Saturday, February 12, 2000
By Stephen Cooke / Entertainment Reporter
CONCERT REVIEW
The Halifax Herald Limited
Hey hey, the blues is all right.
Not only is the blues all right, but as Friday's Symphony Nova Scotia
concert proves, you can dress it up and take it anywhere.
The show will be repeated tonight at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium at 8 p.m.
I don't know how many patrons in the audience pay regular visits to Bearly's
House of Blues, or if they've ever traveled the dusty backroads of the
Mississippi Delta, but if they were getting a lesson in the blues on Friday,
you couldn't ask for better teachers than Dutch Mason, Matt Minglewood and
Lisa MacDougall, while conductor/guitarist Scott Macmillan provides the
perfect conduit between this rugged North American roots tradition and the
refined sound of strings and winds.
The program began exactly where it ought to, with a medley by George
Gershwin, the man who was one of the first to bring blue notes into concert
halls. Songs like Don't Get Around Much Anymore and It Don't Mean a Thing if
it Ain't Got That Swing sound good under almost any circumstances, but with
an orchestra they're glorious.
Singer/songwriter MacDougall is finally earning her place in the spotlight
after years spent on the road supporting artists like Rita MacNeil and Roger
Whittaker, and it's about time. Her full-throated vocal on her upbeat soul
tune Back Against the Wall was perfectly matched by a Janet Munson
arrangement, while the silky strings underlined the pain in her slow and
steady hurtin' song End of a Good Thing.
The symphony couldn't tame Minglewood's huge, red, hollow-bodied Gibson
guitar, which he made howl and growl on the instrumental The Blues Again
(inspired by the appearance of "TBA" in the program), and then coaxed moans
from it for Darkest Shade of Blue. A raucous Long Way from Texas put an East
Coast slant on things; what could be more Nova Scotian than a Minglewood
classic arranged by Macmillan?
But it's Dutch Mason who wears the music most comfortably of all, like a
favourite pair of slippers. Whether he's swinging through the Sinatra
classic That's Life or making travel plans with Jimmy Reed's Goin' to
Chicago, his natural feel makes him one of the best friends blues ever had.
And when Mason, Minglewood and MacDougall sing together backed by
Macmillan's "big swingin' band," it's sheer blues bliss.