Keeping an instrument in tune can be a nightmare for any musician during a live show. It seemed particularly challenging for Matthew Baker during Monday evening’s Amour Courtois show at the Chilkat Center.
Baker, who is from North Dakota, joined a trio of jazz musicians on medieval instruments playing a 17th century bowed instrument known as a baryton. It’s played much like a modern cello and for much of the show he was having to make constant minute, and sometimes major, adjustments to keep it in tune.
“A baryton likes a humid climate,” he said after the show.
While Haines certainly meets that requirement, the group is nearing the end of a tour that started in Dawson City, Canada. He said the -40 degree temperatures were a shock to his instrument.
Near him on the stage, French jazz pianist Baptiste Bailly struggled to keep his hands warm – often sitting on them while the trio re-imagined 14th century music through wide-ranging jazz interpretations bringing modern interpretations to composers like Guillaume de Machaut and Gilles Binchois.
Despite the climate challenges, the group – which includes Spain’s Efrén López – put on a striking show for a crowd of about 60.
Long after the concert was over, more than a dozen people crowded around Baker and Lopéz to ask questions about their instruments.
Sean Bryant leaned in close to examine Baker’s baryton which has a somewhat hidden set of pluckable strings running up the back of the neck. The instrument is exceptionally rare, so he’s not likely to find one to play for himself but joked that he was considering building one.
López, who is a multi-instrumentalist, had a setup featuring an oud, which is a pear-shaped Middle Eastern instrument, and a Pander de Peñaparda, a square drum generally played by women in a region of Spain near to his home. But it was his hurdy-gurdy which got the most attention.
The guitar-shaped stringed instrument, which originates from the 9th century, includes drone strings sounded by a hand-cranked wheel which can sound like a set of bagpipes. It also has strings that pass over a bridge which can generate a loud drum-like buzz when played.
Combine those instruments with Bailly’s penchant for playing the keys while scraping his hands along the strings of the grand piano in the auditorium and the music at times seemed to fill the auditorium with a wall of textured sound. At other moments, the audience leaned in to hear quiet notes or reverberating strings giving way to long, lingering silences.
Local musician Henry Leasia took on the challenge of mixing that sound. He said he’s still learning how to mix a live show in real time, but that members of the group knew what they wanted, brought their own gear and gave him guidance about how to present their particular, peculiar sound.
“You want to hear the quiet, you want to hear all of the dynamics, but it’s so hard to get all of that range,” he said. “It was fun.”
The Amour Courtois tour started in Dawson and was headed to Vancouver for a Friday, March 13 show to cap it off.