The Cajun group BeauSoleil has been making music for well over a quarter-century, and doing so with mostly the same members for about two decades. They pretty much single-handedly made Cajun a legitimate component of World music (whatever that is), and have fans just about everywhere. They’re among the acts that I can count on one hand, those that I’ll always go see when they’re in the neighborhood, because they always put on a good show.And even though it was a free, festival-style concert in the park, with a lot of people in the audience simply because it was a summer night with free music, they didn’t disappoint. In fact, in my experience, BeauSoleil actually excels at this kind of gig.
The sextet from Louisiana performed for over two hours with a short intermission, playing nearly two dozen songs and tunes with remarkable energy. Frontman and fiddler extraordinaire Michael Doucet broke a string on the first number, the swampy, Creole-inflected “Conja,” which tells the tale of the mixing of French Acadian and Afro-Caribbean cultures in Louisiana beginning in the late 18th century.
From then on it was a blissful party blend of peppy two-steps, lilting waltzes and rocked-up zydeco that kept a few dozen dancers in motion and everybody else clapping, swaying and tapping their feet. In short, it was a typical BeauSoleil concert.
The melodic core of the band are Doucet’s fiddle, his honeyed baritenor, and Jimmie Breaux’s chanky-chank accordion. Doucet is quite literally a world-class fiddler — one of the great treats of my musical life was seeing him share a stage with Vassar Clements a couple of years ago. He plays with an amazing blend of rhythmic drive and fluid melody, sometimes chasing the beat, sometimes out in front of it, frequently sprinkling the air with fistfuls of gracenotes all around the melody. Doucet’s fiddle can imitate the hottest electric blues guitar, take a rockabilly ride as it did on Augie Meyer’s “Can’t You See,” play wailing zydeco on “Bontemps Rouler” and weep with a sad waltz tune.
Jimmie Breaux is the youngest and newest member of the band, having taken Errol Verret’s place when he was still in his early 20s or younger. He used to seem shy, almost hiding his barely five-foot-tall frame behind the accordion. But Breaux has truly grown into his role as the player who carries the melody at least half of the time. Far from shy, he was positively cool this night in sunglasses and baggy khaki cargo shorts, pumping serious tunes out of his instrument with a studied nonchalance.
The rest of the band plays as one well-rehearsed unit. David Doucet is an unsung genius of flatpicked guitar, dashing off fleet-fingered solo turns when he isn’t contributing to the group’s driving rhythm. And even though the band boasts two veteran percussionists — Tommy Alessi on the trap set and Billy Ware on congas, washboard, triangle and other noisemakers — the rhythmic heart of BeauSoleil is bassist Carter Al Tharp. Bassist is a misnomer for Tharp, a multi-instrumentalist who often plays second fiddle, and who with David Doucet sings backing vocals.
But this night, it was the Michael and Jimmie show, the two goading each other to ever greater heights as they traded leads on the melody of every two-step, waltz and swamp-rocker. At one point, Doucet was sawing away at his fiddle with furious abandon, doing a passable imitation of the Neil Young “rocking dinosaur” step. In answer, Breaux just cracked a grin and pumped his instrument a little harder.
And Doucet pulled out the stops on one fiddle workout after another — his adaptation of Dennis McGee’s “Valse a Pop,” the delightful kids’ dressing song “La Cravatte a Ziggy Zag,” the incredibly infectious “One-Step a Choupique,” the sadly lilting “Recherche d’Acadie,” and on and on. The high point, which featured perhaps the best interplay between fiddle and accordion, came in the first encore tune, “Courir avec Walker,” a medley of old tunes by the accordion master Lawrence Walker.
It was one more night of excellent music from southwestern Louisiana’s ambassadors to the world. “Allons dancer!” and “let the bontemps rouler.”
(Albany, Oregon, USA, July 11, 2002)
Check out BeauSoleil’s Web site for more about this world-class band.
Gary also reviewed BeauSoleil’s Arc de Triomphe Two Step and Gitane Cajun.
