Notre Dame de Grass – That’s How the Music Begins

NOTRE DAME DE GRASS
That’s How the Music Begins 
notredamedegrass.ca

In my Montreal Gazette review of their first album, New Canada Road, in 2007, I wrote, “Notre Dame de Grass may well be the finest pure-bluegrass outfit to come out of Montreal in decades. In bandleader Matthew Large they’ve got a solid singer, guitarist and songwriter who understands and respects the bluegrass traditions and knows how to create a unique sound while playing within the genre’s rules.”

Seven years down the bluegrass road, Notre Dame de Grass is a somewhat different band, but there’s really no doubt that the version of the band that has gelled over the years since that first album is, indeed, the finest pure-bluegrass band to have ever come out of Montreal – and certainly one of the finest to have ever come out of all of Canada.

Matt Large is still leading Notre Dame de Grass and Belgian-born banjo player Guy Donis, one of the finest purveyors of the Bill Keith-influenced melodic banjo style, is still adding his fine playing to the band's sound and some great instrumentals to the repertoire, but the other three musicians – bassist and singer Andrew Horton, mandolinist Joe Grass and fiddler Josh Zubot – all joined the band since the last album was recorded and have each contributed to making it an even stronger unit.

That’s How the Music Begins is a textbook example of everything a traditional bluegrass fan would want in an album. There’s some excellent original material, some traditional standards, some outstanding instrumentals, and some gospel, all played and sung within the standard bluegrass instrumentation and vocal styles defined by Bill Monroe and other first-generation bluegrassers like the Stanley Brothers and Flatt & Scruggs.

While there are lots of contemporary bluegrass bands who are technically great, Notre Dame de Grass is part of a relatively rarer number of bands with both a unique character and a superior repertoire.

Matt is a fine bluegrass songwriter and contributes such songs as the title track, a driving number about the joys of getting the musicians together to play, and “Edmunston Nights,” a reflection on escaping small town life.

But the absolute highlight of the album, and one of the finest new bluegrass songs I’ve heard in years is Matt’s “New Canada,” a homage to the waves of immigration that have continued to make Canada the interesting, multicultural country it has developed into over the years.

Other highlights include “Mount Royal Backstep” and “St. Jean Express,” two fine banjo-driven instrumentals written by Guy, and a haunting version of “Satan’s Jewel Crown,” one of several songs featuring fine lead vocals by Andrew.

Another definite highlight is Matt’s powerful, album-ending, solo version of the traditional folksong, “Cowboy’s Life is a Dreary Life,” that he sings in a pure, traditional a cappella style.

Hopefully, it won’t be seven years until the next Notre Dame de Grass album.

Pictured: Notre Dame de Grass at the Montreal Folk Festival on the Canal, June 21, 2014 (Photo: Mike Regenstreif)

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--Mike Regenstreif

Michael Jerome Browne – The Road is Dark

MICHAEL JEROME BROWNE

The Road is Dark

Borealis

michaeljeromebrowne.com

I was going to start this review by saying Michael Jerome Browne is a jack-of-all-root-music-styles. From blues to country to Appalachian mountain music, Cajun, swing, R&B – he can do it all. It’s a bit of understatement, though, to call him a jack-of-all-roots-music-styles when, in fact, he’s a master of most of those styles. He’s got encyclopedic knowledge of the music he plays, a giant repertoire drawn from the legendary artists who pioneered the various genres he plays, and – with songwriting and life partner B.A. Markus – has created a significant body of original material that stands tall with the time-tested standards he plays.

While Michael plays a variety of styles, and just about any instrument with strings, blues has been the dominant genre in his repertoire, much of it from the first few decades of the recording era in the American South (or inspired by that early music).

Whether or not you buy into the mythology of Robert Johnson at the crossroads at midnight, that kind of blues can be a scary music that delves deeply into the dark places of the soul. And that’s where Michael takes us on many of the songs on The Road is Dark – six taken from tradition and/or earlier artists, eight created by Michael and B.

Among the highlights from the songs Michael adapts is “Doin’ My Time,” which sounds like something Furry Lewis might have played if he played electric guitar. Actually, it comes from bluegrass pioneers Flatt & Scruggs and is an example of the stylistic cross-pollination of black and white music in the American South. Another is Michael’s intense version of Reverend Gary Davis’ “Death Don’t Have No Mercy.” The sustain on Michael’s solo electric guitar arrangement allows the notes to seemingly cut deeper into the soul than on some of the familiar acoustic versions of the song.

Among my favourites of the original songs are “Graveyard Blues,” played on the fretless banjo and sounding like a bluesy Appalachian folk song, in which the narrator, a kind of rake and rambling man, seemingly near death and seemingly without regrets, talks about the facts of his life; “If Memphis Don’t Kill Me,” a good-timey jug band song featuring Michael on mandolin with fine back-up from Ottawa musicians Steve Marriner on harmonica, and Ball & Chain – Michael Ball and Jody Benjamin – on fiddle and guitar; and “Sing Low,” with Michael on banjo and Mighty Popo on guitar, a haunting song inspired by the code songs African American women sang during slavery and dedicated to the struggle of Afghan women to emerge from their oppression.

I also really enjoyed Michael’s interplay with John McColgan’s inventive percussive washboard on three tracks including “G20 Blues,” a topical commentary on the bungled over-the-top police response to protesters at last year’s G20 Summit in Toronto. (John and Michael played together for years in the Stephen Barry Band.)

Among Michael’s launch concerts for The Road is Dark are shows Saturday, October 29, 8:00 pm at L’Astral, 305 St. Catherine Street West in Montreal; and Saturday, November 5, 8:00 pm, at the Westboro Masonic Hall, 430 Churchill Avenue North, in Ottawa.

--Mike Regenstreif