Allons-y!/Dao Dezi!/Let's Go!

New Takes on Breton Tradition.

By Steve Winick.

[From Dirty Linen # 63 February/March 1996]

The Breton music tradition is a constant source of amazement. Not only are there many traditional musicians performing purely traditional music, there is also a population of explorers, who look at the tradition as a grounding for their own musical explorations. The simultaneous use of tradition and innovation, of continuity and change, mark the best in contemporary Breton music.

Mémoires d'Outremer [Xenophile XENO 4035 (1995)] by the duo Alter Ego, contains mostly traditional songs from Brittany and other parts of western France, but played in new and interesting ways. The Breton connection is Alain Leroux, who was a fixture on the Celtic folk scene in 1970s Nantes with his band Ar Skloferien. Later, he emigrated to Québec and formed the successful Ad Vielle Que Pourra, a band he left in 1993. Jean-Louis Cros, Leroux's alter ego, was born in Algeria and lived in France and Spain before finding himself in Canada, also playing in Ad Vielle Que Pourra. In Alter Ego, Leroux sings and plays mandocello, bouzouki and fiddle. Cros sings and plays acoustic, electric and bass guitars. Both Cros and Leroux are excellent musicians. I hear echoes of John Renbourn in Cros's guitar, and Leroux is a fine instrumentalist as well, though he uses the fiddle a bit too sparingly on this album. The two principals are joined by guests who add bagpipes, recorder, and bass.

This album features a great selection of songs, some entirely new, others entirely traditional, but most based in the tradition and filtered through Leroux and Cros's skill as lyricists and composers. Several of the songs have been rewritten with added choruses or slightly different verses, and some traditional lyrics have been given new tunes. For the most part, the traditional lyrics come from the Gallo tradition; that is, the tradition of French-speaking Brittany. They are almost all ballads dealing with, as the notes to one song say, "love, love and love again. What else is indispensable?" A nice touch is the inclusion of two versions of "Rossignolet Du Bois;" an Acadian version is followed up later with the Breton version, quite possibly the original on which the other was based. Most of the melodies chosen are gentle airs, suited to the love-lorn characters in the ballads. A couple of exceptions feature nice, lively tunes to keep you on your toes during this hour of sighs. The weakest facet of Alter Ego's act is the singing. It is done in open-throated voices that border on falsetto in the harmonies; neither sounds very comfortable. Still, they are not bad singers, and the other aspects of the act make this very much worth hearing.

Tempête pour sortir... [Keltia Musique KMCD58 (1995)], the latest CD from Cabestan, is in several ways the inverse of Mémoires d'Outremer . Alter Ego features a Breton living in Québec and demonstrates the influence of Breton culture on Canada. Cabestan, Brittany's premiere crew of sea-shanty singers, features a Québécois living in Brittany, and presents examples of Franco-American culture's influence back on the ancestral homeland. Also, unlike Mémoires d'Outremer , Tempête is composed mostly of lively, upbeat material, full of deep, resonant singing, sing-along choruses, and foot-tapping arrangements. What it has in common with Alter Ego's album is the quality of the performances and the material. The songs here are mostly shanties and ballads from Brittany's seaports, sung in French. The group also includes a set of Québec reels, complete with the foot percussion of Bernard Simard, who performed the same function for La Bottine Souriante some years ago. Also in the Franco-American mode, they've changed around the words of "Roulez," (A shanty they have recorded before, as they have several of the songs on this disc) moving the setting from La Rochelle, France to Baton Rouge, Louisiana. They give the song an appropriately Cajun-flavored arrangement, complete with accordion, fiddle, and steel-guitar break. Another interesting moment is a bawdy, bluesy slide guitar opening for "Les Filles a Cinq Deniers," which is, after all, a song in praise of cheap prostitutes. In the context of a male-only crew, it adds a certain double-entendre to the phrase, "pull, my boys, on the oars!" This one's not for the faint of heart!

The addition of words, music and innovative styles has been one way in which the tradition has changed, and will always change. Technology, too, marches ever onward, and music often follows. Two recent releases foreground the diatonic accordion, a technological innovation of about a hundred years ago. It's interesting that an instrument that's considered completely traditional by today's musicians was seen, at its introduction, as a destructive force, an interloper, even "the Devil's box." Even today, some musicians blame the accordion for the near-death of the hurdy-gurdy in Breton music, and indeed the accordion's popularity did threaten various of the other musical traditions for a while. Today, however, the accordion has settled into a comfortable place on the Breton scene, among musicians with a respect for all the instruments in Breton music. A prime example is Alain Pennec. Before concentrating on the diatonic accordion, Pennec also learned to play bombarde and bagpipes. Since the 1970s, he has been playing music in pipe bands, in ensembles like the Trio Pennec and Tammles, and solo. His solo CD, Alcoves [Keltia Musique KMCD 51 (1995)] highlights his accordion playing on a variety of different tunes. Although it covers a lot of ground musically, it's still firmly planted in Breton traditions. Pennec's background as a piper and bombarde player has contributed various tunes from the sonneur's repertoire. Other tunes come from the repertoires of accordion players and fest-noz groups that Pennec has encountered over the years, from collections and archives of folk music, and from the pens of composers including Pennec himself and brilliant guitarist Soïg Siberil. Siberil's guitar work deserves special mention, as does the piano playing of Pierre Nicolas. More than accompanists, these musicians enter into musical dialogues with Pennec, as much accompanied by as accompanying the great accordionist. Their contributions add variety to the disc's sound, as does Pennec himself; in a few places, Pennec plays the bombarde accompanied by his accordion (overdubbed, of course), and his brief use of the ocarina adds another fresh touch. His accordion playing is exciting and innovative, swinging mischievously in places, bouncing along happily in others, exploring old traditions and uncharted territories with equal enthusiasm. Together, these musicians achieve delightfully varied texture and subtle brilliance.

Another CD featuring the diatonic accordion is Tréonvel Transit [Maubuissons MB 194 (1995)] by the group Maubuissons. Like Alain Pennec, their accordionist Bruno Le Tron has played other instruments within the Breton tradition; he began his musical career playing biniou-koz (one-droned Breton bagpipe). Soon thereafter, he picked up an accordion, and began to experiment with musics from outside Brittany. This led to his playing in groups like Beau Temps sur la Province and the larger Compagnie du Beau Temps, alongside of his activity with Maubuissons. Tréonvel Transit is jazz-Breton folk hybrid, much like the groups Ti Jaz and Tammles--though they have a lighter touch than the former and a different instrumental palette than the latter. In addition to Le Tron's accordion, the band features Alain Coulon on guitars and Olivier Le Gallo of Ti Jaz on percussion and low whistle. Much of the music's Breton character comes from the bombarde, biniou-koz, oboe, wooden saxophone and voice of Serge Liorzou, part of a musical family that includes the leader of the band Bleizi Ruz. Listen to the last track first if you want to get a sense of the range of styles commanded by this band. "Abaccabab" begins as a jaunty dance bobbling between Le Tron's accordion and Liorzou's bombarde, while Coulon's bass and Le Gallo's bongos lay down a cool Latin rhythm. Soon Coulon switches to a screaming electric guitar and Le Gallo to toms while Liorzou's bombarde adds somber harmonies to Le Tron's accordion. Moments later, it's back to the bubbly melody as though nothing had happened. Next time they switch, Coulon's leading on acoustic jazz guitar as Le Tron and the others accompany him. All of it is very impressive musicianship, and has a playful, fun quality that is both comfortable and attractive. With the exception of one song, "L'homme à la tête de mort," there is no traditional music on Tréonvel Transit ; none of the tunes even sound much like folk or traditional music. But always, echoing around the empty corners of these new melodies, are Breton styles.

More recent than the accordion, the wooden flute is one of the latest additions to the Breton music scene. It came to Brittany in the 1970s, when Breton musicians began looking to the Irish revival for inspiration. One of the first musicians to pick up the flute was bombarde player Jean-Michel Veillon. Over the years, Veillon has been a member of many groups, including Galorn, Kornog, Pennoù Skoulm, Den, and Barzaz. He also recorded the first album devoted to Breton music played on the wooden flute. Now Veillon is teamed up with Yvon Riou, another former bombarde prodigy who switched to the guitar some years ago. Originally, the duo intended to play only at festoù-noz, or dances, but they have expanded their act to include a concert repertoire as well. The two have a new CD, Pont Gwenn ha Pont Stang [Gwerz Pladenn GWP 009 (1995)], that shows both sides of their act. The Breton dance music has a mesmerizing pulse that is well served by the breathy sound of Veillon's various flutes. Riou's guitar is understated and subtle, but contributes a great deal to the lift and lilt of the rondes, ridées, plinns, and other Breton melodies. The rest of the album is made up of airs and other musical pieces better suited to concert performance. A lovely original air referred to as a "pagan hymn," the Manx tune "Oye Vie," and the Irish air "Limerick's Lamentation" are all listening tunes, more appropriate for the cabaret show than the fest-noz. In addition, the album contains two readings of poems written by Fanch Peru backed up by the musicians. All of the selections are played with technical mastery and with great emotion, and all are worth hearing; this is a collection of material diverse in spirit, but united in beautiful sound.

No less important than musical instruments have been the other technologies involved in making all these albums: technologies of the recording studio that allowed overdubs, multitrack recording and precision mixing to bring out the best in their sound. A recent album of Breton music that stresses this form of musical technology more intensely is Dao Dezi [Metro Blue 32635 (1995)]. A product of the team who put together the Deep Forest albums, which featured Central African forest dwellers' music fractured and spliced back together with a dancehall rave beat, Dao Dezi does a similar thing with (or to) Breton music. It is a little less fraught with moral issues than its predecessors. While Deep Forest was seen by many as exploitative (none of the forest singers were consulted as to whether their intellectual property could be used, because they had no rights to it under international copyright law), Dao Dezi for the most part uses musicians who are aware of the project in which they are participating. Ethical questions aside, Dao Dezi is an interesting and enjoyable album for the adventurous Celtic music fan. Similar in design and execution to the original Mouth Music album, to Talitha MacKenzie's Solás, and to the recent Breton album by Stone Edge, Dao Dezi presents Breton and other Celtic themes within a house music/rave technoscape. It won't appeal to traditionalists, but it certainly has more mass appeal than your average Breton folk album.

The traditional music that is at the heart of Dao Dezi is impeccable. Breton language singing is provided by Denez Prigent, Arnaud Maisonneuve and Manu Lann Huel, all respected traditional artists. Instruments are provided by fine session men including Josik Allot (bombarde), Tommy Keenan (uillean pipes), Jean-Pierre Van Hees (bagpipe) and Rudy Velghe (fiddle). An added treat is an appearance by the group Tri Yann, who provide the only Gallo song on the album, "La Jument de Michao." In a way, the members of Tri Yann were the musical fathers of this enterprise; Tri Yann was among the first groups to electrify Breton folk music, and this song was one of the first on which they unleashed an electric guitar solo back in 1976. A song that can withstand the harshest of treatment, it has even survived the long hard journey to Canada and thence to Louisiana, and is known in Cajun tradition as "J'ai Vu le Loup, le Renard et la Belette." It's nice to see it surviving to the next generation of Breton music as well. If Dao Dezi does nearly as well as Deep Forest with consumers, we may see the live band version tour the world--minus Tri Yann, I fear. Stranger things have happened!

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