They are Québec’s premiere roots music ensemble, but La Bottine Souriante are not strictly folk musicians. Nor can their music really be called “Celtic,” despite its obvious affinities with the Irish tradition. La Bottine’s concerts involve the taughtly-wound energy of Irish dance music, the sexy pulse of salsa, and the swinging abandon of brass band jazz, all wedded to the French-language song tradition of Eastern Canada. The result includes powerful new renderings of medieval ballads, serious and jocular songs about life in the lumber woods and historical towns of Québec’s past, and lots of over-the-top instrumental music in which the driving foot-tapping of Michel Bordeleau underpins a huge, hot, happy sound that blends traditional music on accordion, fiddle, and mandolin with jazz sounds from piano, double bass and brass quartet. The full article by Steve Winick will appear in Dirty Linen #72, available on newstands in mid-September. Be sure you get a copy by Subscribing NOW!

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