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Musical Lightning Rod (concert pick)
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Erie Times-News, Musical Lightning Rod (concert pick) >>
TAKE A WHIRL WITH DERVISH: (Picture)
The traditional Irish band from County Sligo plays Friday at Mercyhurst
The traditional Irish band Dervish is rooted in the fertile musical soil of County Sligo.
-by John Chacona, Contributing writer
The French, as usual, have a wonderfully precise word, terroir, that describes the minute characteristics imparted to a thing by its place of origin.
When a wine connoisseur tells you which bank of a river the grapes in a particular vintage were grown, it's the wine's terroir that she detects.
It works this way in music, too, especially in traditional music. I can't confess to knowing much about Irish music, but a friend of mine who loves it responded with great enthusiasm when I handed her a copy of the latest CD by the County Sligo-based band Dervish. "If they're from Sligo," she said, "they're going to be good."
Apparently, Sligo is to Irish music what Abruzzi is to Italian cooking, and that means a treat for the audience Friday at the Mary D'Angelo Center for Mercyhurst's annual March concert of Irish music that will also feature California-bred harper Patrick Ball.
While the spirits will run high, don't expect a pub-style rave up. Dervish's music hews more to traditional forms and acoustic instruents.
"We wouldn't be critical of the ballad style, the pub style," mandola player Brian McDonagh told me on the phone from his Sligo home. "But we're from a lineage that concentrates on the quality and the musicianship, and doesn't go for the easy kill of ballads."
NOT THAT THE SIX MEMBERS OF Dervish have anything against pubs. In fact, the members of Dervish met as most Irish musicians do: As strangers in a bar.
"This is how Irish people have forged unlikely friendships for years, playing music together," Dervish vocalist Cathy Jordan has noted.
It's music that sways with the gentle, pastoral rhythms of the Irish countryside. Jordan's voice is cradled in a weave of plucked stringed instruments while accordion and guitar carry the rhythm.
But about that name.
"When we initially got the name, it has this connotation of vitality, energy, and life," McDonagh told me.
"When we looked at the dervishes themselves, they're an extraordinary sect, and the whirling dervishes have this ritual where they become entranced and become a conduit between heaven and earth. They spin with one hand up and one hand down. I think of them as a lightning rod grounding the divine to earth."
It's a name rich with metaphysics, but the Irish character is as practical as it is metaphysical, and so is Dervish.
"We also wanted a name that was not specifically Irish, and if you're not Irish, you might not understand. Dervish is something everybody can understand, you know?"
Dervish, Patrick Ball will perform Friday at 8p.m. in Mercyhurst College's Mary D'Angelo Center. Tickets range from $1.50-25 and are available at the box office, 824-3000. A reception will follow.
For More Information on Dervish, visit the web site www.dervish.ie. 03/01/07
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