Music
Jenna Reid & Kevin Mackenzie, Edinburgh Folk Club
Rob Adams
FOUR STARS
The great duos in traditional music - Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill, Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas, to name but two - have a special understanding. It might materialise in a spark that one can ignite in the other or an understated accompaniment that makes a melody really sing. And there was something of both of the aforementioned partnerships in Shetland fiddler Jenna Reid's playing here with that marvellous guitarist for all sessions, Kevin Mackenzie.
Mackenzie often underplays to let Reid's exuberance and passionate expression of a slow air shine, at which times he is the Cahill to her Hayes, but he can also, and with apparent effortlessness, match her on the hair-pin bends of James Scott Skinner's most devilish creations and on the hornpipe Princess Beatrice he produced some wonderful Peerie Willie Johnson-esque swinging cheek to lift an already fizzing fiddle demonstration into another exhilarating gear.
Reid's value as a performer lies in the fact that she isn't just playing the notes, be they many or more sparing. She knows their providence and her modestly phrased revelations that the composer of a tune was the guy who taught the guy who taught her somehow enrich what happens when bow touches string. She also brings her own personality and understanding to everything she plays, so a Cape Breton march or a Donegal reel will emerge with a marked Shetland accent and the unfettered vigour that gives her strathspeys such bounce will contrast with the sweet soulful longing she expresses on her mentor, Willie Hunter's Leaving Lerwick Harbour and the dignified sincerity with which she delivers Niel [correct spelling] Gow's beautiful lament for his second wife.
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