Beausoleil: Cajun music with New Orleans spice
|
|
The famed Cajun band Beausoleil with Michael Doucet will perform at the Barre Opera House on Nov. 14. SUBMITTED PHOTO |
Toolbox
By ART EDELSTEIN Arts Correspondent - Published: October 30, 2009
Most states are lucky to have inspired one style of music, for example bluegrass from Kentucky and Tex-Mex from Texas. Louisiana's musical heritage is exceptional. From this Deep South state we have New Orleans jazz, zydeco and its cultural cousin, Cajun music.
The Celebration Series at the Barre Opera House will present Beausoleil with Michael Doucet on Friday, Nov. 14, at 8 p.m. This is the nation's premier Cajun band so hearing them should be truly memorable.
Beausoleil's pedigree is unmatched. The band started in 1974 and has released 29 albums in the ensuing 35 years, an enormous output by any standard.
The band's founder and musical leader is Michael Doucet. His fiddling and singing are the foundation around which Beausoleil is formed. His imprint on Cajun music is indelible and profound. He has also surrounded himself with five other musicians including his brother David on acoustic guitar. In all, there's accordion, percussion, drums and bass as well as fiddle and guitar.
Since its inception, Beausoleil has been the guiding band in a cultural renaissance that took Cajun music from its roots in Louisiana around Lafayette and a very localized audience, to a broad audience that is now international.
Doucet is largely responsible on his own for popularizing Cajun music. He realized in the late 1960s, as a student, that the music he grew up with was dying out as the players aged. Through his efforts as a musicologist and bandleader he brought this regional music to a wide audience even while many who are now familiar with this sound have never traveled to the bayou country.
If you've never heard Cajun music then think of it as a lively dance sound sung primarily in French led by the fiddle and accordion and sometimes the guitar. It's not complicated music, but it possesses an infectious beat and a lot of drive. Doucet's fiddle style cannot be confused with the ornamented Irish style, or New England style. Rather, it's somewhere between bluegrass and blues. There are a lot of double stops (two notes played simultaneously) and a heavy emphasis on rhythm in Doucet's playing. The accordion here is a one-row instrument and it can only play music in a single key.
In early Cajun music there was just fiddle, accordion and triangle. This has changed over the years as the music became more universal, and instruments like percussion, drums and bass were added. Beausoleil also introduced the acoustic guitar to the Cajun ensemble, and on the band's latest album "Alligator Purse," David Doucet is given a fair amount of acoustic lead guitar space.
What you can expect to hear in a Beausoleil concert is traditional songs sung in French in a musical gumbo that includes zydeco, Tex-Mex, western swing, blues, New Orleans traditional jazz and Caribbean calypso. Cajun traditionalists might have some trouble with the band's somewhat eclectic rendering of this Acadian-based music, but audiences won't. Beausoleil's music is certainly infectious.
I would bet there will not be an idle foot 30 seconds into the band's lead-off number at the Opera House concert. If you need more encouragement, keep in mind that this band has appeared regularly on Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" and garnered 10 Grammy nominations. In 1998, it became the first Cajun band to win a Grammy for its "L'Amour ou La Folie" effort in the traditional folk category.
Perhaps the only thing missing from a Beausoleil concert that would lend this evening's entertainment a truly authentic air would be a good helping of crawfish, jambalaya and filet gumbo. This food is as spicy and exciting as the music – so be prepared.