Spring 2006
Articles
Columns
- Fiddle Tune History: Ryan's Mammoth Collection, Part III, by Andrew Kuntz
- The Practicing Fiddler: Backup 101, by Hollis Taylor
- Cross-Tuning Workshop, Part 30: AEAE, by Jody Stecher
- Bluegrass Fiddling: Steve Day - Carrying on the Tradition, by Paul Shelasky
- On Improvisation: The Elephant in the Dining Room: The Circle of Fifths, Part 1, by Paul Anastasio
- Cross- Canada Fiddle Tour: New Brunswick 's Matilda Murdoch, by Gordon Stobbe
- Knotting the Chord: Accompanying Traditional Fiddle Music: Harmonizing the Modes, Part 3, by Mark Simos
- Reviews: CDs, DVDs, Books
Tunes
- Lady Be Good, for three violins, arranged by Evan Price
- Rolling in the Ryegrass, with bowing examples from Caoimhin O Raghallaigh
- Fagan and Fenton's (Ryan's Mammoth Collection) (Fiddle Tune History)
- Fred Wilson's (Ryan's Mammoth Collection) (Fiddle Tune History)
- The Flax in Bloom, transcribed by Jody Stecher as played by Maeve Donnelly (Cross-Tuning Workshop)
- Darling, Say Won't You Be Mine, solo by Steve Day, transcribed by Paul Shelasky
- Loggieville Two-Step, by Matilda Murdoch
Article Excerpts
 Photo by Ellen Hansen
Violin Maker David Gusset
By Ellen Hansen David Gusset's accomplishments as a violin maker are impressive. On his web page, the following entry heads the list of his Awards and Honors: First Prize/Gold Medal for violin making at the 1985 "Antonio Stradivari" International Triennial Violin Making competition in Cremona , Italy . Instrument acquired for permanent display in the Antonio Stradivari Museum in Cremona , Italy . (First prize out of 212 violins from thirty-one countries. the only American to ever win this honor.)
Other medals he's received include three gold medals in international violin making competitions sponsored by the Violin Society of America, the Simone F. Sacconi Award in Cremona Italy for "the instrument most representative of the classical Cremonese ideals," and prizes in German and French international violin making competitions.
In person, David Gusset is tall and thin, with a head of hair like Art Garfunkel's. He is soft-spoken, and serious, but catch his eye and you'll see the twinkle indicating a joke and ready smile are just below the surface. David is a regular fixture at the annual Westwind music and dance camp on the Oregon coast, where he hunts down new Scandinavian tunes, and joins jam sessions of most any genre. I recently had the chance to interview David at his violin shop in Eugene , Oregon . It was like stepping back in time. To get to his shop, go behind the 1870 Gothic Revival house he's in the midst of restoring (all wood, with vertical board and batten siding, listed on the National Register of Historic Places), wend your way through an overgrown meadow/garden, and you'll arrive at what used to be a carriage house. "About the only thing keeping it together when I bought the place was blackberry vines," quips David. But step inside the renovated building now, and you're in a cozy, old-world luthier's shop. Violins and violas for sale or awaiting repair hang high up on one wall. The workbench near the small north windows is filled with knives, gouges, planes, chisels, and various fiddle parts and pieces. A band saw, a freestanding workbench, and chests of drawers housing other violin making supplies and shop drawings fill the room. David is at work, planing a violin top.
The Making of a Violin Maker
What came first for you - playing the fiddle, or building violins?
I've played the violin since I was six. I took lessons for a number of years, then quit and took up other instruments, including the guitar, piano, and saxophone. I picked up the violin again sometime in high school, wanting to play fiddle music. I started listening to records, trying to learn by ear. I loved the instrument from the start: my mother remembers me telling her I wanted to make violins someday, but I don't remember that.
Where did you study violin making?
I began as a student of Paul Hart at Peter Preer's Violin Making School in Salt Lake City in 1974. Peter Prier was a graduate of the Mittenwald Violin Making School [in Bavaria , Germany ], and after working for various violin shops in Europe, he came to work for a music store in Salt Lake City . Peter later went into business on his own, and started taking in apprentices in 1972, establishing the first violin making school in the United States . I was one of the first graduates.
So you learned the practical skills there, but in proceeding with your own violin making, you kept studying the masters?
Yes, in violin making school you learn the very basics of how to make violins: how to carve, shape and assemble the parts, how to mix glue and varnishes, how to use and sharpen tools. That program lasted two and a half years, but I'm still learning, thirty years later.
And after graduating from the violin making school?
I worked in Peter's repair shop that summer, and then took a job with a more well known shop in San Francisco : Frank Passa Violins. Frank was a pupil of Simone Sacconi, a very talented violin maker from Italy . Sacconi had worked for various makers in Italy , then came to New York City to work in Emil Herrmann's Violin Shop. When Herrmann's closed he moved over to Rembert Wurlitzer's, which was the biggest violin shop in the country, and probably the most important. Hundreds of Strads, Guarneris, and other big name instruments that are around today, passed through that shop, and were restored or sold there. Sacconi and his shop helped develop many of the modern techniques of restoration that are still being used today. About a dozen pupils of his spread out across the United States , and Frank was one of them.
Frank was a knowledgeable dealer. So working for Frank, we generally had very good instruments coming through the shop to work on, improve or maintain. Dealers can make a good living - buying nice old instruments, fixing them up, and selling them for a lot more money! A lot of that work involved correcting the setup in order to bring an instrument up to its maximum potential.
Where do dealers get the instruments they sell in their shops?
They buy them from private parties or at auctions, take them in on trade or consignment. Often, people bring in instruments that have been in the family for generations and aren't being played. Things just show up.
Have you come into some instruments that way?
Yes. I sometimes buy instruments or take them in on trade or consignment. The seller names a price, and if I think it has potential and I can afford it, I might buy it. Often, I take instruments on consignment, or I'll find a buyer among my colleagues. There was an estate last year with twenty-one instruments; it wasn't anything I could afford, but I was able to find a dealer to buy them all.
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In making your own instruments, do you adhere to the Italian school of violin making?
I mostly study the makers who worked in Cremona , Italy from the mid-1500s through the mid-1700s. That period is called the " Amati School ." Other Italian centers of violin making I'm interested in are Venice , Milan , Turin , Mantua , and Naples .
Are Strads and Guarneris the models you mostly work with?
Yes, mostly Stradivari and Guarneri, although I occasionally make others. I've made Amati model violas and cellos, and here's my copy of a Sanctus Seraphin, a Venetian maker in the early 1700s. The associate concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony commissioned this copy in 1980. She owned the original Seraphin - once owned by the violinist Efrem Zimbalist - but needed an instrument she could take on tour and play in the outdoor summer concerts. She's since retired, and I have my instrument back on consignment. I also make copies of a fine Milanese viola that was in the shop - a Mantegazza. The model works well for clients who want a smaller viola with a unique voice.
The design for the most recent viola I'm making is essentially from a viola by Tomaso Balestrieri. This viola has a very classical, Cremonese look to it, almost Amati School , although Balestrieri was working in Mantua around the late 1700s.
How would you describe a Cremonese look?
It's a system of geometric design, proportion, modeling, and architecture common to the early Cremonese instruments. Looking at a Cremonese violin, you immediately notice the pleasing curves and balanced proportions. Amati, Guarneri, Stradivari, Ruggeri, and Bergonzi - they all used the same basic method of design, although each added their own variations.
How do you go about using an instrument as a model?
Take this Balestrieri. First, I analyze the outlines of its rib structure, back and top, and the placement of the f-holes. On a Cremonese instrument, the rib structure is built around a form [or mold] and the form is the geometry of the instrument. Here's an overlay of his f-holes, and see this inside line? That's the tracing of the rib structure. So this is how I think he may have designed his instrument. He created a proportional center that was 6 parts from the top edge and 7 parts from the bottom. The centers of the upper lobes [circular holes] of the f-hole falls on this curve, and the lower lobes fall on this arc; both are set measurements from the proportional center. Two interlocking circles form the upper bout and the two interlocking circles in the bottom bout form a common figure known to ancient Greek mathematicians as the "fish bladder" - the circumference of one circle passes through the center of the other circle. So I took the geometry of this instrument.
How did you get its geometry - by taking it apart?
No. I just traced the outlines onto paper and analyzed the curves. With a compass, you can find the centers of the arcs, and it turns out they're all related to each other, and also to the placement of the f-holes. I wanted to make a smaller viola, so once I'd worked out Balestrieri's geometry on paper, I reduced the size of the model simply by changing the spacing of the legs of my measuring dividers. I also changed a few minor details - the curvature here of the corners, making them not quite so tight, to give more of an Amati feel, a more gentle feel. And I put Amati f-holes on it, and an Amati scroll. That's my pattern for a viola. So I started with one instrument's design, took its basic geometry and proportion, reduced its size, then modified it by doing things in the Amati style.
You could do this kind of geometrical drawing for any instrument?
I try, often. Most great makers of the past, especially the early Italians, worked out designs for each of their instrument models. I've recently been studying the outlines of Stradivari cellos. Here are several outlines - each one a bit different. How do you decide what the right curve is? When I am designing a form, all these curves are very important, how you end up with them. It makes a huge difference in the sound.
[For the full text of this ten-page interview, with lots of technical information on violins and violin-making, subscribe to Fiddler Magazine!]
www.gussetviolins.com
[Ellen Hansen is a writer and fiddler living in Helvetia , Oregon .]
Grappling with Grappelli
By Peter Anick He was a self-taught fiddler who began by playing in courtyards and silent movie theaters. In his mid-twenties, he teamed up with another self-taught musician, Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, to form what was to become the most celebrated jazz band in Europe -- the Quintet of the Hot Club of France. Throughout a career that spanned most of the 20th century, he appealed to successive generations of music lovers with a style of jazz violin that was both hot and graceful, lyrical and carefree. Stéphane Grappelli's fiddling is so timeless that his earliest recordings with Django continue to inspire today's jazz and bluegrass violinists, both professionals and amateurs alike.
In this issue, we'll meet three contemporary jazz violinists who have "grappled" with Grappelli and have built careers continuing his legacy. Tim Kliphuis, who first stumbled upon a recording of Grappelli while a conservatory student in Holland , is now one of Europe 's top teachers of Grappelli-style violin. Evan Price, violinist with the Turtle Island String Quartet, listened to Grappelli recordings as a youngster and now savors playing the role of Stéphane in the Hot Club of San Francisco. Martin Weiss, a Sinti band leader from the same Gypsy clan as Django Reinhardt, learned to play "Gypsy jazz" in the traditional way -- by ear.
Whether you play by ear or by note, studied classical violin or learned via the "folk process," if you've ever listened to a Grappelli recording, you've probably been tempted to pick up a few tricks to add to your fiddling arsenal. So pop your favorite Grappelli disk into your CD player, rosin up your bow, and let's hear from three fine fiddlers as they pay homage to the violin legend that inspired them. [Ed. Note: Excerpts from two of these interviews reprinted here.]
Tim Kliphuis , Interview by Peter Anick
Dutch conservatory-trained violinist Tim Kliphuis (pronounced "clip house") has emerged as one of Europe 's top artists carrying on Grappelli's legacy. Emulating not only Grappelli's formidable technique but also his elegant tone and carefree spirit, Tim comes about as close as anyone to picking up where Grappelli left off. Like Grappelli, Tim established his reputation playing "Hot Club" music with top Gypsy swing guitarists before branching out to lead his own bands and explore other types of accompaniment.
In 2004, Djangofest Northwest producer Nick Lehr invited him to America to perform at the country's premier gathering of Django-philes held every fall outside of Seattle , Washington . In between sets with guitarists Angelo Debarre and Robin Nolan, Tim offered a workshop on Grappelli-style violin where he demonstrated that his skills as a pedagogue were equal to his facility with the bow. After listening to each student take a short solo, he zeroed in on one or two techniques to help that student improve his/her playing. So effective was he at picking out problems and explaining how to correct them that everyone's playing was noticeably better by the time the workshop broke up a few hours later.
In this interview, conducted just after the workshop, Tim recounts his own musical education and shares some of his many insights about swing fiddling.
Tim: I was first trained classically. I was studying at the conservatory in Amsterdam , classical music only. During my first years there I discovered Grappelli. That was when I first discovered you could swing on the fiddle. I'd been playing bass guitar and guitar and singing a bit of rock 'n roll, a bit of "Grease," that kind of stuff before. So I knew what it was to improvise, but not on a violin. So that sort of connected improvisation and the violin. I formed a "Hot Club" band with the regular two guitars, solo guitar, violin, and bass. And we started studying the songs. And I started studying Grappelli's recordings. I dug out a lot of recordings and just wrote them out for myself and practiced the licks. So then, when I went into my last phase of conservatory, which was maybe five years later, I also took lessons from a saxophone player there in the jazz department. I fused the two things, classical and jazz music, in the conservatory for the first time. I had a Hungarian teacher, and the Hungarians are very much into an organic approach to fiddle, so that the technique that I learned from him was the technique I use in jazz. But it's also a technique that's used in classical music.
What was it about that approach that made it work with jazz?
Jazz is a lot about accents. When you play notes in jazz, you have to play accents to make it swing. You highlight several notes. And this way of playing accents is not used in classical music. Nevertheless you can make the accents using a classical technique -- in the classical term, martelé. You make a small explosion and you let the bow go. It's one of the first techniques you learn when you are playing the violin and you are being classically trained. But this technique you could use when you are playing jazz. Basically, you are playing long legato strokes but there are accents in between. A continuous movement but with small accents. That's the style that Grappelli plays, and a lot of other jazz players, although Grappelli has the most legato feel, the most melodic feel. He's a very lyric player and he wants to play a melody of the song; he wants to improvise on the melody but always with a very classical, radiant tone.
So the martelé (bowing) is a classical technique, but applied differently to jazz.
In classical music you wouldn't have so many accents in a phrase. You'd just have the one accent, with the follow-up diminuendo. You'd never have the quickly repeated accents. [plays a quick jazz phrase] I used maybe seven, eight accents. But in classical music you'd maybe use one. And in classical music you'd apply it on the beat, on the first count of the bar. In jazz, you'd always play it on the second half of the first count or on the second count, because the idea of jazz is that the second and fourth beats are accented. The afterbeat is more important than the downbeat. That's what gives swing. When you are phrasing eighths, you'd accent every second one.
You had formed a Hot Club band and then at some point, you got involved playing with actual Gypsies. Did you find there was a difference? Did you have to change your style to fit it or did it fit right in?
They play in the style I was trying to learn, because they were also my examples. And I'm talking about Fapy Lafertin, who is maybe the eldest of the new generation of Gypsies that have come after Django from the 1970s on. He was doing this at the same time that Grappelli was rediscovered in the 1970s when Diz Disley in London took a chance and got Grappelli out of a hotel in France where he was just playing the piano. They got him back on the violin again and it just sort of exploded. He was an instant hit with the old audiences who knew Django. But also the young audiences who were into folk music at that time. Long-haired teenagers dug Grappelli, this old guy who was playing swing on a folk instrument. So he connected. But Fapy was living in Holland , so he was our living example of what the style was. I was listening to his recordings with different violinists. When Fapy asked me to come and play with him in 1999, I was basically ready for it, because I had been preparing his repertoire and his style. Playing with anyone live is a totally different experience from listening to the CD. So then I learned what his music was about -- a lot of melody; telling a story, not just swinging; dynamics, playing loud and playing soft. And especially the soft part is the most interesting part in a concert. That was my first big influence when I'd learned to play the basics of the style. So that got me on a different level.
How much of that did you figure out on your own? Did you actually discuss it with him or other members of the band?
Fapy and I have discussed music but it was more face to face. He was asking me what kinds of things I learned at the conservatory, classical stuff. And I was asking him about one certain run or chord progression. But mostly I learned just playing with him and discovering what he did with the audience and what worked and what didn't. And that's the only way of learning. All the old jazz cats, they just learned from their masters, accompanying them -- about playing in public, how you play for an audience, how you swing. And then they had their groups and the guys in their groups learned from them. It's a thing that's given through the generations.. So I had sort of non-formal training, playing with these good Gypsy guys. Not only Fapy Lafertin but also Angelo Debarre. He's one of the best as well. And the other side was I learned how to teach and how to talk about things in my classical training..
Let's talk a little bit about how people might go about trying to play this style. You mentioned the kind of accents that Grappelli used, but what are the other kinds of things that really make Grappelli's style what it is and separate from all the others?
I was talking to (guitarist) Bucky Pizzarelli about this. The great thing for Grappelli was that he was playing the tunes, the melody. And he was improvising but always with the melody in the back of his head. Always try to have people relate to the melody, because that's what they know. They don't know about chords. They don't know about improvising. But they do know about swing, because that's a thing they can feel. And they do know about the melody of the song. Like "Night and Day," for instance; it was sung by Ella Fitzgerald and everybody knows the lyrics and the tune. That's what you should relate to. And that was one of Grappelli's biggest characteristics. He was a big hit because of that. There are not many players doing that. All the modern jazz players are concerned about harmony and innovation. They are not playing tunes, so they don't have a big audience.
So that's the first thing Grappelli had. He played the melody. He's lyric. He's playing in a basically classical way by trying to make phrasing. Finishing the phrases with a logical end. And, of course, you have the accents. He uses accents a lot in his playing, which makes it swing. Another thing is he doesn't use a lot of bow. It's around here (the top third of the bow), so his timing is most of the time absolutely fantastic. Because he has a great command of the bow. He'd often suggest notes by playing "ghost" notes. You play the notes but very softly so you nearly don't hear them, and people hear the run because they hear the notes you suggest. But you are not playing them loud. You play the same run but without emphasizing some notes; you're brushing them under the carpet. He knew how to do that. He used as little bow action as possible with as big a result as possible. Maximum result with minimum of energy. He was always on the string, so he was never out with his time.
Another thing which makes him a very classical player is the intonation. He has a good intonation. Not Gypsy intonation, which is different. It's not bad but it's different. Grappelli had classical intonation and a great vibrato. He would play (his long notes) with a really big vibrato, which would make it very hot music. Because vibrato creates a bit of tension and a bit of excitement.
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[Tim will be offering four swing violin clinics at the Django in June Festival in Northampton , Massachusetts , June 16-18, 2006. Info: http://djangoinjune.com .]
[For the full text of this interview, as well as an interview with Martin Weiss, subscribe to Fiddler Magazine!]
Evan Price , Interview by Peter Anick
The first time I saw Evan Price (though I didn't know him at the time) was at a Stéphane Grappelli show in Worcester , Massachusetts . The maestro had invited several Berklee violin students to join him onstage for "Lady Be Good," and it was Evan's triple violin arrangement that they performed. I only learned this fact years later when Evan and I were comparing Grappelli photos and realized that we had both taken our pictures the same day.
Nowadays, violinists are more likely to recognize Evan as a member of the Turtle Island String Quartet than as a Gypsy jazz fiddler, but that awestruck student who nearly ten years ago improvised under the watchful eye of Monsieur Grappelli has become one of the leaders of the current string swing revival. As the violinist in the Hot Club of San Francisco, he combines the grace and warmth of Grappelli with a creative flair that draws from the entire history of jazz. In this interview, we delve into Evan's incredibly eclectic musical history and ponder what it was that made Stéphane Grappelli's playing so special.
What was the musical environment that you grew up in?
.[My parents] gave me a violin when I was eight. I think I saw some Suzuki kids playing on TV, all standing in perfect rows and moving in unison and having a smile for the camera, so it looked like a good time. So I started doing that.
My dad was interested in other kinds of music. He was a lover of traditional jazz and collected sheet music and tried to play it. So as soon as I started playing the violin, he bought a Quintet of the Hot Club of France record, an LP reissue, in the hope that I might take to that and start to enjoy jazz. Which I did, although it took me a while to understand it. I was immediately just floored by that incredible flurry of notes, that virtuosity and the suaveness of it. So refined, it seemed like something that normal humans would never be able to do. So that became a de facto goal for me.
.When I was in high school I was lucky enough to get hooked up with a gentleman from Russia who was in his early nineties at the time. Everybody called him "Mr. B." He gave me free harmony lessons every week for about two years. He gave me the foundation of western classical harmony, which enabled me to test out of a year and a half of college theory.
College being Berklee at that time?
No, that was the Cleveland Institute of Music, where I changed my major to theory after a while. Partly because I wasn't interested in playing a lot of the classical repertoire. It was very technique-oriented and I was more interested in the big picture. After I went to Berklee, I got my first jazz harmony lessons. That was basically the same thing; it was just a matter of learning a new nomenclature for the same harmony.
What came after Berklee?
As soon as I was out of Berklee, Darol Anger decided he would be leaving Turtle Island . Under the guise of looking for a sub, he called and asked me to send him a tape. Supposedly they heard my tape and it was not long after that Darol announced that he was quitting and said, "Guys, you're in good hands." Apocryphal or not, that's the story. They scheduled me for an audition/rehearsal/performances in San Francisco . And after our first performance or something, they offered me the job. So I moved out here in '97.
And when did you hook up with the Hot Club of San Francisco ?
A year after I had moved out here, Jeremy Cohen called me at the last minute to sub for him at a gig with [guitarist] Paul Mehling and I thought it was instant synergy with Paul. First of all, I'd listened to all those Django records since I was a kid and I'd never met anybody who had so assimilated that sound. As Paul says, "Well, we had the same record collection. What can you do?" [laughs] So he started calling me for Hot Club gigs - it's been fun.
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So in a sense, through your father's influence, you were really headed toward jazz violin from the start. And Grappelli was the first violinist you heard, other than classical.
Yeah, he was one of the first violinists, period. It was the Suzuki tapes that I was supposed to be listening to from age eight, and then immediately it was Grappelli, every time he was on TV -- that was in the late '70s, early '80s -- he was quite visible at the time. It was years later that I realized that my concept of sound, no matter what music I'm playing, came from being exposed to that. People who have commented about my playing to my face will usually say something like, "You sound like somebody from the '30s." Like there's something untimely, I suppose, about my concept of sound. Which I attribute to that.
What is it about that style that you seem to have gotten down? For Gypsy jazz guitar, there are these elements about how to approach the instrument, hold the pick, do these specific things. With the violin, I suspect you have to approach the instrument the way Grappelli did to get that sound. Havae you thought through that at all?
I haven't, but thanks for asking. [laughs] The things people talk about are the vibrato [plays some examples]. He has a sort of thrilling, fast vibrato. It's a French sound. There's a certain thread to be followed between Django's vibrato and Edith Piaf's vibrato. I was just listening today to Gus Viseur on accordion. He has that sort of tremolo, which is that same breathless drama sort of thing. And Grappelli has the same thing. There's a Frenchness to it, something they like about an almost bleeding sound.
Did Grappelli use different vibratos at different times?
He played certain notes without vibrato. He had an extremely accurate ear for intonation. You almost never hear him play anything out of tune. Being a very sensitive musician, he would not play a note unless he could make it count, make it ring. [plays a note, letting it trail off gently] He might choose to let [a note] ring with no vibrato at all and then feather it off a little bit at the end, manipulating the edge of the knife of being in tune. And that's the root of his expressiveness, I think. When you hear him play ballads, particularly in his later material, he'll do everything at the tip with a feathery. [plays some examples]. It's about the gut-wrenching power of scooping into a note. It's because it's not quite in tune that it carries with it some drama. And then when it resolves.
So he's sliding into notes.
Yeah, but to a much lesser degree than people often assume. People who try and fail to imitate him, like I just did, will overdo those things. I think he liked things to be beautiful and to be in tune. That's partly the key to why he does the multiple repetitions of a single note. [plays a phrase in which the last note is repeated several times] He's finding it, you know, and there's embedded in that some tension which he can therefore resolve. He's a master at manipulating that tension and resolution.
What are some other aspects of his style?
We could talk about his improvisational language, if you'd like. The one time in my life that I actually did a fairly detailed study of the man was a couple of years ago. I was getting ready to do this Grappelli tribute show. And I prepared that "My Sweet" solo and a couple other solos, but I was going to improvise my way through the rest of it and I wanted to really evoke that sound as much as possible. And it's not that hard except I've also now been influenced by Stuff Smith and Svend Asmussen to equal degrees. And so I had to figure out how to leave those things out. So it's easier to figure out those aspects of my playing that are not Grappelli, because I came to them later. There are certain things that Svend would do. [plays a Svend solo] He was much hipper in an arpeggiated way. And of course Stuff [Smith] has a very different grip and a very heavy bow hand. Completely opposite, a slow and heavy bow hand. More like Ben Webster, with a growl that he interjected; he had a lot of "vvrooomm" in his sound. Stuff was thinking like an entire big band.
He led a big band for a while.
Sure, he was totally immersed. And that's what came out, that whole orchestrational palette.
So that's what isn't Grappelli. Okay, so in terms of what is.
Also, having studied bebop, there are ways of getting up and down a scale that are more circuitous. Grappelli would just play a scale and he would get from one end of his fiddle to the other in very short order. And that's thrilling. It's the "get a lot of bang for your buck" style. It's the pop music era of jazz..
How about differences between early Grappelli and '70s Grappelli?
I know some people tend to think very clearly in terms of the first half of his career and the second half of his career. I don't think of it that way. I think he was able to react, being a great musician, to his rhythm section pretty well. And rhythm sections changed tremendously, and recording technology changed a lot. In the thirties, you can hear, he has a somewhat grainier, more fiddle-y sound. [plays Grappelli's solo from a Hot Club Quintet recording of "Lady Be Good" that also included solos by violinists Michel Warlop and Eddie South] I love that solo so much. Grappelli is just perfectly balanced, so cool, so locked in with the rhythm section. He's unflappable. There's this poise in all that he does and it's very smooth. It has a very sax-like quality to me. It's just perfectly in the pocket. Then you hear Eddie South, who is instantly recognized as this more refined violinist, more highly trained, whose sound is more commanding. You can almost hear that he's the elder statesman, that he's the big star, because of the way he comes in. He's very flippant and takes a lot more chances. He's even more at ease in his own skin. That to me is very telling, because it sounds like Grappelli was this strange new animal which was a French fiddler who played with Gypsies.
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Hot Club of San Francisco : www.hcsf.com
Turtle Island String Quartet: www.tisq.com
[For the full text of this interview, and Evan's three-violin arrangement of "Lady By Good," subscribe to Fiddler Magazine!]
Notes En Route : A Fiddle Contest in Southern Colorado
By Howard Marshall
One of the nicer regional old time fiddle festivals and contests takes place in one of the nicer places to visit on a summer weekend -- Cañon City , Colorado . In the Pikes Peak region south by west of Denver and Colorado Springs , Cañon City is a historic mile-high Western town in the sparse, transitional landscape where the high mountain cattle ranches, ski areas, trout streams, and hiking trails drop down through narrow foothill canyons before opening out into the low country and Great Plains . This is Royal Gorge terrain. The Gorge itself is an impressive natural area featuring the world's highest suspension bridge and steepest incline railway. The bridge crosses the Arkansas River, vital in the pioneer days a century and a half ago, that carves out of the Rocky Mountains and straightens as it heads east into Kansas , on its way to drain into the Mississippi River in eastern Arkansas .
Cañon City is one of the principal annual fiddlers' contests and festivals in the southern Colorado and northern New Mexico region. The contest is part of a weekend craft show and community festival in Veteran's Park sponsored by the local Kiwanis Club. Held on July 23, 2005, the contest was the 16th annual "Fiddlers Along the Arkansas Old-Time Fiddle Competition." .
The Friday jam session was a good way to meet people and experience the festival, as well for fiddlers to try out tunes they might offer up to the contest audience and judges on Saturday. One of the challenges for a stranger alone at a session or contest is simply being a stranger. An important benefit of being there for the jam session before the contest is being able to locate a suitable and hopefully sympathetic accompanist. In my case, I was spotted on a park bench with my violin case and generously invited, sound unheard, to join the jam session. And once those dice are rolled, that's it, you are now part of the gang and you're in the event. Joining the Friday night jam gave me the chance to meet Larry and Sharon Hoots of Aztec, New Mexico . Sharon, an excellent backup guitarist, and her husband Larry, a fine fiddle player as well as guitarist, were willing to accompany me in the Saturday contest. Whew!
There is an endless spiral of debate across the continent about the good, the bad, and the ugly of fiddle contests. People have strong opinions about "contest fiddlers" as compared with dance fiddlers, jammers, show fiddlers, session fiddlers, kitchen fiddlers, and the like (wrongly assuming that a fiddler has to be one thing or the other). We also like to promote the glories and wonders of our personal favorite styles of fiddling.
But most of us who frequent fiddle contests are not there for fame or treasure (fleeting things that they are). We like contests because that's where fiddlers congregate. Many of us mortals do enjoy a dash of competition, too, whether seeing who has the "best" version of Benny Thomasson's or Mark O'Connor's or Tristan Clarridge's "Sally Johnson" on the platform -- or who plays the coolest or crookedest setting of a rare Appalachian tune. Contests also attract people who simply love playing this music.
Without contests, it would be difficult to locate venues where fiddlers gather to enjoy music and companionship. And, if we are lucky, the contest will include a friendly jam and perhaps even a square dance. Among the most valuable elements of fiddle contests for younger fiddlers is the chance to hang out with seasoned older players in the parking lot or behind the stage, whose personalities, life histories, tunes, and stories are the true lifeblood of old time fiddling.
At Cañon City , there are five age divisions of play: Junior I (1-11), Junior II (12-16), Adult I (17-34), Adult II (35-64), and Senior (65 and up). The division winners then compete for overall Champion and a winner-take-all added purse and trophy. Having five or more age divisions is a useful feature in a contest, in my opinion, because this encourages more fiddlers to participate. Most of the contestants here were from Colorado , with others coming from New Mexico , Arizona , Texas , and yours truly from Missouri . Fiddlers in the youngest division play two tunes. Others play three tunes: a hoedown/breakdown suitable for square dancing, a waltz, and a tune of their choice (other than another hoedown or waltz). As in most contests I know of, only two accompanists are allowed on stage.
This contest only offers three prizes and trophies in each division, which tends to diminish the number of fiddlers who choose to participate. Other contests, by comparison, offer five or seven (or even more) prizes in each division, and that encourages more fiddlers to take part. With gas prices and travel costs going up at an alarming pace, more fiddlers might participate if they thought they had a chance at "last place." The organizers might consider adding a few more prizes in the divisions in future contests, or they might present all contestants and accompanists with a bit of travel money or a meal ticket for the food concession. At Cañon City , a certificate of appreciation is presented to all contestants -- a welcome signal of thanks and hospitality that should be included at every contest, big or small.
There were about twenty-five youngsters in the two youth divisions, most of whom appeared to be here with their fiddle teachers. We are seeing an interesting trend across the country, where fiddle teachers who actively work with youngsters accompany their students to contests, and, in some cases, drill them for their brief contest performances and even provide guitar backup in the contest. Some of the teachers compete in the contest as well. As with many contests, it is great to see increasing numbers of very young fiddle players, the majority of whom are girls.
On an international scale, this great flotilla of fiddle schools, teachers (many with classical training), and highly skilled young students is amazing to see. It is especially impressive to those of us who grew up in the 1950s and early 1960s (when fiddling was at a low ebb in many areas), with no violin teachers, no Suzuki classes, no fiddle camps, no self-teaching aids or Internet sites, and in many cases with little support for a young person who wanted to learn to play a fiddle.
To be fair, many of us old coots were fortunate to have a fiddler in the community -- and we also had radio programs and Tommy Jackson records to inspire us. The effects good or ill of those AM radio shows beamed in from Nashville, Chicago, and DelRio, Texas, and those commercial fiddle records is a topic all its own. So, knowing that "all is change," the future for old time fiddling seems quite secure, with an army of youngsters working with contest champions, fiddle teachers, and tune books. But I hope the future is equally bright for the fiddler whose goal is to make people want to dance at the local hall or to entertain neighbors at the annual church picnic or applefest.
The three judges were seated in front of the audience, facing the stage. Other contests, like the Weiser, Idaho 's version of a U.S. national contest, sequester judges in a remote location, where the fiddlers are announced by number and the fiddling is heard through loudspeakers; the judges supposedly do not know who is playing and this is thought to be a more fair judging setup. I have found that, in judging some big contests in remote settings, judges rather easily recognize the tunes and stylistic nuances of fiddlers they know. But I'm all for any devices that can attempt to make contests more fair, even while we all know that judging is a subjective and imperfect business. But that is another feature of contests that draws fervently held opinions: the traditions and goals of judging. The judges here included a seasoned senior old time fiddler as well as younger contest fiddlers, and they were seated in separate locations along the front row.
One feature here was the fact that the judges seemed to be separated from the fiddlers by an invisible wall, with little or no contact or collegiality with the contestants. In Missouri , we have a much more friendly (looser?) scene where the judges are more part of the dynamic event, visiting and jamming with fiddlers, playing on stage in the jam sessions, and the like.
The fiddlers I hang out with tend to believe that there will always be plenty of audiences and dancers ready to circle up and swing their partners for those people who aren't interested in the rarefied contest scene. I remain confident -- though others are not -- that many different regional and community styles of fiddling will continue to thrive right alongside, if often in the shadow of, the non-regional, national fiddle styles that bag the top prizes in famous venues like Galax, Virginia, Athens, Alabama, Hallettsville, Texas, Weiser, Idaho, and Red Bluff, California (in Canada, such venues as Shelburne, Nepean, and Pembroke, Ontario). And yet, to answer my own question earlier, at this fiddlers' contest in Colorado in July 2005, the vast majority of what we heard was the familiar set of contest tunes played in "national contest" (a.k.a. Weiser) fiddle and guitar styles.
I also suggest that the many varieties of accompaniment in fiddlers' contests will find ways to endure, despite the influences of just one or two "correct" ways to play guitar for a fiddler. For example, here in Cañon City, Colorado, as in many fiddle contests in the Western U.S.A., the dominant guitar backup style might be called "swing," "Texas swing," "sock chord," "closed-chord," and even "jazz." Other styles of backup continue to be important, such as open chord (straight chord) guitar styles more common back East. And for those of us who enjoy fiddling with an old time piano player or subtle banjo, we can't take time here to even hint at the matter of the appropriateness of other instruments in fiddle contests.
In addition to the nicely-run fiddle contest on Saturday, the "Fiddlers Along the Arkansas" is a community-wide event, featuring a large and diverse craft show, with dozens of tents filling the park. The Kiwanis men show they can cook by offering an excellent short-order menu. One of the unanticipated side benefits of the location in Cañon City is the railroad tracks running a few yards behind the band shell. The festival was punctuated with the sounds of an excursion train as it carried tourists back and forth from the old station through the canyon to the Royal Gorge a few miles west. Having played at venues where the fiddlers were set up next to tractor pulls, demolition derbies, Civil War cannon demonstrations, and diesel engine carnival rides, the occasional nostalgic blast of a train horn was just fine with me.
On Sunday morning, this festival, like many others, features an Old Time Gospel Hootenanny. The audience sings along with the help of songbooks provided by the Kiwanis Club. All but one or two of the fiddlers had left town, missing all this other music and experience. The music continues with jam sessions and performances, and the event winds down in the late afternoon.
I thoroughly enjoyed the event and the people I met in Cañon City . I hope to return next year for another dose of mountain air and fiddle music. It's only 800 miles from the farm. But maybe I'd better work on my "Sally Johnson."
For more information: www.fiddlersalongthearkansas.com ; Kiwanis Club of Cañon City, P.O. Box 182, Cañon City, CO 81215
[ Missouri fiddler and fiddle historian Howard Marshall is a retired University of Missouri professor who records and produces fiddle CDs with Voyager Records. His latest project is a two-CD reissue of Pete McMahan's 1970s LP records. Email: MarshallH@ Missouri.Edu]
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