f138 TOM FELDMANN
The Slide Guitar Of Muddy Waters Ste- fan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop
Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop has been producing and selling these instructional videos and DVDs by the bucketful for decades, and with good reason. Short of actually sit- ting in a one-to-one lesson with a top-class teacher, they represent the best method of learning the techniques of the old masters.
KILA Pota Oir Kila Records KRDVD003
Celebrating their thirtieth anniversary, Kila are something of a musical family that plays together which has endured through three decades of music. The original school band that stayed together from its roots in Coláiste Eoin in Stillorgan, Co Dublin – which itself was a hotbed of musical talent – the ensuing years have seen Kila pursue their own distinc- tive path in creating a personalised Celtic music which incorporates a widescreen vision on outside influences mixing and matching, with the results possessing an organic thread which endures.
Pota Oir, translated as Pot of Gold from the Gaelic, is shot in black and white and cap- tures the live experience that is Kila before an audience, with inserts from the band mem- bers. This live video documentary forms the basis of the making of their last album Kila Live, their best and most atmospheric live recording in their long career and typically featuring a commendable amount of new material, with occasional reprises of tracks from previous albums.
Using Gaelic lyrics almost exclusively, with the occasional English, song the mood is Celtic yet worldly and completely inclusive of outside stimuli. A euphoric live experience where the dance beats combine with chant- ed lyrics contrasted with a full-on bodily clasped onslaught of rhythmic dexterity, a Kila show is a whirlwind of emotion and cerebral exertion delivered with a communal tightness and fortitude that beggars belief and defies indifference. Pota Oir captures that sense of celebration and cerebral ener- gy. Here it is live and dangerous and in glori- ous black and white.
www.kila.ie John O’Regan
Tom Feldmann is a Minnesotan blues guitarist whose previous credits include instructional DVDs on the styles of blues big- hitters Bukka White, Charlie Patton, Skip James, Son House and Robert Johnson, whose styles he reproduces with uncanny accuracy. Feldmann reveals that his primary inspiration to play the blues came from hearing Muddy Waters, whose late 1940s and early ’50s repertoire (including I Can’t Be Satisfied and I Got My Mojo Working) is featured here.
Focusing primarily on open-G tuning, Feldmann utilitises an acoustic guitar throughout, with a glass bottleneck on his lit- tle finger. The minutiae of every riff, lick, slide and tremble are deconstructed and demonstrated in all their split-screen glory. over the best part of two hours. Those who (like this writer) don’t actually want to strive toward a perfect facsimiles of Muddy Waters but wish to improve and expand their vocab- ulary on the instrument will still find much of benefit in Feldmann’s clear instruction and enthusiasm. Both tablature and musical nota- tion are included as a PDF file on the disc.
guitarvideos.com Stephen Hunt RENÉ ZOSSO
Penser Modal, Une Approche Théorico- Pratique De La Modalité Occidentale MusTraDem MTD 1747
Have you ever wondered (as an enquiring and thoughtful listener, who believes that some understanding and insight will deepen the enjoyment of their music) what it is that makes folk music sound so exotic, strange or challenging to the ear – what separates it from the more formal kind of musical systems we have become immersed in, and that are established as ‘proper music’ (ie not of the folk)? It could be that you have become aware of the varied scales, or modes, found
in the melodies of much of the traditional music of these islands and of Europe.
René Zosso is not, strictly speaking, a folk musician: he is a Swiss musician and singer, a virtuoso on the vielle (hurdy gurdy) and a spe- cialist in mediæval music. In Thinking Modal, A Theoretical-Practical Approach To Western Modality he un-picks the structure of these ancient scales, and explains why and how the relationship of melody to drones (a continu- ing note or notes played throughout a piece – think bagpipes, five-string banjo et al) creates tension and release – the very essence of all music. In a fascinating four-hour course, given to a small but clearly dedicated audience, he talks, sings and plays to them, demonstrates to and involves them, through a kind of call- and-response, now la-la-ing, now singing the names of the notes of the mode, now putting that scale into the context of a song. You will want to join in with this ‘sing-along-a-mode’ section – I did! He shows how melody serves the text in ‘telling the story of the song’, and his consummate knowledge and dedication are awe-inspiring.
The DVD has English subtitles, and there are bonuses: René talking more informally about his life and music, and details about accessing the notations of the musical exam- ples used in the film. Now in his 80s, he has been awarded a Coup de Coeur Musiques du Monde 2018 by l’Académie Charles Cros for this work, which also, incidentally, was in part produced by Evélyne Girardon, herself a superb singer and one-time student of this extraordinary man.
mustradem.com/boutique/en/ Sandra Kerr JONI MITCHELL
Both Sides Now: Live At The Isle Of Wight Festival 1970 Eagle Rock Entertain- ment EREDVD1316
Assembled from the copious Message To Love footage and a 2003 interview, Both Sides Now provides both audience and performer’s view of the extraordinary events of Saturday 29th July, 1970.
We see Joni Mitchell arriving at an Isle Of Wight Festival running hours behind sched- ule and under-equipped to cope with the huge numbers of people present. She takes the stage, facing a sea of humanity like a rab- bit in the headlights.
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