THE IRISH TIMES
ARTS DESK, LIVE REVIEW
MOZAIK, ESB BEO FESTIVAL
by Siobhán Long

National Concert Hall, Dublin
Tuesday, August 16, 2005

For those of us who can barely walk and chew gum at the same time, Andy Irvine's labyrinthine rhythms challenged us to our very core. His is a world where 44/16 and 11/16 timing signatures hold sway, while the rest of the world ambles along oblivious, in 2/4 time.

Mozaik is Andy's baby, and it's blossomed into one precocious toddler in the past two years. It's the multicultural equivalent of Planxty for the noughties: Bronx fiddler and banjo player Bruce Molsky brings the Appalachian tunes, Donal Lunny is the unquestionable percussive powerhouse of the gathering, on bouzouki, guitar and bodhrán, Bulgarian musical polymath Nikola Parov brings all manner of exotic instrumentation to the mix (including gadulka, gaida, kaval, tin whistle, clarinet and guitar) and Rens van der Zalm squares the circle with fiddle, mandolin and guitar - and a quintessential Dutch attention to forensic detail in his melody lines.

The sheer spiritedness of the music is enough to lure the hardiest of fence-sitters into the fold. Andy's affable introductions paint miniatures of the troubadour lives they lead; the road has left its mark on his repertoire in particular: 'My Heart's Tonight In Ireland', written after a near-death experience Down Under, is a courteous tribute to his adopted home place. In anyone else's hands it would sound hackneyed and jaded; in Andy's, the gentility of the lyric sits effortlessly on top of his own, Lunny's and Parov's composite rhythms.

Bruce Molsky's confidence amid such a formidable quintet has grown perceptibly since their last Dublin appearance. His urbane introductions reveal a musician who savours the source of the music, whether it's in West Virginia or South Carolina, and the effortlessness with which he melds fiddle and vocals on the field song, 'If The Times Don't Get Much Better' reveals an elastine musicality with few peers.

Donal Lunny's never been a musician who savours the limelight so his decision to assume lead vocals on a lovely Donegal song (with an elusive title) was an unexpected treat.

Nikola Parov's virtuosity is even more compelling than it was in the band's early days. And his bold decision to round off the night's repertoire with a Bulgarian wedding tune, 'The Last Dance' showcased his remarkable freewheeling style magnificently.

At times the vivaciousness of the music evaporated into thin air, particularly on Andy's foot stomping Woody Guthrie tribute, 'Never Tire Of The Road'. In a smaller venue, he'd have had the punters whooping and hollering in unison, but somehow Earlsfort Terrace muted his audience's reactions just a tad.

Rens van der Zalm was the quiet man of the gathering, but his intricate accompaniment on fiddle was the perfect counterfoil to Bruce Molsky's gravy-rich southern style. Inventiveness and lateral thinking buoyed by a collective genius.

Wednesday, August 3, 2005

Ballaghaderreen’s Summer Magic

HALF REMEMBERED fragments floated to the surface of the mind like an old music box releasing songs that suggested names of places, stored in its secret innermost workings.

The names harmonised with the songs; Damascus, Macedonia, Hungary, Bulgaria and West Virginia. A group called “Mozaik” with Donal Lunny, Andy Irvine, Bruce Molsky, Nikola Parov and Ross Van Der Zalm came to Ballaghaderreen in July.

In an upstairs room in Spell’s Pub, without smoke or mirrors they brought us magic. Not our “Lament for Aughrim” this time but a Macedonia song of courage and heroics against an Ottoman oppression at Bears Rock in 1903. There were tunes from old empires where armies had driven all before them and fleeing hordes had stealthily carried ancient instruments and tunes remembered and passed on over generations; laments, battles, defeats and resurgence, exile and bittersweet memories of lands left behind. Their music contained in its variations the sensual delights of forests outside Bucharest their bird song and images that almost conveyed the scent of aromatic wood burning.

It brought us the Balkans: that cockpit of much beauty and pain, peace and war, legend, myth and often shattering bloody news headlines. The group played Horas that were delicate as butterflies dancing on filigree silver, tapping fingers playing games on table tops , whirling, dancing, spellbinding levels of fantasy and imagination. Blue Ridge American old-time fiddling by Bruce Molsky married Romanian Hora, to produce merry dancing, wraiths and dervishes. There were ghosts of Woodie Guthrie in Andy Irvine’s “Never tire of the Road”. The music made images in the brain of Skid row, bars and the lonesome whistle of freight trains, Field Hollers, Oakies and freight cars. The music seemed to gather up the essence of early America; of countries, some whose borders are now blurred, whose cultures are fragmented, but always their story told in the surviving music; holding the central core of being and memory. No wonder it found an echo with its audience. We sat in the upstairs room in Spells and like Faust’s parade of dream and aspiration, the images conjured by the music processed before our imaginations.

We saw Priam and Tamerlaine, Ottomans and Hapsburgs, Jewish Weddings, gypsies in hand embroidered gauze whirling, moaning and exulting to music, Magyars in tunics fastened with hand tooled belts passed by in that imaginary procession, their legs in polished boots kicking in dance from a crouching position. The music soared, dived, enveloped and throbbed finally to silence; leaving memory animated within us, like half remembered dreams. Veteran musician Pat Finn, made his way upstairs to hear the music gathered from across Europe bordering on Asia and levitating towards New York and West Virginia. Pat himself has played the whistle for over seventy years. Frank Jordan was there too listening, whose own flute music is as beautiful as the Glencar Waterfall. We were all caught up in the magic of “Mozaik” swaying in a collective harmonious movement of humanity, absorbed in something beautiful, noble and profound, of humanities memory and kaleidoscopic story recognised by all. Spells in Pound Street is opposite a house once occupied by three ladies who taught music, French and dance, one of whom had taught among other dances a Hungarian dance, another had worked for Polish aristocrats in Paris and one had taught the violin.

Across the street also was St. Nathy’s Cathedral, where once Gregorian chant festivals and the universal Church language of Latin had united small places like Ballaghaderreen with places as far away as the Urals. It was appropriate that “Mozaik” performed here: Donal Lunny, Andy Irvine, Bruce Molsky from New York, Nikola Parov from Hungary and Ross Van Der Zalm from the Netherlands (that player of intoxicating fiddle music from Bulgaria and the Old Macedonia). No need to describe the effervescent, unchanging Donal Lunny ever open to experimental grouping and re-grouping. This summer earlier in July, Ballaghaderreen people had a feast of music, starting with the week’s school of music with students in many disciplines and from many countries and counties. It included a Recital every evening in the B.M.W building. Our own incomparable Peter Horan, Matt Molloy, Frank Jordan and the two talented families of Smyth graced us at the Summer School concert, joined by the accomplished tutors. In years to come conversations will turn to “Mozaik”, and did you hear them play? Were you there when they played not for one magic night but for two? We were indeed privileged to hear the essence of the treasures they had gathered on their travels. Their last tune “The Last Dance” played by Nikola Parov, wrung the heart, with its plaintive farewell to care freeness and innocence, the last dance a bride dances before bidding farewell to girlhood.

We found it equally wrenching to say farewell to this group. Let the remote fall from your nerveless grasp next year, and come to these great feasts of music. Ballaghaderreen is the happening place, and I haven’t even mentioned the cultural feast that was the Douglas Hyde weekend, with its challenging ides of identify, heritage and the wonderful music of Tony McMahon.

-Mata O’Hara

MOONSHINER BLUEGRASS JOURNAL:
This just out in Japan. Sorry I can't offer the text of the article in English. Really looking forward to visiting Japan later this month!

Irvine’s interest in the music of the Balkans is long-standing. The time he spent there in the late Sixties was recalled in Baneasa’s Green Glade, a Romanian-inspired song coupled here with a Bulgarian tune. Other linkages were even more disparate, as in the pairing of a Romanian Hora led by Van der Zalm and learned from Breton musician Jackie Molard, followed by Molsky’s lead on the Appalachian tune Black Jack Grove.

It was very much a case of great masters at work, and breathtaking instrumental control never wavered even at the most hair-raising tempos. No-one settled for just one instrument - I counted 18 employed in the course of the set. Several of those belonged to Parov and included such Balkan specialities as the gadulka, gaida (the local bagpipe) and kaval, as well as guitar and clarinet.

Irvine recycled some of his best-known songs, including a Woody Guthrie tribute, Never Tire of the Road, and his evocation of touring with Sweeney’s Men in the Sixties, My Heart’s Tonight in Ireland. Molsky also contributed a couple of songs, including a solo version of Green Grows the Laurel.

The instrumental sets included fast and furious tunes from Macedonia, a rather grave wedding dance from Greece and a pairing of an Appalachian version of The Rocky Road to Dublin with old-time fiddler Ed Daley’s Indian Ate the Woodchuck. The cruelty to animals didn’t end there, either - Nicola Parov’s solo slot included a rather graphic description of how the cute little goats were slaughtered to make bags for the gaida.

It wouldn't have cost them anything to have The Tasselbandits welcomed on to the stage for a support spot that must have meant a lot to them. But since the youthful quartet earned a rebooking their well-arranged and spiritedly-played instrumental sets on a vanload of instruments, maybe they'll get introduced the next time.

Mozaik need no introduction, which - yes, yes - is just as well. They're a continuation of Andy Irvine's previous adventures into Balkan-Irish connections. Except, with the presence of Bronx-born but Appalachian-sounding fiddler and singer Bruce Molsky, master of Hungarian exotica and goat-harvesting techniques Nikola Parov, and Dutch multi-instrumentalist Rens van der Zalm, they sound like a group of European pioneers getting together for a tune somewhere round about Kentucky and finding a remarkable compatibility.

Irvine and his old Planxty colleague, Dónal Lunny, provide the songs and the engine room respectively as nostalgic memories of Ireland segue into abacus-defying Macedonian dance metres, and old-time Americana somehow dances in step with a Balkan horo.

It's all conveyed with a light-hearted nonchalance, but the sound is one of real musicianly expertise and when Irvine sang his faithful Woodie Guthrie tribute, Never Tire of the Road, to Molsky and van der Zalm's downhome fiddling, it merited comparisons with The Band's Acadian Driftwood - and such praise doesn't get banded about lightly.

I recently put on a Bruce Molsky concert and since there were some seven titles on the CD table at the break, was asked by an awful lot of people which of Bruce's albums is the best. The short answer is that they're all great, and you might as well have them all. My longer answer was to lay out the chronological sequence (Warring Cats, Lost Boy, Big Hoedown, Poor Man's Troubles, and now Contented Must Be) and say that as Bruce continues to mature and explore as a musician, his recordings grow more diverse. And it's an amazing thing, isn't it, that such an accomplished player is still so hungry to explore new parts of the forest. The earliest recordings are straight-ahead, grab-you-by-the-throat, Round Peak fiddling. This newest album has tunes from Ed Haley and Luther Strong, but it also has a set from the Métis tradition, a Norwegian waltz on guitar, a barnburner of a blues piece on guitar, a rag, some banjo songs, a duet with Ireland's Mick Moloney on the old-timey version of the "Mason's Apron," and some deeply moving songs with fiddle accompaniment as only Bruce can play them. I remember some long-ago review saying that Bruce's arrangements for fiddle and voice sounded like "Thelonious Monk at a pump organ." Or something to that effect, but whatever the analogy, his sing of "Green Grows the Laurel" hits you in the heart.

I don't know that I've answered that question about which one is best: the albums have certainly become more eclectic, and Bruce's technical capacity even more assured. And, in truth, it is all good. Contented Must Be is an equally strong addition to an accomplished oeuvre, and I'm curious as can be to see what he explores next.

With Mozaik, Irish fretman Andy Irvine may finally have assembled the perfect band to pull off his full range of musical passions, which range from Irish ballads and edgy Balkan dance tunes to original modern everyman songs that would do Woody Guthrie proud. The superstar lineup teams Irvine (vocals, bouzouki and guitar, Hungarian multi-instrumentalist Nikola Parov, Dutch guitarist Rens van der Zalm, and American fiddler/banjoist/vocalist Bruce Molsky. In recent years, with varying degrees of success, Irvine has tried to blend the sound of his '70s Irish trad band Planxty with his political and American folk leanings. This band strikes the perfect balance. Recorded live in Australia, the set gives each band member moments to amaze. Molsky is a particular joy to hear in this context, with vocal harmonies and gritty, controlled fiddle work that helps drive the instrumental sets. Irvine mines his entire career for repertoire, from the traditional "A Blacksmith Courted Me" to Planxty's Bulgarian rave tune "Smeseno Horo" and his own self-referential sing-along "Never Tire of the Road." This one's a real gem. (Compass, www.compassrecords.com)

It used to be that "there was bluegrass, and there was old-time, and never the tow shall meet," jokes master fiddler Bruce Molsky. Old-time music, a term for the melodies of the American south, was down-home, laid-back dance music. While Bill Monroe drew substantially on it to create bluegrass, he also created a genre know for its showmanship.

Today, the two forms of music have separate communities, starts, and classes. But they still share much in common, and Molsky wanted to explore those similarities. Hence was born Jawbone, a brand-new all-star trio that also includes banjo legend Tony Trischka and Paula Bradley, who switches from guitar to banjo to a long-forgotten hybrid called the banjo-uke, as well as displaying her flat-foot dance style.

The trio, which plays its first Massachusetts at Café Fantastique on Saturday, is just a few months old. "We haven't even thought about recording," says Molsky. He says the group's explorations go far beyond the boundaries of bluegrass and old-time music. The band also dives in the music's Celtic and African roots. "I have a deep interest in African music, and Tony is really hip to that, and so I think the banjo lends itself to a lot of polyrhythmic ideas. There will be even more experimentation with Jawbone as time goes on."

Molsky has spent decades both learning old-time music from the masters and teaching it to a new generation - there's a noticeable up-tick in interest in Appalachian-rooted musi styles these days. "Old-time music that is the social music of rural people in the American South," he explains, "came about before radio and TV forced the styles into being more presentation-oriented. This was played in people's communities for dancing, and to hear ballads, and for people to have something to do. Old-time music was there before mass media kind of changed and homogenized people's perceptions of who they were and what they are. It's very regional in nature - you can listen to old records and hear lots of line from one thing to another."

His newest solo disc, Contented Must Be (Rounder ), finds Molsky playing a wide range of southern, Scottish, and even Canadian and Norwegian tunes on the guitar, fiddle and banjo in a way that manages to bring a new perspective to a deep tradition. Informative liner notes explain how tunes like "Hills of Mexico" made their way from Texas to Canada onto scratchy 78s and into the repertoires of champion fiddlers. Helping along are guests like Irish great Mick Moloney and newgrass fiddle innovator Darol Anger.

"I think a good CD should contain a variety of things, and flow well from track to track," says Molsky. "This one represents what interested at this time, which is old0tie music from the perspective of world music." In a similar vein, Molsky is also a member of Mozaik, a truly global super-group, a string band led by Celtic songwriting legend Andy Irvine. It also features Irish master Dónal Lunny, Balkan wizard Nikola Parov, and Dutch guitarist Rens van der Zalm. The band's recent debut, Live from the Powerhouse, finds it creating a new and moving musical language out of traditions that range from Irvine's ballad so Romaniian horas. Unfortunately, the disc is all that American audiences will be hearing from Mozaik in the near future: while the band continues to tour across the globe, Molsky reports that American tour plans have been hampered by the harsh visa restrictions now being imposed on foreign musicians.

Bruce Molsky plays fiddle and guitar, fronting a great band including Darol Anger, Mike Compton, Dudley Connell, and Paul Brown. This album proves that old-timey music can have emotion, innovation, and instrumental virtuosity. In Contented Must Be you have an ear-opening experience that deserves a place in every acoustic music aficionado’s music collection.

Bruce Molsky describes this CD as music recorded between 60- and 80-years ago from a variety of sources. The premise is that these players had not the slightest inkling that their music would be influential in the years to come.

Bruce has been a busy man of late. Besides teaching workshops at music camps around the U.S. he has recorded fine projects with Fiddlers 4 and Mozaik. Those other projects featured music from man diverse sources, however with Contented Must Be, Bruce has returned to the Appalachian music for which he is best known. He enlists the accompaniment skills of a handful of fine musicians including Darol Anger, Paul Brown, Mike Compton, Dudley Connell, Mick Moloney and his own wife Audrey Molsky.

I am always pleased to see a variety of material included on a traditional music collection. Too much of the same thing, no matter how well played, becomes tedious. The recording opens with a fine rendition of Bill Stepp's "ways of the World" with Bruce's fiddle and Paul Brown's banjo. Ed Haley's "Brushy Run" follows with Audrey Molsky on guitar and Mike Compton on mandolin. We are later treated to Ed's version of "The Mason's Apron" that he called "Wake Up Susan" in a medley with "Durang's Hornpipe" from the playing of Tom Fuller. Bruce's fiddle is accompanied by Mick Moloney's tenor banjo and Audrey again on guitar.

A highlight for me is "Green Grows the Laurel" with Bruce's vocal and fiddle accompaniment becoming a luscious trio with the inclusion of Darol Anger's baritone fiddle. Dudley Connell joins Bruce for a vocal duet on "Charmin' Betsy" from the singing of Henry Thomas.

Not just a fiddler, Bruce Molsky is a master of all he attempts and Contented Must Be is a fine example of that skill and dedication. - TD

Bruce Molsky's calm and reverent approach to the traditional banjo and fiddle tunes of the southern Appalachians pulls off a difficult hat trick: he manages to take the old melodies and make them sound fresh and new, even as he retains the feel, tone, and context of the original source material, creating the illusion of an unbroken line between then and now. That he does this without making albums that feel like dusty museum exercises or ridiculous parodies is a true achievement.

On Contented Must Be, his fourth album for Rounder Records, Molsky follows the template of his previous releases, mixing in banjo, fiddle, and guitar instrumentals with a handful of well-chosen vocal tracks, all done up in an easy, back-porch style. A fine player on any instrument he picks up, Molsky's everyman baritone voice is the real secret ingredient here, and the reason his albums seem so approachable and timeless. There are plenty of high points to choose from, including Molsky's reconstruction of "Hills of Mexico," which draws and expands on Roscoe Holcomb's version, and the fiddle and vocal take on "Diamond Joe," best known in the wonderful 1937 field recording by Big Charlie Butler. Molsky grafts the North Carolina traditional fiddle tune "Green River" on as a coda, giving the song a swelling, emotional upswing at its tail.

The real centerpieces on Contented Must Be, though, are two fiddle instrumentals. The duel-fiddle attack on "Blackberry Blossom" (with Darol Anger on baritone fiddle) makes for an edgy masterpiece, while Molsky comes close to equaling the soaring, eerie energy of Kentucky fiddler Luther Strong's original version of "Glory in the Meeting House," collected by Alan Lomax in the late '30s. Molsky doesn't step into radically new territory with this release, which is really the point. He doesn't need to. Making the old sound new, while retaining what makes it feel old in the first place, is a difficult line to walk. Bruce Molsky seems to do it effortlessly.

Bruce Molsky is an utterly convincing "Appalachian" fiddler & banjo-picker, who comes from the Bronx in New York City. He's many other things too - among them, a phenomenal fingerpicking guitar soloist, across genres ranging from Nordic through West African to country-blues. As a singer too, he just "has it" - an uncanny, seemingly low-key, warm, unassuming knack for expressing a song's essence. "contented must be" is written in the lower case, but Bruce's new CD is capital-"e" excellent. Equally wonderful in its haunting & its exuberant moments, it's the work of a highly individual & sometimes quite novel "old-timey" musician.