Spondoolix
Saturday, December 10th at 9pm
Maplewood Memorial Library
If one were to triangulate a point in the stratosphere over Sweden, New York and the Grenadines one might find the source of inspiration for The Spondoolix." On several occasions, during the formative jam sessions, the ghost of folklorist Alan Lomax was spotted hovering over the West Village in a holding pattern around Greenwich Street. The instrumentation includes: vocals, fiddle, uilleann pipes and irish flute, guitar, and cello.
Listeners can expect to hear a true marriage of roots music and virtuoso playing. The ensemble was the brainchild of Queensboro born fiddler and vocalist, Mazz Swift
and multi-instrumentalist, Christopher Layer.
"We were basically looking for a way to have a beer in Ireland, dine in Italy, dance in the Georgia Sea Islands and make love in France. Instead we just got all these great players together and started listening to Lomax's field recordings and Dave Brubeck records." "Since the food and beer things are handled very well here in New York, it was just a matter of finding the right groove to set the mood at our club dates. The dancing part just takes care of itself and well, you know, that other thing does too..."
Like so many groundbreaking bands before them, The Spondoolix were handed a regular gig at Paddy Reilly's Music Bar on 29th Street in Manhattan by the famous Irish proprietor. "We really created the group as a sort of research unit, for exploration. Ya know, like the Enterprise on Star Trek. We never played a gig the first year or so and then Mazz was subbing for different folks over there.(at Reilly's) It just seemed natural to take the band out for a spin onstage." The band has since garnered the favor of both trad music fans, and progressive listners as well. Drop-ins have included Rikki Lee Jones, Fiddler, Mark O'Connor, songwriter, Jamie Bernstein-Thomas and local fiddle great, Tony De Marco.
Drawing heavily on fiddle music and dance tunes keeps the feet moving and Mazz Swift is quickly rising in the ranks of song stlyists in the trad and funk music scenes in NYC. The Band's piper Christopher Layer quipped:"When I first heard Mazz sing, it was at the 11th Street Pub in the East Village. The usual suspects were there for the Sunday night Seisiun and she just held fourth with a real "chestnut" as we say. I think it was "The Fields of Athenry". I mean NOBODY touches this song it's so hacked.
What she did with it had all the old dudes in tweed jackets up at the bar crying in their pints. I just never would have guessed that this little black girl from Queens would be able to rip out the hearts of so many Irishmen with an old warhorse like that." Swift is not the only power in the band, when not playing with the Spondoolix, cellist Natalie Haas tours with Mark O'Connor and Alisdair Fraser alternately and guitarist Danny Noveck tours with fiddler and composer Randall Bays.
"We all came together to find our way through some new music. What we found was that the "supreme technology" of traditional music was so powerfull that all we had to do was allow it to come through the instruments without trying to clutter it up with clever ideas and showy tricks.
Traditional music can be elegant, passionate and driven. On behalf of The Spondoolix, I hope the listeners find it so as well." -Christopher Layer
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