"Just a Knockout!"
Recordings featuring Dave MacIsaac

by Steve Winick

Dave MacIsaac, who won this year's East Coast Music Association awards as both Male Artist and Instrumental Artist of the Year, has been featured on countless albums of all kinds of music. An instrumental alchemist, he has an uncanny ability to extract beautiful aspects of different styles of music and then combine those qualities into new sounds. In the Celtic field especially, he's highly regarded as both a soloist and a sideman. Here are a few of the albums he's been on lately.

First and foremost there's MacIsaac's latest solo album, Nimble Fingers [02-50399 (1995)]. The 1996 ECMA winner for Celtic album of the year, this gem shows off all of MacIsaac's talents in Celtic music. The opening track begins as a gentle piece of jazz, but soon segues into three reels, picked out by MacIsaac on a Fender Telecaster. Think of a Jerry Donahue-era Fairport Convention with a jazzier groove, and you'll have an idea of this track. The next few cuts put MacIsaac through his paces on acoustic guitar, fiddle, mandolin and bottleneck Dobro. Several cuts on this disc come as close as anything I've heard to marrying rhythm and blues with Celtic music. A pair of Neil Gow's tunes played on the Dobro effect a similarly seamless joining of Celtic and country. For people who prefer a more traditional sound, there are really beautiful acoustic guitar solos - MacIsaac's tone and his feel for the tunes are unmatched - and some great fiddle music as well. MacIsaac's talented accompanists, pianist Tracey Dares, bass player Allie Bennett and drummer Dave Burton, are surefooted and sensitive to the music's needs. In all, this shows an astonishing talent at its best.

Scott Macmillan, one of MacIsaac's best friends from way back in high school, has also gone on to be an influential musician-explorer on the Halifax scene. Macmillan, whose most famous project to date was Celtic Mass for the Sea, has also accomplished many other milestones and set many standards in Nova Scotia music. A few years ago, he put together a suite called "Songs of the Cape" for traditional and classical musicians. The suite celebrates contemporary composers on Cape Breton fiddle tunes, and features jigs, reels and strathspeys by such luminaries as Jerry Holland, Kinnon Beaton, John Morris Rankin, and (naturally) Dave MacIsaac. When it was recorded, by a group of eight musicians billed as The Octet, MacIsaac was aboard as guitarist and fiddler. The CD Songs of the Cape [Atlantica 7 7042 48888 2 8 (1992)] features the 20-minute suite plus four sets of traditional music from various sources. The classical tradition is one full of harmonic richness, while the Cape Breton tradition is strong on both rhythm and melody; it is these qualities that Macmillan has brought out and blended so well. The result is moving, majestic, and grand, at once respectful of both traditions and willing to work with both. While both folk and classical purists might scoff at this, anyone who looks for the soul of music will find plenty here.

Tracy Dares, a recent transplant from Cape Breton to Halifax, is one of Celtic music's best piano players. Her solo recording, Crooked Lake [Ground Swell GSR 077 (1995)] , shows how far this instrument has come in Celtic music since it was first featured as rhythmic accompaniment on those old 78s. Several of the cuts are entirely solo, showing her talents to the fullest. Dares plays tunes with all the grace and ornamented complexity of a fiddler, while adding her own chordal accompaniment; no fiddler and precious few guitarists could dream of doing that. Dares even gently step-dances while she plays, a charming touch in concert that's also audible on the disc. Dares also invited some other musicians to play with her here. MacIsaac adds his guitar, and Natalie MacMaster adds fiddle, both sparingly. Lucy MacNeil adds harp to an air written by American harper Nancy Bick Clark. Hamish Moore, one of Scotland's best pipers, plays both smallpipes and Highland bagpipe on a great Celtic rock set. Rita Rankin and Rod MacNeil lead a chorus in a milling song, all backed by Dares's piano and MacMaster's fiddle, for a wonderful end to this exciting album.

In addition to the great fiddle tradition from which MacIsaac, Macmillan and Dares have taken much inspiration, Cape Breton is also home to a vigorous tradition of Highland bagpipe music, which has recently come to the attention of pipe enthusiasts in Scotland and around the world. Two of the island's best young pipers, Jamie MacInnis and Paul MacNeil, joined forces a few years back to record Fosgail an Dorus (Open the Door) [Gigs & Reels GRIP 101 (1992)], an inspiring album of piping. Each piper performs a solo set on the album, showing them to be fully capable players in the spotlight. For the rest of the album, the two have decided on a contemporary, progressive approach to the bagpipes, while remaining deeply respectful of the piping traditions from which they draw. They are joined by Celtic pop artists Kyle, Lucy and Sheumas MacNeil of the Barra MacNeils on fiddle, bodhrán and piano, respectively, John Ferguson on bouzouki, and MacIsaac on electric and acoustic guitars and Dobro. The last track on the album, a fully rocking rant featuring both pipers along with Pipe Major Doug Boyd, Tom Roach on drums, and MacIsaac on electric lead guitar and bass, gives Rawlin's Cross, the Tannahill Weavers, and Battlefield Band a run for their money in the bagpipe-rock category. In addition to the piping, there is one Gaelic song sung by MacNeil with his father Rod, a nice low-key touch on a very powerful disc. [Gigs and Reels Prod.., Inc./ 6159 Leeds Street/ Halifax, N.S. B3K 2T9]

I'll finish off by mentioning the first album by iconoclastic fiddler Ashley MacIsaac. Although he's moved on to work in a more rock-influenced mode, his first CD, Close to the Floor [A&M 79602 2000-2 (1992)], is a traditionalist's dream. Ashley's strong, rhythmically driving fiddle is backed only by Joey Beaton's piano and Dave MacIsaac's guitar. The album collects lots of old and new Cape Breton tunes and presents them in an uplifting acoustic environment. Those who don't like Ashley's later work, as well as those who love it, should check this one out. Dave's guitar is more subdued here than on some of the albums mentioned above, but it does its share of the driving.

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