Aside from having one of the coolest names in the Boston blues scene, Ilana Katz Katz can make her fiddle sing the blues. This lady’s uncanny ability to blend blues, roots, and her own Appalachian influences into an original sound is a winsome feat. Throughout her new Movin’ On album, Katz will have listeners in wonder as she finds new, inventive ways to present music we thought we already knew.
“Baby, Please Don’t Go” opens her album with an Americana fiddle serving up a tasty interpretation of this blues classic. Her vocal interpretation, too, infuses this with a feeling of something out of America’s rural past. This rendition shows the possibilities when blues crosses with roots while crossing with an influence from Katz’s Appalachian tradition. Katz breathes new life into this mournful song, and helps keep it alive for another generation.
“Sweet To Mama” features Barry Levenson (Canned Heat) playing a tuneful electric guitar. His tender application builds a perfect platform for Katz to sail her pristine, pretty vocal melody over. She also bows a second, more jaunty melody that captures the playfulness of this tune. All three melody lines dovetail into something perfectly pretty and tuneful at the end.
“Reuben’s Train” finds Katz singing over a pushy, thick rhythmic line from her fiddle. She creates a forceful sense of motion with her bowing technique, so it’s easy to picture a train moving down the tracks toward an unidentifiable destination. Meanwhile, she conjures an eerie, mournful feeling, suggesting this is one train ride that we wouldn’t want to take.
Guitar and fiddle melodies twist and turn into the R&B tune “You Crush My Soul.” Katz moves her sultry vocal around a spiky groove with funky aplomb while her fiddle rocks it up a bit with it’s take on the hipster melody line. There is a tremendous amount of cool coming from their sparse interpretation of this genre.
Brittle, bluesy guitar lines and a stirring fiddle melody make “Tanya” another tuneful number. Its colors and tones eke out a feeling of people relaxing in a speakeasy on a hot summer day. It’s a sociable song, with each darting guitar note feeling like it’s being played for a fairly sizable audience while a bop-like groove beneath it motivates the emotions. The fiddle soon returns to prominence after guitarist Bobby Radcliff struts his melodic line and contributes to this song’s amicable, secret society vibe. Listeners will likely want to include this particular instrumental number to their party mix tape.
“Blues For Bobby Radcliff” finds Katz teaming up with Chas Justus and Cedric Watson to create this tasteful tribute to their friend and fellow musician Mr. Radcliff. Fiddle and guitars weave a texture that could’ve been sewed in the deep south during the era of front porch blues. The trio play their intricate notes at a relaxed pace, suggesting a few friends gathered together for an informal performance. The guitar notes are refined and brittle while the fiddle’s weepy appearance appeals with its ability to replicate the stirrings of the human soul.
“Kansas City” is a fantastic number for Katz to give the fiddle treatment. Her rollicking melody line perfectly captures the happy go lucky feeling of this timeless song. She also sings it out loud and proud, using vocal dynamics to emphasize the anthem like quality of the old time lyrics. One can really feel the spirited jump and jive vibe in Katz’s take. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have Mr. Bobby Radcliff pay out a speedy line of light, brittle notes, well paced intervals that add an extra flavor to what is already a good time vibe.
“Demon Blues” lives up to its title. Katz is sultrier than Eve after she bit the apple in the Garden Of Eden. Her voice rides the melodic rail of this song with the smoothness of a velvet glove, caressing each verse of these sexy lyrics with her sussurant, mellifluous croon. Her fiddle chimes in with a tuft of restless desire, something coiled up and needing to spring forward. Easeful guitar grooves make a serious statement here as well, expressing the kind of longing that this song is all about. The listener can feel it in every note picked and pressed, like its own work of art with a similar longing, the tension brimming just below the surface.
“Lazy John/Sail Away Ladies” turns the microphone over to Cedric Watson, a man whose vocal grist is plenty raspy and plenty soulful. It also gives Katz more time to focus on delivering her fiddle magic. Here, we find our heroine playing something that could’ve accompanied a barn dance at the turn of the last century. Keeping her fiddle colorful and lively, she makes one picture old fashioned hill people doing the two step and the jug on a straw covered wooden floor.
Katz infuses “Forevermore” with spiritual oomph as she croons this original with deeply felt emotion. She tugs these words out of her with the grace of a choir as fiddle and banjo flavor the space around her with something out of an ancient church. Her fiddle is bursting with colorful expression, conjuring a great spirit out of herself to bring this song to vivid life. There are a lot of moving parts here, and their whirlwind of music and personal zeal paint an edgy, detailed picture of a human soul.
“Cruel Willie Blues #2” features more of Katz’s emotive fiddle playing, a bouncy line that runs so smooth, seamless, and expressive, it seems to be singing. Meanwhile, Katz scats her way through a hazy maze of acoustic melodic beauty and over a tight rhythm section, strutting her stuff vocally. Bobby Radcliff’s snappy guitar line is the fine backbone on this tune. Like a good dance partner leading the way, he makes the song sway and a swing a bit with his lilting melody.
Katz croons her way into “Greasy Coat” with tremendous bluesy flair. After she pulls us in with this vocal aplomb, she delves into her thick Appalachian fiddle influences, offering up something so thickly roots oriented it can be chewed on. There’s a lot of grist in the notes she’s bowing, all while she sings with a sorrowful abandon, a vocal approach that makes it sound like there may or may not be a tomorrow. This number wins one over with its wildly free energy, something beautifully cathartic one plays to get something off one’s chest.
Closing out her CD with Jack Of Diamonds, Katz weaves a thick melodic line with her vigorous bowing technique. She infuses this traditional Americana number with a wedge of musical muscle, showing her respect for older musical forms while keeping it fresh and wholesome with her creative interpretation.
Katz is one of those artists who can make the fiddle cool. With her sultry voice, she can also effortlessly soak any tune, original, standard, or traditional in a seriously deep blues inflection. Combining these elements into her own originals and arrangements, Katz comes up with outstanding material for this Movin’ On album. Well done.
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