Celtic Connections
The Duhks with Alison Brown
Old Fruitmarket, Glasgow
Rob Adams
FOUR STARS
The banjo fought back with this concert. The butt of many a joke, a few of which were shared here, in the right hands the banjo can be as eloquent an instrument as any Stradivarius or Steinway. It can also kick ass, as Leonard Podolak of the Duhks illustrated.
For their final number the Duhks reintroduced Alison Brown, whose band had earlier defined the term well-tempered. Brown’s been coming to Glasgow since the days of Mayfest and her blend of mellow, bluegrass-soaked jazz – or it might be the other way round – has a cosy familiarity.
That doesn’t mean we’ve heard it all before, though, and if her take on Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time suggested late-period Miles Davis hanging out with the Nashville cats, then her romp through The Mason’s Apron, following brilliantly expressive fiddle and piano breaks, took even her supreme banjo picking into new realms beyond fluency, with blue notes adding grit to her startling technical proficiency.
The Duhks’ music has bluegrass and other vernacular musical roots but carries an attitude and excitement that might require a genre all to itself: gospel grungegrass. Podolak calls it Jewgrass and there was a mighty klezmer presence here and there as well as God-fearin’ hollerin’ from Podolak’s fellow founder member, Jessee Havey.
Colin Savoie-Levac’s bass boost-enhanced ‘acoustic’ guitar playing creates quite an electric storm, pelted along by the formidable Kevin Garcia’s hand percussion, kick drum and cymbal splashes but a particular highlight of a thoroughly enjoyable set was the natural energy and sheer musicality that Podolak generated in a hamboning (super-coordinated thigh slapping) session with the band’s dancer.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here