True confession - I don't like Irish piano. It's almost always either this really clunky, corny, boom-chuck Ceili style with zero subtlety, or it's overly ornate and new age, recorded in an echo chamber with fake strings. About two weeks ago, I played a concert at the Cellar Stage in Baltimore with a group of locally-based musicians on the trad. Irish scene. For some reason I had never before played with pianist Donna Long, who has been in the area for about twenty years and who performed for several years on the national circuit with Cherish the Ladies. After hearing Donna, I am going to have to revisit my position on Irish music + piano.
I knew Donna was really tasteful at backing tunes, but I'd only really ever heard her in sessions and had never heard her solo. For her solo spot in this concert, she chose one of my favorites, an O'Carolan tune called "Bridget Cruise", which I knew from the late Derek Bell's solo harp album. It's a stately, elegiac piece that is so perfectly composed that it almost plays itself. Donna's interpretation was innovative but respectful, with subtle jazz inflections and impressionistic touches. I knew from that one tune that I would love her CD,
Handprints, and I got one that night. I have since listened to it dozens of times.
She is a virtuouso. She obviously has had "legit" training - she plays with a sure touch, sensitivity and clarity that belies years of scales, Hanon, and other forms of torture, no doubt. It's tricky, playing this music and interpreting it in a way that is individual yet within the tradition. In some musicians the urge to innovate leads to experimentation that is forced and downright
silly . Donna's approach reminds me instead of one of my favorite Irish musicians - Chicago fiddler
Liz Carroll. Both musicians have a way of breaking down a tune and polishing it until every melodic and harmonic possibility that was already there is made to shine, rather than superimposing arbitrary flourishes for the purpose of showing off. I was just thinking that Liz and Donna would make a fantastic dream team, when I opened the booklet and read the liner note 'essay' - which was written by none other than Liz Carroll
While known as a great accompanist of Irish dance music, on this CD Donna plays melody on all of the tunes, which is fairly uncommon for a pianist. Irish tunes are intricately melodic, and the piano doesn't easily lend itself to the requisite triplets (hitting the same note rapidly several times in a row) and other forms of ornamentation commonly used in Irish tunes. I've heard other recordings by musicians who play jigs and reels on atypical instuments - Dick Gaughan's
Coppers and Brass on guitar is one - and my reaction is, okay, you did it, so what? It's more like an athletic activity just to show you can . Donna, by contrast, slows down the jigs and reels to a heartbeat and lets them breathe. Her readings of chestnuts like the "Blarney Pilgrim." the "Banshee" and the "Pinch of Snuff" seem to tell stories, and remind the listener why these tunes are classics. She seems to gravitate toward tunes that are slightly melancholy, which is probably why they happen to be some of my favorites, like the hornpipe "Jackie Tar" and "Maguire's March".
Where Donna really blossoms, though is on the airs. The aforementioned money song, "Bridget Cruise," is on this disk and is breathtaking. On the "Lark in the Clear Air," she channels
Bill Evans from his "Live at the Village Vanguard" era. I can practically hear the glasses clinking at the tables. Like Evans, Donna uses colors from the French impressionist palette to dazzling, hypnotic effect.
She saves the best piece, her original composition, "Luna" for last. On this piece she is joined by Billy McComiskey on button accordion and Liz Knowles on fiddle and viola. The tune brings out the best in all three players, as each takes a turn at the melody while the others weave in and out, with all three breathing as one. This is an instant classic. It's one of those mournful, achingly gorgeous melodies with an epic quality that should land it a feature as the soundtrack for an Oscar winning film.
You can hear samples from this recording (and buy it) at Donna's CDBaby Page
here.
posted by Lisa #
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