of songs by Robert Burns, in fact, including that lively Shepherd's Wife in a duet with his own wife Susie, the eighteenth century antiwar song Logan Braes, and a vivid song of Scotland’s landscape, Westin Winds, along with more widely known pieces such as Ae Fond Kiss and Killiecrankie. Check out Malcolm’s own work, too. Not for nothing has he been recognized with top song writing awards. And he has a delivery so natural that he might be having a conversation with Burns himself.

Emily Smith
mixes songs from the tradition with her own compositions, and best of all she loves to source or set them in her native Dumfriesshire in southwestern Scotland. Her latest album, Too Long Away, has all of that in generous measure, with rollicking ballads of history, acute observations of day to day life, stories of legend, and a quiet look at a summer evening. There’s a Burns song too, one that finds the raking and rouging poet writing from a woman’s point of view.

Corrina Hewat
plays the harp, both the small acoustic sort and the big pedal kind. In her own work she doesn’t draw distinction between folk and jazz, considering them both equally interesting and equally part of the same musical exploration. In addition to creating her own work (her latest album is called Harp I Do) she shares her gifts as a singer in the trio Grace Hewat Polwart, and composes for tlarge ensembles including the folk orchestra The Unusual Suspects.

Julie Fowlis
sings in Scots Gaelic, a language she grew up with in North Uist, but which is spoken by fewer than one percent of Scottish people. She does that so well the Scottish Executive recently honored her by naming her Scotland’s first Ambassador for Gaelic, in recognition of her work bringing the language to people in Scotland and beyond.

As you tune up for Burns night and beyond, give these musicians a listen. And stay with us here along the music road: especially during this year of Homecoming Scotland, we’ll be featuring the work of many musicians from Scotland, Scottish America, Cape Breton, and other parts of the Scottish tradition.

you may also want to see

Music Road: Now playing: Eddi Reader sings Robert Burns

Music Road: now playing: Hanneke Cassel (video)

creative practice: generosity

Diversities of gifts but the same spirit, Saint Paul said, and I think that’s true.
And we are called to give, out of the gifts we have been given.

All the music you read about here would work with that idea, I suppose. here are three for you to consider, two you’ve heard about before, and one you’ve not.

from a Scottish harp player and composer
Corrina Hewat

from an Indiana folk singer and songwriter
The Geography of Light

from five songwriters, about the spirit of the people who settled the Ohio Valley
Wilderness Plots