Sponsored by R.T. Shepherd & Sons
The Pipeline “
Chrismackenzie@hotmail.com
The Reverend is saying news travels fast around these parts” is a line from Local Hero, the brilliant Bill Forsyth film. In the film, “these parts” refers to a small highland village. Today it is tempting to think of the World as being the same as that small highland village, as news whips round the world at the click of a button and bad news travels even faster (it must be conveyed by the neutrinos that the Italians claim travel faster than light). So the chances are you heard of the death of PM Alasdair Gillies, at the far too early age of 47, shortly after it was announced on the 27th of August. I mention here, only a little for information (it is surprising the places the LT gets to) but more as a tribute to a man whose music brought me, and many others, tremendous enjoyment. Alasdair was a warm and kind person and you will have to walk far and wide to find anyone with a bad word to say about him.
His passion was of course the Great Highland Bagpipe and to say he mastered it is akin to saying the Stradivarius family could make violins. It’s true, but it completely misses the point. On the competitive scene if you can name it he won it, often so regularly (11 times winner of the Former Winners MSR at the Northern Meeting) that you wonder why others bothered to enter. When you think that Alasdair was competing against the likes of Roddy MacLeod MBE, Willie McCallum, Angus MacColl, Gordon Walker, Bill Livingstone, and Robert Wallace to name but a few, you begin to realize the competitive phenomena that was PM Alasdair Gillies.
The key to Alasdair’s success lay in the fact that not only was his technique flawless, but he lived and breathed the music, and was able to turn any tune into a treat for the listener. To hear Alasdair play a big MSR set was always a very enjoyable experience (whether he won or not – and he did more often than not) and one from which you could always take away a lesson on playing the music of the Great Highland
The Living Tradition - Page 66 by Chris MacKenzie
bagpipe. Of course Alasdair was so much more than just the competitive piper par excellence, and at recitals when he relaxed his music was simply stunning. Jigs, reels or hornpipes, it didn’t matter, Alasdair would play them all with a zest and vitality that lifted your spirits and made your day a better one. So comfortable was he with the music that tunes would morph from one time signature to another and then on to another without ever losing the essence of the original, but each step just upping the ante that little bit until the seemingly impossible was emanating from Alasdair’s bagpipe. Piping has lost one of its treasured sons but more importantly the world has lost a lovely man.
Surprisingly for one so talented, Alasdair didn’t make many recordings, but those he did are a very fitting tribute to his talent. If you don’t already have Lochbroom, his last CD, then you need to go out and get it now (does anybody go out to shop anymore?) This is simply a terrific CD and Alsadair’s playing will astound you and bring a smile to even the hardest of faces. One man, one instrument. Airs, psalms, jigs, strathspeys, reels, jigs, marches, hornpipes, piobaireachd and waltzs - they are all there and are all sublime. Another one to seek out is the Piping Centre recital series 1996 Vol 1 which features Alasdair in sparkling form and you get the bonus of a Jack Lee performance as well.
One of the last ventures Alasdair was involved with before his illness took hold, was that most audacious of ideas, The Spirit of Scotland Pipe Band. Organised by PM Roddy MacLeod MBE, the idea was to gather a collection of the world’s top pipers and drummers, that weren’t in a pipe band and bring them together one week before the world championships and try and make the grade one finals. So it was that one week before the 2008 championships pipers of the calibre of Willie MacCallum, Angus MacColl, Iain Spiers, Simon Mckerrell and of course Alasdair Gillies got together with a wean of talented drummers led by
John Fisher to see if they could make the grade. I doubt there has ever been a band with more gold medallists (11) in the ranks competing at the worlds.
The DVD, On The Day is director John Edward MacDonald’s recording of that week. It is full of delightful pen portraits of some of the band members and it captures the tension in both the practices and on the day, as the band attempt to make it out of the grade one qualifiers (note this is not easy – the 78th Fraser highlanders didn’t make it this year). The DVD has been out for a while now but a collector’s edition has now been released. Normally these are things to avoid, as the add-ons are very seldom worth the mark up. This is a different barrel of herring altogether.
The bonus DVD has some fabulous footage of Alasdair, Roddy et al playing at a concert in Washington, Stuart Samson MBE at the Basel tattoo, Euan McCrimmon playing Lament for the Earl of Antrim at the McCrimmon Memorial and sheet music with Roddy’s voice over on how he wants the band to play it. All that alone is worth the extra, but you also get a bonus CD that is absolutely cracking. It features previously unreleased performances from the band members, many recorded specifically for the CD (Alasdair’s two sets come from a Canadian recording in 2001). The whole thing is beautifully packaged and is truly a collector’s edition. You will come back to this again and again. A little slice of history has been preserved and some damn fine music served up along the way. Those in Scotland get to see how the band fare in a concert setting as the Spirit of Scotland are performing at the Celtic Connections piping concert in January.
On the subject of the World Pipe Band championships, the CDs of this year’s competition are now out so you can relive the day and marvel in the precision that is the Field Marshal Montgomery pipe band under PM Richard Parkes as they take the coveted Grade one title.
And now for something completely different … Lorcan Mac Mathuna is a young Sean Nos singer from Ireland and he has teamed up with Belgian piper and singer Raphael De Cock, uilleann piper James Mahon, Bouzouki player Lyon Connor and guitarist Joey Doyle to produce Northern Lights, an album that blends the Scandinavian and Irish traditions. Not I’ll admit the most inviting of concepts – an Irishman and a Belgian man play Scandinavian music, but that belies the talent that musicians on this album possess. The shared experience of man is the essence of this CD, and through their use of Swedish medieval murder ballads, Irish emigrant songs, and Norwegian walking dances amongst others, Lorcan, Raphael and the rest of the musicians create a wonderfully evocative ambiance that slowly draws you in deeper and deeper into the music, until you feel cosseted in the warm blanket of the sounds. Both Lorcan and Raphael possess remarkable voices and such is their affinity with each other and the music that their passion for the songs radiates from the recording. This is most evident on a beautifully simple, yet achingly moving rendition of Ardui Chuain, and as Lorcan’s resonant voice drifts over a vocal drone from Raphael and James, the despair of the exile and his desire to “die in Ireland” is laid bare in the most poignant of ways. You would need to be made of stone not to be moved by it. This is a large whisky, lights down low CD, that rewards repeated listening with new delights each time.
Lochbroom – Alasdair Gillies. McMeannma, SKYECD45 The Piping Centre 1996 Recital Series Vol 1. Temple Records, COMD2064
On The Day – The story of the Spirit of Scotland Pipe Band. John MacDonald Productions.
www.onTheDay.com The World Pipe Band Championships 2011 Parts 1 & 2. Monarch Recordings CDMON887/888
Northern Lights – Dubh Agus Geal. Lorcan Mac Mathuna, LMM011001
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