If ever two musicians were destined to meet—and adore each other—it’s Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell. They’re both hugely committed to old-time music, and the history that created it. And they’re both great singers, as well as multi-instrumentalists who can play anything they touch.

Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell, in a rare when they weren’t moving too fast to blur the camera. (Jim Motavalli photo)

In a sublime show at Hartford’s Infinity Tour, the last stop on their tour, they fit together like peanut butter and jelly. Giddens has been great forever (you need to own the Carolina Chocolate Drops albums), but with the release of her first T-Bone Burnett-produced solo album, Tomorrow is My Turn, she’s really connected to the public.

Giddens was the BBC’s Folk Singer of the Year, and she got the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, as well as induction into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. The Hartford show was sold out.

Powell is just as great (as artist and producer). He’s definitely up there with Bruce Molsky as a solo old-time performer—on any instrument. Let’s see, between them, Giddens and Powell played banjo (both), fiddle (both) accordion (him), piano (him), guitar (both) and voice (both). Here’s a video from the show, “At the Purchaser’s Option”:

If ever two musicians were destined to meet—and adore each other—it’s Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell. They’re both hugely committed to old-time music, and the history that created it. And they’re both great singers, as well as multi-instrumentalists who can play anything they touch.
In a sublime show at Hartford’s Infinity Tour, the last stop on their tour, they fit together like peanut butter and jelly. Giddens has been great forever (you need to own the Carolina Chocolate Drops albums), but with the release of her first T-Bone Burnett-produced solo album, Tomorrow is My Turn, she’s really connected to the public.
Giddens was the BBC’s Folk Singer of the Year, and she got the Steve Martin Prize for Excellence in Banjo and Bluegrass, as well as induction into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame. The Hartford show was sold out. Here they are with a Cajun medley:

Powell is just as great (as artist and producer). He’s definitely up there with Bruce Molsky as a solo old-time performer—on any instrument. Let’s see, between them, Giddens and Powell played banjo (both), fiddle (both) accordion (him), piano (him), guitar (both) and voice (both).

I love what Steve Earle said about Powell: “”Dirk Powell is a badass. To the bone. He is, in addition to being the greatest old-time banjo player alive, a graduate student of both mountain and Cajun fiddle styles and diatonic button accordion, an instrument that fights you back, take it from me, I’ve tried. He is a singer, songwriter, producer, recording engineer, and all in all an artist of unique vision and unbending integrity. As far as I can tell there is no genre of American roots music that Dirk doesn’t understand, no primordial mode he can’t master, no polyrhythmic code he can’t crack. He also cooks the best sauce piquante I have ever tasted. Be forewarned: Dirk Powell and I WILL make a record together someday.”

Sorry, Steve, Rhiannon Giddens beat you to it. He’s all over her second solo album, Freedom Highway, as both musician and co-writer of some of the tunes. From that album, here’s the harrowing “Julie”:

In Hartford, the duo roamed far stylistically, and in a wonderful way. They played Cajun medleys with Powell on squeezebox and vocals, and Giddens on fiddle—sounding as if she was born on the bayou. They played sophisticated Quebecois fiddle music, stomping old-time standards (“Georgia Buck,” “Motherless Children,” “Going Down the Road Feeling Bad”), and one-offs—a take on Elton John’s “The Border Song” for an Aretha Franklin tribute the next night, an original torch song for a maybe-happening TV show set in Maine in the 30s, even a Mexican number “Mal Hombre,” which Giddens sang with aplomb—and acted out, too.

Maybe Steve Earle actually will make a duo record with Powell before Giddens does, since Freedom Highway is a many-splendored affair featuring Hubby Jenkins and Leyla McCalla from the Drops, as well as Powell and many more. Somebody certainly should. The best idea would be for one of the Giddens/Powell shows to be recorded and a live album released from that.

Both these performers are incredibly busy, so the tour may not happen again soon. But it was clear from their interplay on stage that a lifetime bond has been formed. Giddens said she feels “very blessed” to have found Powell, and from his reaction to that, the feeling is mutual.

The initial impression was modest: three tiny amps sitting on a bare stage at Sarah’s Wine Bar in Ridgefield, Connecticut. But the trio that eventually arrived with their instruments—Frank Vignola and Olli Soikkeli on hollow-body jazz guitars, and Jason Anick on violin—didn’t need big Marshall stacks—theirs is a subtle craft.

From left, Vignola, Soikkeli, Anick, Pete Anderson. And that’s the bell of Will Anderson’s saxophone. (Jim Motavalli photo)

I have to say that the food and wine served upstairs at Sarah’s combined with the artistry of those three to create one of the nicest evenings of music my wife and I have ever had. This was gypsy jazz, featuring tunes by and the influence of the great Django Reinhardt. It’s a robust genre that has never gone out of fashion, and it’s enjoying an especial renaissance now—with Hot Clubs sprouting up even in unlikely places. Does Detroit have one? You bet.

Will Anderson solos–to everyone’s great pleasure. (Jim Motavalli photo)

I’m a huge fan of both Vignola (whose two Frank and Joe Show records I particularly treasure) and Berklee professor Anick (certainly one of the best jazz violinists today), but the Finland-born Soikkeli I knew only from the Rhythm Future Quartet. He looks no more than 20, but he’s been playing for a decade and is a monster on his instrument, offering blistering solos (and duets with Vignola), and lovely ballad playing. The two guitarists have done some work as a duo and their interplay was exciting, and virtually telepathic.

Jason Anick blurs the camera, while Vignola and Soikkeli try to keep up. (Jim Motavalli photo)

This group hasn’t worked together all that much, but because they share a common language—chasing Django—they communicated beautifully. Vignola made a joke that Soikkeli “doesn’t speak a word of English” (he’s actually fluent and lives in New York), but it wouldn’t really matter if he couldn’t talk to his bandmates—they speak through their instruments. Here they are on a popular Django tune, “Swing 42.”

I asked Anick about his influences, and he led off with Stephane Grappelli (of course), but then he cited saxophone players. That makes sense, because he’s got a sound that’s at once delicate and—when needed—as muscular as a Blue Note blowing session.

As Django did, the repertoire mixed standards—“Sunny Side of the Street,” “It Don’t Mean a Thing,” “Stars Fell on Alabama,” Moonglow,” “It Had to be You,” “Sweet Georgia Brown”—with the gypsy’s originals, including his classics “Nuages” (with a young guest from the audience) and “Swing 42.”

Special mention should be made of the Anderson twins, Pete and Will, who came out of the audience to deeply impress on clarinet and tenor saxophone. Playing in pre-bop fashion that was old before they were born, these two are going places. If you don’t here Benny Goodman and Ken Peplowski when Pete plays, you’re not listening, and Will brings Coleman Hawkins to mind. Here they are with the group essaying a swinging version of “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.”