Music, Music, Music!

10 September 2012
7:12 PM

Sunrise at	7:00 AM	in direction	77°	East-northeast
Sunset at	8:33 PM	in direction	282°	West-northwest

Duration of day: 13 hours, 33 minutes (6 minutes, 39 seconds shorter than yesterday)

Some of earliest memories of watching TV with my grandparents, one from the hills of Tennessee and the other the hills of Arkansas, was of fiddling on Grand Ole Oprey.  It must have made a huge impression because I can't ignore any kind of fiddle playing, whether it is Isaac Perlman in the tradition of the Northern Europe, Irish Fiddling, Old American Fiddling, or in the Blue Grass Tradition.  Guitar in those traditions has the same effect, although I hear it and my focus inevitably drifts to the music.

Leo Kottke wove his spell Friday night and on Saturday I was blown away by the April Verch Trio and other Fiddle Fest performers.  I first became aware of Leo Kottke when I started dating my husband in 2003.  He had Dish Satellite fed to his little house and he'd leave Acoustical Crossroads playing while he was gone.  Any time I'd come into his house with him, really great music would be playing.  There would be no picture, just the name of the artist and the title of the piece against a black screen - no clutter at all. Occasionally the musicianship was so good I'd take a look at the title and artist and Leo Kottke consistently was one of those that drew my attention. The Fisherman hints at what drew me to his sound.

When he performs, he doesn't just play.  He may tell you about the book he's reading, quote poetry, tell stories about his childhood (invariably funny), and try to control his hands which can't stop touching, tuning, and picking at the strings on his guitar.  Wearing glasses was a new event in his life and some of his thoughts drifted into the perceptual changes with these things on your face cutting vision into sections.  And woven all through this is some really, really good guitar pickin'.

All week long Fiddle Fest was holding classes for throughout Fairbanks.  My impression was that most of the attendees were children honing their skills and one of the teachers and performers, Caitlin Warbelow, was raised in Fairbanks.  She has won competitions and plays with many well-known bands.  This YouTube video at the Tap Root, does not showcase the smoothness of her delivery, but does exemplify the Irish Fiddle style - slow repetitive introduction to the melody, then two tempo increases before the finish.  She performs with other artists frequently and I noticed how easily her music blended with the Troy MacGillvray Band at the Fiddle Fest Concert.  Troy MacGillvrary, from Cape Breton, plays traditional Scottish and Irish tunes and when home,

April Verch and her band members, Cody Walters and Hayes Griffin, had a more traditionally North American sound.  They played several tunes in the Old American style, one Bluegrass melody in the Scruggs Standard, and several from the Ottawa Valley where she was raised.  She liked to emphasize that several ethnic groups, Scottish, Irish, French, and Polish blended their musical and dance styles to the forms she was raised with.  In addition to fiddling like a demon, she step dances and especially loves dancing in the style of her home.  They are coming back to Alaska in the spring and if one of their stops is Anchorage, I will do my best to be there.

What a great weekend.  The most northern city in the world solicits some fine talent for performances here.