Katie McNally Trio: The Boston States

Across history, travelers and emigrants have carried fiddles with them. It’s one of the most portable and versatile of instruments. That is one of the reasons that people coming form Scotland to Atlantic Canada brought their fiddles and their music across the ocean. People from Nova Scotia and other parts of the Maritimes, heading south to New England in search for work, brought heir tunes and songs and dance steps and their fiddles along too.

It’s that legacy and connection across landscapes and communities in New England, Atlantic Canada, and Scotland that Katie McNally has chosen to honor in her album The Boston States. In Boston, McNally learned the fiddle with renown Scottish style fiddle player Hanneke Cassel, studied at Tufts University, and listened and played at sessions and dance halls where the musics of these landscapes met and mingled.

With her trio members Neil Pearlman on piano and Shanucey Ali on viola, McNally went to Cape Breton make the album, and enlisted top class Cape Breton fiddle player Wendy MacIsaac to produce the project.

The trio kicks things off with music from contemporary Cape Breton composers Dan R. MacDonald and John Morris Rankin. The tunes Colin McIntosh and Black Horse offer a lively introduction to McNally’s fiddle playing which proves to be at once strong and graceful,. The set also showcases the fine way Pearlman’s fast paced piano and Ali’s low notes on the viola combine with McNally’s lead to create a set that evokes fast flying dance steps while showing the musicianship is in good hands with all three members of the trio.

Each musician has varied strengths and musical backgrounds, which work well together across the ten tracks on the disc. Pearlman’s understanding of Cape Breton piano and the way that interacts with fiddle music is bone deep -- yet he also brings in subtle touches of his other interests and projects in Latin msuic and in jazz. Shauncey Ali studied classical music and moved into playing bluegrass. McNally, in addition to learning fiddle in Boston, studied ancient and modern Scottish Literature and Scottish traditional music at Glasgow University and The National Piping Centre in Glasgow.

The three musicians are thus well prepared to take on traditional music of Scotland -- although, as McNally points out in her notes, they often favor versions which came their way through the playing of Cape Breton musicians including Joe Cormier and Troy McGillivray. The trio’s gifts for bringing these ideas together are apparent in the set pairing the jig Scotty Fitzgerald from Cape Breton fiddler Sandy MacIntyre with the traditional tune The Hills of Glen Orchy.

Another good place to hear that at work is the track which joins Scottish composer Niel Gow’s strathspey The Fir Tree with a fast paced piece of McNally’s own composition, Batmoreel, which, does, yes, have a Batman connection which can learn of it the liner notes.

There are five more tunes by McNally herself on the album and one by Pearlman, which stand in good company with the tunes which they have chosen from the tradition. Many of the sets are lively music, but the trio does well with slower pieces also: listen out especially for the traditional tune Down the Burn Davie Lad.

Katie McNally’s family roots go back into Atlantic Canada and to Quebec, and her experiences encompass neighborhood dancehalls in Boston where Cape Breton and Scottish tunes ring out, as well as studying and teaching at fiddle camps across the United States, in Scotland, and elsewhere. As a player and as a composer she understands and respects how these strands come together. On The Boston States, McNally and musical partners Neil Pearlman and Shauncey Ali have created a collection of tunes that will set your feet dancing, and your spirit dancing as well.

You may also wish to see
Katie McNally: Flourish McNally’s debut album
Scotland's Music: Hanneke Cassel,The Paul McKenna Band, Alba's Edge
Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen
Sounds of Cape Breton: Wendy MacIsaac and Mary Jane Lamond
Katie McNally’s web site
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Scotland's Music: Hanneke Cassel,The Paul McKenna Band, Alba's Edge

Hanneke Cassel is a fiddle player and composer whose base in the music of Scotland also encompasses her love for bluegrass and what she’s learning from her travels to share her music in places as diverse as China, India, Kenya, her home state of Oregon and her longtime home base in New England. The Paul McKenna Band fuse the energy of their own explorations of Scotland’s traditions with their own travels to North America and beyond and their love for stories of journey told in word and melody. Alba’s Edge combines elements of the music of Cape Breton and Scotland with flavors of the vibrant New England jazz scene in a debut album that proves engaging and thought provoking. Listen to their differing takes on creating new music and interpreting older pieces that grow out of their shared love for the sounds and stories of Scotland, and where those stories have traveled.

Hanneke Cassel’s recording Dot the Dragons Eyes takes its title, and the inspiration for its title tune, from time she has spent in China.There she learned the idea that when an artist puts the last bits of color in the eyes of a dragon it brings the art work to life. As a woman of faith and imagination, Cassel saw the parallel with with the Biblical story of God bringing man to life from an image in clay -- and she went to create lively and uplifting tune that works just fine whether you know or believe anything about either of those ideas. It makes a fine introduction to a set of tunes, almost all of Cassel’s own composition, that range from waltz to jig and take inspiration from family members, friends, the Boston Marathon, and the students at One Home Many Hopes in Kenya, where Cassel has often traveled to share her music. Cassel has been a US National champion in Scottish style fiddle playing, studied with Alasdair Fraser and the late Buddy MacMaster, and worked with musicians from Irish American singer and songwriter Cathie Ryan to early music group Ensemble Galillie. Through all that and with all that, she has a distinctive tone in her playing as well as a gift for composition that is rooted in and respectful of the varied elements of Scottish tradition, while speaking entorely in her own voice on her instrument. Really you should listen to the whole of Dot the Dragons Eyes as it is sequenced -- every track is a keeper. If you are just wanting a taste, though, listen out for The Captain, Lissa and Corey/The Sunrise, and Jig for Christina.

The Paul McKenna Band is a high energy bunch, anchored by McKenna’s voice and often driving guitar. With bandmates Davis McNee on bouzouki, Sean Grey on flutes and whistles, and Ewan Baird on percussion including bodhran (they each sing too) and aided by guests including Mike Vass on fiddle and banjo and Jarlath Henderson, on Elements they offer songs and tunes from the tradition, from their own writing, and several maybe not so expected covers, creating a fine mix that proves engaging from first to last. One of those covers is of Canadian writer James Keelghan’s Cold Missouri Waters, which the band makes entirely their own with fine lead and harmony. Fast paced Mickey Dam, a song from the tradition, shows off their ability with songs from the past, while the Flying Through Flanders set, comprising tunes from Vass and Grey, proves their taste and prowess with instrumental pieces. The band can handle slower songs with finesse as well, evidence of which is offered on the returning to home in Scotland song Indiana.

The four members of Alba’s Edge -- Neil Pearlman on piano and vocals, Lilly Pearlman on fiddle and vocals, Doug Berns on bass and background vocals, and Jacob Cole on percussion and background vocals -- like the idea that the world alba in the band’s name means Scotland in Gaelic and dawn in Spanish. Playing a bit off that, they open and close their debut recording Run to Fly with short pieces called Rising and Setting, which serve, respectively, to set a mood of anticipation and quietly to draw things to a close and bid farewell. The eight tracks in between offer thoughtful engaging, intelligent music that weaves in the Scotland and Cape breton backgrounds of the Pearlmans (they are brother and sister) with their explorations of Latin, irish, Americana and other genres. Their fiddle and piano lines are framed by low end work from Burns and Cole, who bring respectively, backgrounds in playing Latin, funk, and Afro beat music and jazz and ska to the table. That said, such fusions often don’t work, or at least, don’t work out well enough to inspire interest. These four have that covered, though -- you don’t have to know anything about the background of any of this music to enjoy it as works that’s at times lively, at times soothing, at times thought provoking. At just the right moment, too, they draw the strands of tradition together by singing the traditional Scottish song of the sea, The Diamond. Run to Fly was produced by top class Scottish fiddle Player Aidan O’Rourke, who has worked with the innovative Scottish group Lau as well as the traditional stalwarts Blazin’ Fiddles.

Aside: should you ever have the chance to see any of these artists play live, take it. They all tour internationally, so that may come your way -- Alba’s Edge, for example, will be part of the Boston Celtic Music Festival in January, and the Paul McKenna Band will be appearing at Celtic Connections, while Cassel is doing several holiday appearances with Ensemble Galilie and appears at festival, teaches at fiddle camps and does concerts with her own trio as well.

Photograph by Kerry Dexter. Thank you for respecting copyright.

You may also wish to see
Coffee and the Mojo Hat: Neil Pearlman
Scotland's music: Katie McNally: Flourish
Aidan O'Rourke: Sirius

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Coffee and the Mojo Hat: Neil Pearlman

It is a challenging line for musicians to walk: loving a tradition and then becoming deeply involved in another style, and wanting to hear them play off each other, to bring them together in new ways. Neil Pearlman brings this challenge off with flair and ingenuity. He’s grounded in Scottish tradition, and the other areas he brings in are Latin, funk, and jazz.

Which might sound like a real mix up, and it certainly could be. In Pearlman's hands, on his album Coffee and the Mojo Hat it works well, so well in fact that it is likely to appeal to listeners on all sides of that musical quadrilateral. Things that give Pearlman a head start in this area are that he plays piano, and that his piano style grounded in that of Cape Breton. That lively percussive, fluid sort of style, developed by musicians working with fiddlers in the migrant communities of far northern Nova Scotia, is both distinctly Scottish and distinctly its own, both sides of that allowing for a good bit of adventure and creativity. Pearlman also learned Scotish step dancing as a child “To really understand the Scottish music tradtion, you need to understand the dance tradtion,” he says.

Coming along with Pearlman on this journey are Doug Burns on bass, Javier Ramos on congas, and Alex Cohen on drums, so its is fairly percussive event to begin with. What’s interesting is that Pearlman’s choice of music, and his touch on piano, weave a lyrical line, a line which moves in and out and through the conga, bass, and drum lines. The fourteen tracks are for the most part sets of two or more tunes. There are two songs, one from the tradition and one from Robert Burns, with Elizabeth Burke and Maeve Gilchrist as guest voclaists..

Other composers Pearlman covers include Phil Cunningham, Michael McGoldrick, Gordon Duncan, and Jerry Holland. There is a helping of tunes from the tradition as well, along with two originals. Standout sets include Farewell, in which a tune by McGoldrick is paired with one from Martyn Bennett, and on which Nicola Rabata sits in on flutes, Sailor’s Wife, in which a tune from the tradition meets with one from Nathaniel Gow, and on which fiddler Alasdair Fraser adds a fine fiddle part, and Mill Mill O, on which Neil's father Ed takes a graceful guest slot on fiddle.

you may also wish to see.
Highlander's Farewell: Alasdair Fraser and Natalie Haas
Hanneke Cassel: For Reasons Unseen
Scotland & Cape Breton: tradition and innovation

-->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.