The Musical Box

In some ways, it’s a shame. Bruce Springsteen, the Boss man of E Street who has been rocking Rupp Arena with concerts since 1980, is passing us by this time. The upside, though, is that the Boss’ only regional performance on a tour that began last fall to support his Magic album, falls on a Saturday night.

Springsteen on a Saturday with the E Street Band in tow? Suddenly a road trip to Cincinnati doesn’t seem like a big deal.

There is, of course, no real reason to ever pass on a chance to see The Boss whenever and however he plays. But seeing as his last few tours have either been solo ventures behind the darkly meditative music of Devils & Dust or wildly revivalistic folk jaunts with his brassy Seeger Sessions Band, a reteaming with his E Street Band is quite the occasion.

The E Streeters bring out the urgency, celebration and pure electric might that made Springsteen a star in the first place. While recent albums, fine as they were, detoured from that sound, Magic offered a throwback of sorts to the E Street vibe of the ‘70s. But it’s no retrofest.

Echoes of a wartorn country inhabit the album, especially in the divided smalltown sentiments that greet the fallen renegade-turned-soldier of Gypsy Biker and the topical deceptions that circle quietly above the title tune. “It’s not really about magic,” Springsteen has said at previous shows on the tour when introducing the latter. “It’s just about tricks.”

There’s also something of an epic on Magic called Girls in Their Summer Clothes that falls somewhere between Phil Spector-like majesty and vintage Merseybeat Brit-pop. But the lyrics, a sobering reflection of time and age, are simply devastating.

There will be one less voice on E Street this weekend, however. Keyboardist Danny Federici bowed out of the tour after being diagnosed with melanoma. He has been receiving treatments since late November. In his place on Saturday will be Seeger Sessions alumnus Charles Giordano. Here’s hoping that Federici finds his way back to E Street soon.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform at 7:30 p.m. March 22 at U.S. Bank Arena in Cincinnati. Ticket are $58 and $92. Call (859) 281-6644.

Thirty years ago this month, Tim Krekel spent a few minutes in a sizeable number of living rooms across the country. The guitarist, songwriter and Louisville native was performing as part of Jimmy Buffett’s Coral Reefer Band on Saturday Night Live. It was an adventure that took place, as Krekel terms it today, “a number of lives” ago. These days, Krekel is exploring a more modest means to get away from home.

Admittedly, his songs have frequently reached ears well outside the Louisville area. For that, you can thank a lengthy list of country and Americana acts that have recorded and covered his songs. Among them: Alan Jackson, Martina McBride, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Delbert McClinton and another artist with strong Louisville ties, Patty Loveless.

But it wasn’t until the release last year of a brassy and muscular R&B-inspired album called Soul Season that Krekel and his six-member “orchestra” of five years started venturing outside the Derby City comfort zone where the songsmith has long maintained a sizably devout following, especially among public radio audiences.

“We’re just now trying to get out and play the area,” Krekel said. “It’s not that we haven’t wanted to before. But it’s a six-member band. A lot of times it can even be seven or eight people that we have out there. So, financially, it’s tough. Actually, Lexington is becoming one of our first attempts to get out and spread the word a little bit.”

While he took a brief stab at making music in New York and spent the better part of the ‘80s working out of Nashville, Krekel has long been a Louisville performance fixture. He has played everywhere from large outdoor festivals to famed barroom haunts like The Air Devils Inn and still squeezes in solo acoustic shows when his schedule permits.

“A big part of Louisville’s appeal for me is the fact that it’s a river city, not unlike Memphis or New Orleans. I don’t know why it is, but those places always seem to have a rootsy, soulful vibe to them musically.

“Before I moved away, though, I was sort of frustrated by the whole scene in Louisville because, basically, you had to play in cover bands. When I came back in the early ‘90s, I discovered that things were a little more open. I’ve got a nice audience here in town now that has supported me and stayed with me through the years.

“I may just be happier now than I’ve been in my whole life. Maybe that just comes from years of doing this. But my expectations these days are all in the right place. I’m working a lot, but that’s what I love to do.”

The Tim Krekel Orchestra and Slo-Fi perform at 8 p.m. March 21 at The Dame, 156 West Main St. Admission is $5. Call (859) 226-9005.

Aside from reinventing the music (and, in some cases, the careers) of U2, Peter Gabriel, Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, The Neville Brothers and a sizeable army of other pop and rock vets, Daniel Lanois has quietly forged his own sound of ethereal grace.

The spiritual elements he employs are undeniable, but tend to become part of a backdrop that draws on the adaptability of pedal steel guitar - or, as he call it in a spoken interlude on Here Is What Is, “my little church in a suitcase.”

As is the case with Lanois’ five previous solo albums, pedal steel is removed from its stereotypical Nashville setting and placed in the middle of a far larger country at the feet of a far larger muse.

Aside from pedal steel, Here Is What Is adopts echoes of gospel, assorted ambient soundscapes, subtle but pronounced percussion patterns and vocals that are often no more than contemplative whispers. It then whips all of that together with bits of conversational narrative into soundtrack music for a documentary on the very art of making music.

Of course, Lanois making music differs considerably from most artists assembling records. The film is essentially a journey both literal and figurative that begins in Toronto and winds up in Morocco with longtime pal and fellow production innovator Brian Eno discussing God, music and the links between them. In terms of conventional documentary, it strives to define - or, at least, illuminate - a creative process more than it attempts to offer a detailed biographical portrait.

Among the CD’s spoken passages, which are lifted wholly from the film, is Beauty - an artful and amusing reflection on creating something from nothing. Other moments grab hold of the music that Lanois confronts during his journey, such as a ragged but suitably righteous performance at the Zion Baptist Church in Shreveport. La. of the spiritual This May Be the Last Time. Yet even in this gospel outpost there is an almost familial link to Lanois’ work. The church performance is presided over by the father of drummer Brian Blade, a longtime Lanois musical co-hort.

The record begins with a touch of the familiar: a version of Where Will I Be, the tune Lanois wrote and fashioned, with Blade’s help, as the introduction to Harris’ groundbreaking Wrecking Ball album over 12 years ago. This version is driven by a shimmering march-like groove and keyboard/guitar colors that warmly envelope the music.

Not Fighting Anymore then recalls the crafty quiet Lanois fashioned for Dylan’s 1989 Oh Mercy album. The music’s regal melancholy - “that far away lonesome sound,” as it is termed - also ushers in the pedal steel.

From winding runs on Blue Bus that make the instrument sound positively celestial to the way guitar notes mingle and dance with delicate percussion, Lanois takes the pedal steel out of what was once a single-minded roots music environment and opens it up - almost, literally - to the heavens.

In becomes, in essence, the “what it is” sound at the heart of Here Is What Is‘ musical quest.

Those thirsting for a pint of live Irish music and step dancing in the waning hours of St. Patrick’s Day undoubtedly felt quenched by  last night’s performance by An Dochas and the accompanying Haran Irish Dancers at the Singletary Center for the Arts.

On a purely rudimentary level, the concert covered the bases. Instrumental airs were steeped in melancholy while jigs and reels, progressive in nature though they were, gathered sufficient steam for the dancers to hoof with ample physicality and technical precision.

If such strained appraisal comes across  morbidly like those auto insurance commercials that make “minimum coverage” seem like a sound purchase, you’re pretty much on target.

The very Americanized An Dochas (despite the Gaelic name, the band hails from the Pacific Northwest) had to struggle from the word go last night to keep a very wobbly performance from derailing entirely. It began with band members and stage hands scurrying about in search of cables and patches to mend malfunctioning amplification. Soon after the first tune commenced, guitar amps and/or monitors went dead. So, again, the show ground to a halt and, again, people went in search of technical first aid.

And on it went. There was the muddy sound mix that made multi-instrumentalist David Schulz sound like he was singing in a cave. There was the unexplained, unannounced absence of An Dochas fiddler Jenny Anne Mannan. There was a false start at the beginning of the concert’s second half and a mix up in the set list later on that nearly sent band members off reeling into different tunes.

Such cumulative misfires pretty well knocked this show out of professional consideration. What was left was a very thin cushion of Celtic appeal. With fiddle a conspicuous no-show and acoustic guitarist Mellad Abeid sticking mostly to percussive, rhythmic playing, Schulz became the group’s de facto musical lead on whistle, uilleann pipes and flute.

Again, there were moments - fleeting ones, at best - that promoted Irish allure, as in the low reedy hum that initiated The Dragonfly Set and a punchy, pub-savvy reading of Whiskey Yer the Devil. But once the reserved but sustained thrust of electric bass and drums was established, along with Schulz’s more breathy, punctuated runs on flute, the band began to sound less like an Irish ensemble and more like late ‘70s Jethro Tull.

The six members of the Haran Irish Dancers broke through the static a bit in the performance’s second half with a fun, instinctive routine set to a medley of reels called Party Party Party. But a boot scootin’ romp - a sort of Irish-American slant on Urban Cowboy complete with Stetsons - that came later was a swift, unsettling kick to the Celtic senses.

Both workouts at least showed signs of exuberance, though. During the performance’s first half, the dancers were as academic in delivery as the band. In short, the Haran team did a weak job of selling their work. Their footwork reflected agility and confidence. Their faces revealed fatigue and, at times, uncertainty.

Abeid essentially surrendered at evening’s end by playing with a busted guitar string he didn’t bother to change. “I’ve never had more of a Spinal Tap night in my life,” he confessed.

Me neither. At least, not on St. Patrick’s Day.

(above, An Dochas bodhran/bass player Jeremy Oswin)

Last year on St. Patrick’s Day, the members of An Dochas were caught between two worlds of Irish music situated near their very American homeland.

“We played two shows last St. Patrick’s Day,” said band guitarist Mellad Abeid. “First we played a big full blown dance show in downtown Seattle at the end of their parade. Then we played all night at this tiny little pub. It’s a totally different kind of performance when you go from a parade to playing this crazy, rowdy pub music until the wee hours of the morning.”

On one hand, An Dochas (Gaelic for “The Hope”) is an ensemble with a staunchly traditional heart. But around the edges, lurk suggestions of world music. You hear uilleann pipes and fiddle. Also at work, though, is a very contemporary rhythm section. You hear music with an unmistakable Irish dialect. Yet the musicians creating it come from Spokane.

Spokane? Washington? There is actually an audience for Irish music, even the kind laced with modern touches, in the American Northwest?

“You know, there is,” Abeid replied. “There is a solid Irish music and dancing following here in Spokane, specifically, and in the Northwest, in general. There are several Irish dancing schools between Portland and Seattle and Vancouver and Spokane. Irish culture is pretty strong up here.”

Abeid should know. His mother, though a San Francisco native, was of Irish parentage and opened a school for Irish dance in Eastern Washington. When her son developed an interest in music, he was happily drafted into playing behind her dancers at performances.

“We heard Irish music growing up, certainly,” Abeid said. “And our mother always sang Irish songs to us. But it was never something that particularly interested me when I was a kid or a teenager. Once I started getting older and began playing more and more shows… I don’t know. I just caught the spark of the energy that was in the music.”

What Abeid also heard in Irish music was room for adaptability. He discovered ways to improvise around traditional melodies. Once he began collaborating with high school pals that eventually became his An Dochas bandmates (from left, in above photo, bassist/bodhran player Jeremy Oswin, Abeid, drummer/percussionist Ryan Fish, piper/whistle player/banjoist David Schulz and fiddler Jenny Anne Mannan), he found ways to graft disparate styles and influences onto a traditional tune without losing the music’s Irish sensibility.

“We grew up listening to whatever was popular in high school and college, of course. Some of us studied music. I studied music composition in college, so I have a strong classical and jazz background. The other musicians all listen to a wide variety of styles, as well.

“But in arranging and even writing the band’s music, we took traditional melodies and just jammed on them to see whatever came out as far as arrangements, instrumentation, harmonies or textures went. We went with what came naturally.”

In the case of Waxie’s Dargle, a tune from a 2006 EP disc called What’ll Ya Have?, An Dochas kicks up a feisty, percussive shuffle that sounds like a modestly un-punkish version of The Pogues while Tobin’s, from the debut album Dragonfly Redux, adheres to more traditional sounds of flute and the Irish hand held drum known as the bodhran.

The boundaries become more global in scale on Hag with the Money, where the band prefaces a haunting serenade on pipes with a chant-like drone that sound like a cross between electronic keyboards and the hum of an Aboriginal didjeridoo. Abeid confessed the sound was actually a mixture of both.

“A lot of these melodies are so old,” he said. “They’ve been played, literally, for hundreds of years. So it’s neat to be able to take a melody with a tradition like that and do something new with it.

“The Irish remain true to the core of their culture but also adapt well to the environment they are in. Their music really does that. And while a lot of that music is very fast and energetic, much of it is very contemplative. Their airs have a whole realm of mystery behind then. You can’t help but imagine these huge soundscapes accompanying the tunes. It’s as if the music serves as its own soundtrack.”

But once a dance band, always a dance band. Just as Abeid got his start accompanying students at his mother’s school, An Dochas devotes a healthy part of its stage program to playing behind the Haran Irish Dancers. Such teamwork has a strong sense of family, though. The Haran School of Dance is, in fact, his mother’s school. Only now it is led by his sister, who also happens to be part of the dance troupe.

So even though An Dochas will only play one show this St. Patrick’s Day, its music will still represent several American views of an ageless Irish spirit.

“I like to describe ourselves as an Irish-American band, because, essentially, that’s the kind of music we play. All of us in the band are from the United States. But the music is still Irish to the core.”

An Dochas and the Haran Irish Dancers perform at 7:30 p.m. tonight at the Singletary Center for the Arts. Tickets are $18 (University of Kentucky students), $22 (UK faculty and staff), $24 (public). Call (859) 257-4929.  

From the desk on a grey Sunday afternoon, we offer these sounds of serious Irish soul to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with. Erin go bragh, y’all.

The Chieftains: The Chieftains 4 - The one Chieftains album to own above all others. Cut in 1972 and 1973 with harpist Derek Bell as a new addition, Paddy Moloney and company had little by way of celebrity status to contend with at the time. Instead, pipes, twin fiddles and bones fuel Drowsy Maggie (still a centerpiece reel of the band’s concerts today) and the lovely air Mna na hEireann (Women of Ireland). A sumptuous record.

The Bothy Band: The Best of the Bothy Band - A hard-to-find anthology assembled from the brief ‘70s lifespan of a remarkable Irish ensemble. Extraordinary pipe tunes (The Death of Queen Jane), Gaelic mouth music adventures (Fionnghuala), fiddle-fortified reels that matched rhythmic drive with lyrical beauty (Rip the Calico) and a group spirit led by producer/bouzouki ace Donal Lunny solidified this great unsung band.

Van Morrison: A Sense of Wonder - Not a traditional Irish record in any sense, but one that enforces the elegant, ethereal and restless muse Morrison followed after a 15 year, star-making stay with Warner Brothers. The mood is pastoral on Evening Meditation, literately feisty on Tore Down a la Rimbaud and decidedly American in a dark, brassy recast of Mose Allison’s If You Only Knew. Still, Morrison’s sense of Irish soul prevails.

The Waterboys: Fisherman’s Blues - Mike Scott reinvented his anthemic, postpunk pop brigade as a pack of scruffy folkies on this immensely listenable 1988 release. Amazingly, the transition worked, from the serene Strange Boat to the pub-savvy chatter of mandolins and fiddles on the album’s title tune to an uptake of Sweet Thing, a meditation on earthly and devine love originated by - who else? - Van Morrison.

The Pogues: If I Should Fall From Grace With God - “In Brendan Behan’s footsteps, I danced up and down the street,” sings Shane MacGowan on a lament of immigration called Thousands Are Sailing as it breaks into a furious, worldly jig. Such a moment reaffirms, two decades after its release, the beer-soaked soul, British punk aesthetics and mad Irish spirit that drove The Pogues in what remains their finest recorded hour.

True to her intentions that the musical legacy and artistic reputation of her late husband should be actively but accurately preserved, Gail Zappa began a keynote discussion last night at the Singletary Center for the Arts for the American Musicological Society (the talk was open to the public) by taking the evening’s program notes to task. Brushing away suggestions that Frank Zappa’s “serious” orchestral works came as a sort of coda to his rock-oriented music, she asserted simply, “I married a composer.”

With youngest daughter Diva by her side (she chose to sit and knit during the talk), Gail Zappa didn’t pander to or pump up fans’ expectations of what a discussion about her husband’s music should be like. Instead, she played the role of correspondent reporting back with observations gathered from being by Frank Zappa’s side since 1966.

Among them: that many of her husband’s works composed during a time “when dinosaurs walked the earth” (including the great Inca Roads) were built around human speech patterns; that the music Frank Zappa disliked most was “his own music played badly;” and, for trivia buffs, that her husband never renewed his driver’s license after it expired in 1968.

The Chamber Winds opened the performance part of the program in sections. A percussion dominate lineup took on Varese’s turbulent Ionisation, which ebbed and flowed to the sound of a hand-cranked siren. Following that, a smaller brass and wind group neatly performed Stravinsky’s spryly animated Octet.

The actual Zappa music was comparatively brief - two tunes stretching out to roughly 12 minutes performed by the full Chamber Winds lineup of 40-plus musicians.

Envelopes served as a live introduction of sorts to Zappa’s orchestral works by emphasizing bright colors of mallet percussion, including an expressive coupling of piano and marimba. The big delight, though, was The Dog Breath Variations, where all the stormy complexity of Zappa’s music was fashioned to sound majestic and warm. Even booming brass colors sounded less like an intrusion and more like a cranky neighbor finally coaxed into playing with kids from the neighborhood.

The defining words of the evening though, went to Frank Zappa himself. In a video “artifact” presented by his widow, the composer summed up his brave music as “specialized entertainment for a specialized audience.”

What a joy it was watching the two find each other onstage at the Singletary.

(Above, the cover art to Frank Zappa’s 1979 album Sheik Yerbouti)   

A funny thing happens when a performance or musical event comes to town that centers around an artist whose work you grew up with. Sure, you assemble the story first, excited by the prospect of discussing (hopefully, intelligently) the music of someone who was a personal inspiration. But in doing so, you shove away the personal baggage that is unavoidably at your side.

Next you research the dickens out of what you’re writing subject. In other words, you pour over recordings and other musical data by the artist at hand. That can be either a session of endless fascination or something that can make the prospect of a root canal seem fetching.

The music of Frank Zappa - pictured above in the cover art to 1974’s Apostrophe (’) album - has been a personal favorite ever since a junior high teacher gave me a conduct demerit for reciting the lyrics to I’m the Slime during class. I tried to explain the song was merely about television, but my sentence was final.

Over the years, the appeal of Zappa’s music only grew. Like many, his rock oriented works hit me first. The orchestral music, initially, I just didn’t comprehend. I don’t know if I do today. But they do seem as intriguing now as the music saturated in guitar instrumentals, progressive jazz and social commentary. And if you managed to hit upon elements that touched upon all three, like Zappa’s landmark 1968 album Uncle Meat, you felt like you had struck gold.

Tonight’s discussion by Gail Zappa, the composer’s widow and head of the Zappa Family Trust (a talk curiously titled Some Musicians Don’t Enjoy Water Sports) and a performance to follow of Zappa compositions (along with works by Varese and Stravinsky that inspired Zappa) by the University of Kentucky Chamber Winds, gave me an excuse to dig out about 60 Zappa albums. Among them were bootlegs - unauthorized concert recordings the composer wound up approving for release (in boxed set collections called Beat the Boots) years after they initially surfaced.

Last Saturday’s snowstorm, which essentially shut down a good chunk of Lexington, afforded me the time to become reacquainted with the great Zappa. So as the ice and snow accumulated outside, here are some observations gathered by an afternoon spent with a steady supply of hot tea and a crate full of Zappa albums.

+ The orchestral arrangement of G- Spot Tornado on 1993’s The Yellow Shark is a thing of tense, tight wonder that blows by with gale force briskness. But the original version from 1986’s Jazz From Hell, recorded on the now-extinct digital synthesizer known as the synclavier, is even stormier.

+ Zappa manages to cut through the psychedelic pap of the late ‘60s on Oh No before launching into the warm, melodic and, dare we say, wholesome melodic stride of The Orange County Lumber Truck on 1970’s Weasels Ripped My Flesh. The tunes are reinterpreted on 1974’s Roxy & Elsewhere, which places Zappa’s sublime guitarwork front and center, and again with even greater tenacity on 1991’s Make a Jazz Noise Here.

+ Speaking of guitarwork, there are several recordings devoted exclusively to Zappa’s extraordinary instrumental prowess. Among them: 1981’s Shut Up ‘N Play Yer Guitar, 1988’s Guitar and the posthumous 2006 collection Trance-Fusion. But for pure compositional thrills, nothing beats what Zappa summarizes in a mere 10 minutes on the 1979 guitar instrumental Watermelon in Easter Hay.

+ The opening Sinfonia section of Stravinsky’s Octet (which will be part of tonight’s Singletary performance) bears a wind-savvy animation that is generously reflected in many of Zappa’s pop works, such as Uncle Meat’s The Dog Breath Variations (which is also on tonight’s program).

+Among the many topics that seemed to really frost Zappa’s pumpkin was organized religion. He prefaces a version of Stinkfoot on Make a Jazz Noise Here by discussing TV evangelist Jimmy Swaggart’s then-recent confession of engaging in “something pornographic.” But 1981’s Dumb All Over cuts deeper to suggest the only thing more insipid than corporate righteousness is a following that buys into it.

+ Finally, Zappa was one of contemporary music’s most underappreciated champions of free speech. In 1985, he testified before the U.S. Senate when the Parents Music Resource Center began promoting a rating and labeling system for the lyrical content of records. The testimony was sampled for a 12 minute synclavier montage called Porn Wars on 1986’s Frank Zappa Meets the Mothers of Prevention. Also included is a snippet of dialogue between Tipper Gore and Zappa.

Gore: I’d be interested to see what toys your kids ever had.

Zappa: Why would you be interested?

Gore: Just as a point of interest.

Zappa: Well, come on over to the house. I’ll show them to you.

Gail Zappa: “Some Musicians Don’t Enjoy Water Sports” and the University of Kentucky Chamber Winds’ “A Zappa Tribute: Inspirations and Music of American Composer Frank Zappa” will be presented at 7:30 tonight at the Singletary Center for the Arts. Admission is free.

These are the words of Frank Zappa - a collection of quotes from interviews, concert recordings and the composer’s autobiography (of sorts) The Frank Zappa Book. They are as human and concise as sayings by Mark Twain (but considerably more cynical) and often as topical and biting as rants by Bill Hicks (though vastly more G-rated). The first one, especially, hits home.

With Friday’s Zappa celebration, approaching, we thought we share these little vignettes as the latest installment of our Zappa Reflections series. Most of these observations deal with music. All deal with life.

Above, Zappa is pictured on the cover of 1981’s You Are What You Is album. 

• “Most rock journalism is (by) people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.”
• “Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.”
• “You can’t be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline. It helps if you have some kind of football team, or some nuclear weapons. But at the very least, you need a beer.”
• “Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.”
• “I’d rather have my own game show than enough votes to become president.”
• “Jazz isn’t dead. It just smells funny.”
• “It isn’t necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities. One is paperwork and the other is nostalgia.”
• “There is no hell. There is only France.”
• “I’m not going to be like Bill Clinton and say I never inhaled. I did inhale. I liked tobacco a lot better.”
• “You can tell what they think of our music by the places we are forced to play it in.”
• “There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe. It has a stronger half-life.”
• “Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.”
• “Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.”
• “Everybody believes in something. And everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something, uses that something to support their own existence.”
• “All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.”
• “No change in musical style will survive unless it is accompanied by a change in clothing style.”

The biggest delight that surrounds a California Guitar Trio performance these days is that, after over 15 years of touring, nothing has become stale. There is still remarkable freshness and invention to its music, a seemingly endless wellspring of stylistic inspiration at its members’ very nimble fingertips and, above all, an ability to make an evening of acoustic guitar music seem effortlessly entertaining.

From a technical standpoint, calling (from left, in above photo) Bert Lams, Paul Richards and Hideyo Moriya virtuosos may seem like a simplification. But it is in no way an overstatement. Over the course of two hours last night at the 21c Museum in Louisville, the three happily blended a typically wild array of cover material with an impressive sampling of original works. While occassional pedal effects that mimicked rockish, electric tones fleshed the music out, the basic weapons of choice were, as always, three acoustic guitars.

But at the end of a concert that offered guitar interpretations of music by The Ventures, Queen, Mike Oldfield, Ennio Morricone, Pink Floyd and Lynyrd Skynyrd, what brought last night’s capacity crowd to its feet? What else? Bach.

When the trio dug into Toccata and Fugue D Minor, a work that has been in the CGT’s repertoire for years, the piece became less a foreboding backdrop for horror movies (there must be at least a half-dozen Hammer Films from the ‘60s and ‘70s that used Toccata and Fugue as soundtrack material) and more of a rich exhibition of group dynamics and performance precision. It was well deserving of the ovation it received.

But, my, the rest of program sure was fun, too. Beethoven’s Unmei was set to surf music spirals by Moriya. The Skynyrd juggernaut Free Bird was dressed with a reggae/funk groove that bled into a ferociously electric sounding acoustic solo by Lams and Morricone’s theme to The Good, The Bad and Ugly came complete with wah-wah colors from Richards.

Other tunes were more faithful to blueprint versions. The signature Oldfield opus Tubular Bells (with CGT soundman/producer Tyler Trotter on melodica) retained all of the original version’s sense of meance, warmth and playfulness while a 12 minute reading of Echoes was a trip in every sense of the word that covered the earthy grinds, outer space fancy and slide-savvy abstraction Pink Floyd instilled in the piece in 1971. Yet both readings were still very much respectful interpretations, not mere clones, of the originals.

Behind Bach, though, the ultimate prize in this sublime performance was a new original work called Turn of the Tide. An altogether quieter treat, the tune was full of light, wintry beauty that recalled Anthony Phillips-era Genesis. How cool it was to hear, amid the CGT’s technical command and stylistic daring, a composition that unveiled its simple but potent emotive strength within music of more modest design.