Colin Steele’s Stramash – Barony Hall, Glasgow: Live Review

By Seuras Og on 3rd February 2024 • ( Leave a comment )

Colin Steele @ Celtic Connections – Barony Hall, Glasgow – 1st February 2024.

Michty me! Crivens!! You will have to forgive me going the full Sunday Post, but this show exemplified, and some, the whole spirit and essence of Celtic Connections, the what and why, and the how to do it. I guess a bit like Su-a Lee, a couple of nights back, it is only through the imagination of the festival organisation that this was ever allowed to materialise, let alone storm the barn, what, 13 years on and after the initial release of the original groundbreaking recording. Groundbreaking? Entire geomorphing might be more like it, continental drift, all of that.

You need reminding? Colin Steele is the Miles Davis/Satchmo mixfit of Scottish music. Nominally jazz, but with that unmistakable big sky grasp, mountains and lochs, that cannot help but infuse through this otherwise transatlantic appropriation. There is an inherent mournful elegance in Scottish jazz, seeping in from history, a genetic memory of the mythical hinterlands of Alba. So, when Steele decided to go one, two steps further, and invite traditional folk and chamber classical into his bereted basement, he could sense where the joins might be. And none of your polite and bowdlerised claptrap either, no softening of the boundaries, no dilution of exuberance, pleasing only those of little heart or soul, at that. Stramash translates as a disturbance or racket, the sort of din that ears were invented for. (Yeah, can you tell, I’m a fan, the 2009 album, my album of that year and, then, later, of this century this far, seeing as you ask.)

But first, as a soft launch for this pandemonium, we were to get Gloriosa. A young trio of musical polymaths, adept across the ever-shifting landscapes of what might count as folk, Gloriosa are Laura Wilkie, Alice Allen and Joseph Peach, fiddle, cello and piano respectively, all with fingers in many a (scotch) pie, during even this last week or so; Wilkie with the Kinnaris Quintet, Alice Allen with just about everyone and Peach with Westward The Light. With a short set of tunes by Wilkie or Peach, this was definitely chamber folk territory, and the dramatic setting of this high roofed onetime church, and the sombre lighting, suited entirely their ambient mood, if also dwarfing them a little. Well-received, in truth it seemed a little too safe for the audience, wired up and awaiting for skronk ‘n’ skirl. Right place, wrong time, music for the latest of nights, earliest of mornings, the spaces between the notes there for reflection and possibly rueing.

Anticipation was palpably ramping as the auditorium/congregation swelled. With largely the same line-up as on the original recording, this was one of those planetary alignment moments that shouldn’t happen. Praise be they did, as on strode the band. With piano, tenor sax, double bass and drums on the one hand, the other hand dealt a string quartet and whistle/bagpipes. In the middle, the man with the golden trumpet, composer and frontman, Colin Steele. But with most these musicians giants in their own right, this warranted the roll call Steele first of all offered from the stage. Bandleader and arranger Dave Milligan was at the piano, with Steele’s regular bandmates Phil Bancroft, sax, Calum Gourley, bass, and Alyn Cosker, drums, holding the jazz candle, the strings coming courtesy Chris Stout, Seonaid Aitken, Patsy Reid and the powerful pocket dynamo of Su-a Lee, cellist supreme, herself still beaming from her own show a mere two nights back. Rory Campbell held the far right, doubling on low whistle and Scottish small pipes, the bellows driven variant.

Rather than play the album track by track, Steele led the band through the set from a different angle, bobbing between the expected running order, as well as introducing new pieces to this setting. Mesmerising from the start, it was hard to know where to direct your eyes and ears. The first two tracks were actually chronologically correct, the delicious piano and strings sweeping their melodies up into the proscenium, ahead Bancroft blowing in some mellow subtext, before passing the mantle to Steele, the first blasts of his horn a triumphant volley. Apologising for the unimaginatively entitled Steele’s Reels, this was unnecessary, as they delivered exactly what was on the tin, the rousing fiddle orchestra heuching away with abandon, the drums a cross between strict pipe band discipline and a looser wristed clatter, all the others joining in to add to the glorious cacophony.

A new tune, commissioned by or for Arbroath jazz festival followed, a town, oddly, that then seemed to feature a fair old bit, and showed the gift for this fusion remained undimmed. Album closer, A Wee Prayer, followed, with its stonking cello and viola start, before the two violins entered the fray, with Steele’s addition of clarion clear trumpet swooningly good. Aitken, as well as playing for the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, a radio broadcaster with a jazz programme, speed dial string arranger for any number of cross-genre musical acts, she also has quite a penchant for gypsy swing, this being her moment to interpolate some of that into the show. Given she is seldom if ever second string, Stout generously allowed this, ahead of demonstrating, with some effortless folk-jazz flourishes, why, tonight, he was first fiddle. Campbell, his whistle sometimes shadowed within the dense hedge of sound, probably a gorse hedge, then got his elbow into moving the bellows some, for some resplendent pealing of his pipes.

Another Arbroath commission came next; is there something we should know? This was interspersed with further selections from the original album, made all the more entertaining by Steele’s description of the week, or was it a fortnight, spent on Islay, so as to come up with all the ideas and inspiration. Unsurprisingly, late nights, weather and whisky made each an appearance, actually several. There came then a more serious moment, as Steele, by way of introduction, passed comment as to how some folk found the next tune somewhat familiar, indeed suggesting that some felt it sounded like the theme from the Simpsons, and how that both upset and offended him. Pause for broad smile. And of course, it didn’t sound anything at all like that. (Yes it did, for it was, and it was bloody perfect, the ten people present all chucking themselves about, with gusto, into the extemporised jam around that melody, even down to Lisa’s (Bancroft’s ) free-form skronking at the end.

The hall then filled with dust and irritants, I am presuming, for Fairwell To Islay, the blisteringly emotional bagpipe and trumpet duologue that is a highlight of the recording, if not the highlight. Yes, reader, I wept, such was the bloodrush to my soul. With a mute on his horn, the sounds batted between Steele and Campbell were just glorious. Now, at the end of the evening, it was becoming hard to remember quite whether any powder may still yet be dry, such had been this roller coater through the repertoire. My brother, more a jazz buff than I, by any reckoning, was agog at all the snippets of influence and reference, forever sneaking in, hearing Ellington in there, some Louis Armstrong, some country bluegrass hoedown, all alongside all else mentioned.

My bad, I realise now how little mention I have given to Milligan, who administered a masterclass of piano calisthenics, on several extended opportunities. If sometimes jazz piano gets a bad name for a lack of tune or for being disjointed, go listen to his disabusing that cliche of prejudice. (Here’s a good start.) But, yes, there was still one left, for an encore, the, or so he said, appropriate to him entitled The Bletherer. With another chance for all to shine, the duelling fiddle off between Stout and Aitken was a wonder to behold and enjoy. Probably a score draw on reflection.

What a wonderful, wonderful evening. I am pleased to see and note the tentet are not done or dusted, with further shows of their renaissance planned. Bravo! But it wasn’t, actually, the end of the evening, not if there were tickets to be had for the Drygates late-night session, and there were. Peeling off from big bro, I hurried down and around the hill, where a fresh audience was gathering, libating themselves of the brewery finest, whilst the room was being prepared. Some I recognised from the show before, some from others earlier in week, a camaraderie building.

Prompt on 11, on marched an excited Hannah Rarity, although this gifted singer was on only MC duties the night. (Pity!) First on was Gordie Tentrees, someone I have previously spurned as too much showbiz hokum. Wrongity wrong. Accompanied tonight by regular sidekick, Jaxon Haldane, on cigarbox guitar, doubling as lap steel, musical saw and banjo, this Canadian’s gruffly infectious vocals and harmonica were just the tonic to revive any sag in my step, his own sixstring and resonator just what I needed.

My neighbour was then telling me, in the short gap, how good had been Kathryn Tickell at her earlier visited show, so, colour me shocked, surprised and grateful for what came next, as Tickell and band, The Darkening, entered stage left, all grinning like loons. Four tracks from the excellent album, Cloud Horizon, followed. We got all the stage favourites, Amy Thatcher’s clogging, Josie Duncan’s harp and enthusiasm and the wah-wah of Kieran Szifris’s octave mandolin. Tickell mainly piped, but switched to fiddle for a rousing finale. Job done!

Pine Tree Fliers, new to me, come from New England. But this was a New England abundant with music from the old country, or countries, with Celtic tunes blurring into French-derived roots, sort of à la Quebecois, traditions that grew up and to the far left of the state. Guitar, fiddle (and podorythmie, if you have been keeping up with my week here), accordion and electric piano made for a party hoedown feel. What could possibly top this?

Only bloody Will Pound and, hardest working woman in Scottish music, Jenn Butterworth! This duo is nothing short of phenomenal, Pound’s harmonica and melodeon seeming beyond any actual human capability. And Butterworth, well, if you ever think of acoustic rhythm guitar as just rhythm guitar again, you for sure were not paying enough attention. The connection between the two players is immense, to the extent you would think they had a single shared nervous system, such was the instinctive synchronicity of play. I was pleased and honoured to gift Butterworth, at the end, with a ceremonial ATB badge, to acknowledge her hard-earned position.

The witching hour long gone, it was finally down to another new-to-me band. Fresh from a Mardi Gras show elsewhere, this six-piece was able to display how Acadian become Cajun, and back again. Acadia? Every day a school day, part of the colony of New France on the eastern Canadian seaboard, it was from there the Louisia Cajuns came from. This lot, with their heady mix of melodeon and fiddle, together with a rock rhythm section, picked the tradition right back up again, from the southern state swamplands, replaying it perfectly. In French, bien sûr! Perfect late-night dancing and drinking music, and the hall was alight with their passion. Whilst the melodeon of Jesse Mae and fiddle of Justin Doucet (any relation, I wonder, to David, of BeauSoleil?), drew most attention, the swift and intricate guitar play of Patrick Dugas, not in shot, drew some comparison to a young Jerry Donahue, looking also disarmingly like a younger version of the erstwhile Fairport guitarist. 30 minutes and off. Teriffic. Knackered.

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