| Chris Stout: Celtic Connections 2008 *** |
 |
 |
|
The name on everybody's lips at the end of Chris Stout's concert last Sunday was Ryan Young. This 17 year-old opened the concert with a remarkable unaccompanied set that held the audience entirely enthralled. The sight of this shy, awkward schoolboy-come fiddler in front of a room full of 800 people, was perhaps one of the best illustrations of the importance of Scotland's relatively new found ability to train its young people in the traditional arts. Young's overall mastery of his instrument was as consummate as any I have heard, young or old. Thankfully he is just about old enough to escape the albatross of 'child-prodigy' and will no doubt be in the ranks of Scotland's fiddle playing elite by the time he reaches 20. Emily Smith was not really to my taste. It was a case of all the right boxes being ticked but the overall experience lacking. Essentially I found that despite good musicianship, a good voice, and a good choice of tunes there was something that I look for in folk that was missing. It was angst. The songs, and this was particularly obvious with the self-penned songs she played, were all a bit too shiny and nice. 'Go to town' and another one about a 'room full of love' were too polished and had an overdose of the feel good and not enough of the spontaneity that I associate with a direct emotive performance. However her interpretation of the traditional 'Caledonia' demonstrated how the Emily Smith approach can work, but at the same time there was not enough grit and rawness in her performance to make it worthwhile. Chris Stout was as ever resplendent, and despite the numerous projects the man has been involved in his quintet is one of the most interesting and undoubtedly the best showcase of his musicianship. With Fraser Fifefield on saxophone Stout had an ideal partner to take off on brilliant improvisational flights with. At the same time the two instruments managed to amalgamate to a degree I had hardly thought possible, this combined sound provided an ideal vehicle for the re-interpretation of traditional tunes. Stout's ability to start off with a relatively simple reel and lightly lift it into the realms of experimentation and back again is seamless. It creates a musical experience that is both a thorough and unique take on the traditional, and at one with the contemporary. At several points the quintet are like a bunch of jazz musicians after hours, with all the enjoyment, spontaneity, and freedom of expression this suggests. However their music is fundamentally grounded in the traditional and therefore the archaic problems associated with improvisation is cancelled out. The Chris Stout Quintet is the most groundbreaking group working in Scotland today. |