Vietnamese tradition gets a Delta blues twist
GLASGOW - The Big Big World festival, which this show launches, is a broad church and rightly so. Attempting to distill numerous
genres of music into a ten-day extravaganza is nigh-on impossible, but Big Big World makes a good, creative fist of it. Over the
course of the festival’s ten days there’s everything from Hawaiian Blue Grass to funky Afro-beat; last night, however, it was all about
Vietnamese folk.
Huong Thanh is one of Vietnam’s most respected vocalists, who manages to weld traditional Vietnamese music to European jazz,
without ever losing her Vietnamese edge.
Thanh was accompanied by Hao-Nhien Pham and Hong Nguyen, both of whom make a good attempt at combining folk melodies
with contemporary musical motifs. The show draws upon the Vietnamese tradition of Cai Luong, a style of singing that has fallen out
of favour, but which is being revitalised by Huong Thanh, among others. Last night, she blended folk methods with modern tropes;
Pham and Nguyen are adept at wringing tricksy melodies from their traditional instruments, and in doing so point out the staggering
similarity between folk melodies of the east and the west. (Many of the tunes they knock out could come straight from the traditional
Scottish song book.)
What makes the Huong Viet quartet so affecting, however, is the sheer energy with which they perform. Subtle moments - of which
there are many - are given the reverence they deserve, but when the four-piece wants to explode, it does so with measured aplomb.
There were times last night when the quartet harked back to Thirties delta blues, and all the pain that genre supplies; as well as
that, they tapped into Alice Coltrane’s mystic jazz, though they substitute odd-ball Vietnamese instruments for Coltrane’s
extravagant harp and piano arrangements.
The tracks demanded a screaming, ballsy interpretation; nevertheless, the four-piece band are not shy when it comes to showing
the audience exactly what they are made of.
By Leon McDermott - The Scotsman - October 23, 2003
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