Album Notes

From Offbeat, New Orleans, Jan 2006, By Dan Willging

It’s hard to imagine a genre that fiddler Neti Vaan hasn’t tackled by now with her border-hopping eclecticism and folkloric sensibility of culling tunes from around the globe. But should there be any skeptics left, look no further than Vaan’s 15-track whirlwind, worldwide excursion that’s loaded with western swing dandies (“Beaumont Rag,” “Maiden’s Prayer”), French Canadian jewels (“Le Reel de Beatrice”) and slow, haunting Irish airs (“Eleanor Plunkett”). It’s enough to make your head spin...with a Venezuelan valse, (“Adios a Ocumare”), an Appalachian medley (“Ducks and Bunnies”) and a beautiful waltz (“Texas Wedding Waltz”), to cite a few more. Along with guest fiddler Jenny Gardner, the two trot off on a plucking symphonic spree on “Jesusita en Chihuahua,” a Mexican mariachi that’s also known as “Jesse Polka” in Texas. “One Step de McGee” finds her hooking up with Cajun fiddler Jonno Frishberg for a pleasantly rolling rendition of the Dennis McGee classic. Additionally, pianist Bart Ramsey penned three in-the-idiom tunes, the enchanting Eastern European “Desert Whispers,” the serene “Waltz for Ernestine” and the gliding mussette “Nuits de Port Domino” featuring Ramsey on accordion. After all this, plus two more fiddle duets with Daron Douglas, Vaan unveils her own masterpiece, “Toonzville,” that sits at the crossroads between Gypsy Europe, Istanbul and old Russia. Interestingly, the songs are never blazed through at breakneck speeds, but rather at their intended tempos, allowing Vaan’s expressive stylings to liberate each song’s inner beauty into a soul of its own.