Fess up time, my knowledge of proper Trad music is thin as a weasel. I know a jig is in 6/8 time, a reel is in 4/4 and my ear can happily differentiate them if presented in a police lineup. On paper, I know a slip jig is in 9/8 but were it the ultimate listening challenge in a ‘win a Tesla’ competition, I’d be going home on the bus. I don’t know what a Strathspey is; is it a kind of jacket? I foolishly participated in a Strip the Willow once, long before defibs were ubiquitous and only survived by the skin of my teeth.

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And, for me, the centripetal eurythmic catastrophe that is the Cumberland Reel invariably ended in an implosion of bodies, tartan carpets bestrewn with giddy ‘choochters’. I barely kept my kilt on.

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I should be more au fait with this stuff, my dad was the Red Hackle Band pipe major in the 40s and 50s and he was a fine pibroch player, taught its art by ‘old Peter’ from Patrick. I absorbed none of it. I had a chanter for a bit but - had David Bowie played the chanter things may have been different.

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Enough of my Trad cred paucity, I do know good music when I hear it.

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Three instruments… a guitar, a fiddle and… a baby grand piano. How David and Dennis got the piano up onto the stage defies the laws of physics… and neither of them were the worse for wear!

 

And the baby grand was in good hands, Iona Reid read the dots and played with a natural ease, an effortlessness, an - I know what I’m doing and I am doing it - vibe. The guitar is the cement between the bricks… fills, driving rhythm, delicate countermelodies keeping the edifice up – I didn’t catch his name, nor could I find him on Google, damn.

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The fiddle… hmmm, well if you get to jam at the usher hall with Nicola Benedetti when you’re thirteen then you’re no squeaky scraper… my ears tell me I’m in the presence of a master; the letters after her name support that and all it takes is a quick Google to gasp at her track record, it’s ‘ossum’.

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This evening was no place for novelty seekers, no hip-hop beats to sweeten the treat, no jazz-fusion chords to mystify, no nods to rock, we’re journeying deep into the Land O’ Trad. Actually, that’s slightly inaccurate, one tune did have a jazzy aspect, gospely Pentecostal type piano shifting the harmonic mood a little.

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Isla’s Memories of Cape Breton celebrates her time in Cape Breton preparing for her Masters final and a corresponding Isla Be Home for Christmas, written, punningly for her departure from Cape Breton is an equivalent pleasure.

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Lady Nairne features a couple of times, The Land O’ The Leal and the Laird O’ Cockpen. I learn that she was a fascinating character from Burns’ time who composed fine songs and tunes but published them anonymously.  So proficient was she that many just assumed they were written by Burns himself!

 

With The Blue Mist Set we hit cruising altitude - time to relax the seatbelts and settle in for the ride.

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Ewan McColl’s Jamie Foyers moves us, the tale of a Glasgow chap who goes off to oppose fascism in the Spanish Civil War… thoughtful and touchingly executed.

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And to test my timekeeping we had a march strathspey and reel then an F major slip jig. I gave up my arithmetic mithering and just let it all seep past the calculator to set things adance in my Scottish soul

A beautiful The Wild Geese by Jim Reid never fails to move, last heard on Jim Malcolm’s first album… he should come back to Crail btw, he’s great.

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And finally on my list of things to mention to you is Nancy Nicolson’s wryly amusing They Sent a Woman… smart, sharp and executed perfectly by Isla.

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So… Crail Folk Club do it yet again, they bring us variety, they bring us entertainment, they illuminate us, they stir our emotions, they have great floor spots and they have a raffle that is a show in itself!  These are special times folks, special times.