My friend R came down and pulled me out to see Martin Hayes and Dennis Cayhill play Irish music. The last fiddler he took me to see was Ashley MacIsaac, a rough and angry authentic Cape Breton fiddler with a fiddle literally patched together with popsicle sticks and duct tape, who stomped on a board while he played these rousing lovely reels and jigs and kinds of tunes I don't know the names of. I was captivated.
These guys were totally different, in a way I don't have the words to describe. If Ashley MacIsaac was freckled boys tussling on a fall day with the smell of woodsmoke in the background, Martin Hayes and Dennis Cayhill are butterflies spiraling around one another in a breezy meadow of clover. No matter how fast the music got the fiddle never lost its sweetness and light grace. A completely different form of loveliness.
I've got lots of work right now and will be up late, and up early, but time with R is always a gift and the lilting music was a treat.
Comments