All posts tagged: Institute of Musical Tradition

Claire Lynch Band at home at IMT

Published by

Monday evening’s Institute of Musical Traditions show at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church had the feeling of a “living room concert” as founder and emcee David Eisner put it. The Claire Lynch Band – in what has become an annual tradition – put on a  musically adventurous yet still familiar and engaging show for a full house of family and appreciative fans. The 2 1/2 hour concert had all the elements of a Claire Lynch show:  great singing by Claire and the band, sick guitar work from Matt Wingate, jazzy fiddle from Bryan McDowell, and lots of fantastic bass from the incomparable Mark Schatz. There were a number of swing tunes, which fit Claire’s voice to a T, tossed in with the bluegrass and folk.  While performing songs from her most recent CD, the first-rate Dear Sister, Claire also reached back into her catalog, especially including tunes from the Watcha Gonna Do CD from 2009.  The Mockingbird’s Voice and Barbed Wire Boys were two standouts among many. There’s so much to like in Claire’s work these …

Missy Raines Brings New Hip to IMT

Published by

My colleague John and I were among a small but appreciative audience to hear Missy Raines and The New Hip at the weekly Monday night concert of the Institute of Musical Traditions.   The band features Raines’ energetic bass lines as the foundation for jazzgrass and acoustic music, capped with some terrific solo work by a group of young Nashville-based musicians. Instrumentals are the core of this band’s work, and they played most of the selections from Inside Out, their new CD on Alison Brown’s Compass Records.  The title track, Duke of Paducah, and a reworked Angeline the Baker entitled simply Angeline are among the highlights.   All the musicians were top notch, but Michael Witcher on dobro stood out throughout the evening.  Multi-instrumentalist Ethan Ballinger looks to be all of 16, but played beyond his years.  The band also broke in a new guitarist (on his second gig and so new he’s not listed on the web site) who carefully studied the chord charts but didn’t miss a beat.  At the end of a satisfying night …