Someone recently brought this video to our attention. It's not from a dusty, digital, vault. It's from the 2009 Edmonton Folk Music Festival.
For those of you who don't know, the EFMF is the big kahuna granddaddy of the Canadian folk fest circuit (next to Winnipeg's, maybe). It's one of the biggest and one of the hippest. In excess of 20,000 people show up per day from Thurday to Sunday. It rates high on the hip scale because, like the rest of the Western Canadian folk fests, it doesn't hold steady to the purist definition folk it picks the line-up. The broad musical formula honed by the western Canadian folk fests is a forerunner of the jam band festivals in the U.S.A., really.
What I'm saying is many western Canadians don't realize how good they have it. These festivals are unique, largely because of these afternoon, mini-concerts they call workshops. The artistic directors, throw three or four acts together-at-once on stage, under a common theme. The musicians have to make it work for an hour. Initally, they were designed as song exchanges. A songwriter would talk about a song and play it, then hand the floor over to the next musician who would do the same; and so on down the line.
Nowadays, partly because the programming at folk festivals has widened, they are apt to turn into spontaneous jam sessions and collaborations. If the mood is right and the musicians hit it off, the audience gets a magical, once-in-a-lifetime concert. You might get to see your favourite singer-songwriter given an impromptu backing by another band thanks to the manipulative hand of the festival's artistic director. Or a half-dozen virtuosos from all corners of the globe could be trading licks on a new type of musical fusion.
For instance, I remember seeing mind-blowing events like the Handsome Family being backed up by Big Sandy and His Fly-rite Boys, The Sadies talking Robin Hitchcock into playing "Astronomy Domine", and Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir, a Cree vocal group, a North African choral ensemble trading harmonies and singing call and response in three different languages.
I know we've written about this before. You may have seen references to it elsewhere on one of our web sites, but thanks to the omnipresence of bootleg video on the internet, you get to witness what it's all about if you've never been to one of these shindigs.
We put a few of great workshop experiences under the collective Agnostic belt, but this video captured at the 2009 Edmonton Folk Fest documents one that ranks up there with the best of 'em. We were scheduled with the Hot Tuna (featuring the legendary Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassady) and Afro-pop sensation Daby Toure. We've never played together before, though we spent some time hanging out with Daby and his band the night before. One of the trepidations of doing these things is sussing out whether anyone actually wants to play together. This workshop was one where everyone was tuned-in to the same frequency from the get go.
To wit, this transcontinental version of "Empire State Express" is one you'll never see performed live again. Jorma Kaukonen lets loose with a gritty guitar solo and Daby Toure pipes in with a verse in mother tongue. (If you listen closely you can also hear what members of the the audience were up to the night before.) Afterwards, while we were all shaking hands and thanking each other, Jorma remarked that this workshop reminded us, as musicians, why we do what we do. And how, brother.
After being away from the Canadian festivals for a summer in Europe, I couldn't help thinking about how much I missed this atmosphere of the Canadian folk fests. Musicians are encouraged to hang out for the weekend, talk with each other, and play together. Ain't nothin' better for a player. Word.
