Eileen Ivers has some rather serious credentials. She is a
nine-time All-Ireland Fiddle Champion, has played with the Boston
Pops, London Symphony, and the National Orchestra, and has played
on over one hundred Celtic, Celtic fusion, and other recordings.
She may be the greatest Irish fiddler alive today; certainly she’s
the most prominent.
She’s also one of the most adventurous. Since 1999, her work
with Immigrant Soul has blazed a trail for cross-genre music,
incorporating African, Latin, and roots American music in an Irish
fiddle framework. It is appropriate, then, that
Crossing The Bridge is called what it is; this was the album
where she went from traditional fiddler to the hazy and
breathtaking world of Celtic fusion, and nothing would be the same
again.
First off, the details. As is usual with Sony Classical
releases,
Crossing is impeccably produced and engineered; clear,
crisp, and uncluttered, the musicians take center stage. That way,
when you hear something that makes you go ‘What the hell was THAT
again?’, you’re sure you heard it right.
Because, in the end,
Crossing is filled with brilliant moments that sneak up on
you like the musical equivalent of a Navy SEAL. The slashing,
sudden guitar solo on “Gravelwalk,” the exuberant Senegal vocals on
“Jama,” Al Di Meola’s Flamenco guitar breaks on “Whiskey And
Sangria” — and just when you think you’ve gotten a hold of things
and can handle whatever comes next, Ivers nails you with a solo
fiddle performance of “Nearer My God To Thee” that’s one of the
sweetest things I’ve ever heard. Fittingly, perhaps, she closes
with two traditional tunes, “Crowley’s/Jackson’s” and “Dear Irish
Boy,” that are just fiddle, guitar, uilleann pipes, and a
thrumming, thumping bodhran. Effortlessly, Ivers takes us around
the world — through the Bronx where she grew up, to Senegal,
Spain, Poland — and then back to where it all began, the green
hills of Eire. We’re richer for the journey.
We live in a rare time — a time where groundbreaking fiddlers
like Natalie MacMaster and Mark O’Connor are pushing the envelope
of what the instrument means. Count Eileen Ivers among their
number, and get a listen to Crossing The Bridge.
