Bush Hall, London
11th May 2007
Bush Hall is a strangely grand venue for A Hawk And A Hacksaw to appear, all faded burlesque glamour in the plaster cherubim and beneath the voluptuous chandeliers. Given Jeremy Barnes‘ reinvention and re-imagining of a multitude of folk styles, the image conjured by his music is perhaps more one of rustic dances and Eastern European taverns, but since ultimately his music is about cross-cultural meetings and melding, it is perhaps appropriate after all. What might seem more at home at a wedding party than in a concert hall is part of the movement which proclaims folk musics to be the new rock and roll (again).
With Balázs Unger tapping out a gentle rhythm on the hypnotic strings of his cymbalom and Heather Trost scraping out a violin introduction, Barnes and the rest of the Hun Hangár Ensemble enter to the sound of a single drum beat, filing masked and marvellous through the audience with rattles waving and trumpets blowing in a carnivalesque invocation which sets the show off to a magical start. And what a show it is that follows: the Hun Hangar Ensemble reveal themselves as a superb group of musicians, sweeping high and low across the dance numbers and more melancholic moments alike. Unger in particular reaps a fervent round of applause for his cymbalom solo, while there are flashes of humour in the performance with sheep masks being waved behind band members’ heads and mugging furiously on the part of Béla Ágoston when he brandishes a behorned set of bagpipes to wild applause.
It’s Barnes who is the natural focus of the two sets they perform, pumping away at his accordion, deft fingers flickering across the keys, simultaneousy stamping out rhythms on drums and cymbals played with foot pedals. There’s no bell hat tonight, but with the aid of Trost and the ensemble he keeps the capacity crowd dancing and swaying rapturously through the night. From Transylvanian dances to a curious place where (New) Mexican brass meets Ashkenazi strings and Magyar melodies, the sound of A Hawk And A Hacksaw builds its own particular brand of authenticity – just like the music it is derived from, this is a pan-cultural blend which brings nuances of what at first might seem widely divergent musical styles into a proximity which reveals that there are more affinities than difference between them.
Above all, tonight’s show is a huge amount of fun, inspiring dancing and delight as the show warms up, with a second round of masked marching through the audience, surges of frenetic soloing from the guests until the final stretch where everyone improvises in a jazz style jam. It is timeless, invigorating and unmissable.
-Linus Tossio-
