In Scottish piping circles, Allan MacDonald is, with good cause, described as a legend. Allan’s concert at Celtic Connections was a reprise of a celebration of his music which took place at Piping Live! at the National Piping Centre in Glasgow last year. All the tunes played during the evening were from Allan’s influential Moidart tune collections, The First Hundred and The Second Hundred (Moidart on Scotland’s West coast being where Allan is from), with the choices being entirely tunes composed by Allan, rather than any of the traditional tunes that make up around half of each collection. Allan was joined on stage by a band of traditional music greats – Finlay MacDonald on pipes and low whistle, piper Iain MacFarlane on fiddle, Ali Hutton on guitar and Kerry uilleann piper Leonard Barry, who, as Allan explained, had to play tunes in alternative keys to fit with the Scottish pipes.
We only had to wait until the second set of the evening to hear Allan’s great tune, Mackerel and Tattie, that had kicked off the whole Festival at the beginning of the 30th Anniversary Concert (reviewed here) performed by the Celtic Connections Big Band. Introduced by Allan both in Gaelic, Buntata ‘s Sgadain, and as the conversely colloquial ‘Fish & Chips’ – it was played as both a strathspey with Tha Ceum Danns’ A Dhithand Ardanachan and then as a reel with The Procrastinator (a tune Allan told us he wrote for himself) and The Plagiarist’s Reel. The appeal of Allan’s compositions and playing is immediately evident – a rich vitality, a sense of fun and usually an unexpected edge – tunes going to places you wouldn’t have foreseen.
Allan switched to the small pipes for a gorgeous, evocative set, which began with Angela, a slow air (recorded by Allan on his seminal 2001 album with renowned Gaelic singer Margaret Stewart Colla Mo Rùn). The second tune was Pipe Major Angus MacDonald, originally a march but sounding more slow waltz-like, enriched by Allan lilting the tune (his only singing of the evening), and concluding with both band and audience singing the tune in calming, uplifting unison.
The concert was subtitled ‘We’re a Case the Bunch of Us’, the title of one of Allan’s best-known tunes (also recorded by Allan on Colla Mo Rùn, by Duncan Chisholm and by the McGoldrick, McCusker, Doyle trio), which reflected the collectivity of making music and Allan’s dry, ever-present humour. Played in a set with The Jewels of the Ocean, another of Allan’s waltzes (there is great video on YouTube of Allan playing them on the Transatlantic Sessions in 2009), it started off with Leonard Barry on uilleann pipes and is then picked up by Allan, again on small pipes, and Finlay on low whistle. It was an alluring, heartening set of tunes, which had the effect of enfolding you, briefly losing sense of time as the waltzes pulled you in.
For the solo set that followed, Allan stayed on small pipes, some of the set sounding like hornpipes, giving us perhaps the most engrossing five minutes in an evening of riveting performances. Allan’s technique on this set of tunes was on another level; he played a staccato rhythm under each melody, creating a raga-like effect. Allan’s highland pipes playing stands out for its sweet tone, but for me, his playing on small pipes has a whole other eloquence and depth.
The last set was another that began with a strathspey, Abiar Thusa Mi Bhi Tarraung (which Alli Hutton recorded as a member of Old Blind Dogs), and then stepped up with a bunch of reels Fàg A’ Phiob Bhochd / Sorry I’m Late / Lunatic Fringe (Allan said Sorry I’m Late was a tune he didn’t have a name for so named it for something he is every day); a buoyant, cheerful last set followed by a very appropriate standing ovation. An encore of two more lively reels sent the appreciative audience home well contented: Tommy & Ronnie’s Double Tonic and Lord McConnell of Lough Erne – the first Allan played at the 2007 celebration of the music of piper Gordan Duncan and also in the set he played on Transatlantic Sessions (mentioned above) – the second Allan said was from the days under Tony Blair when you could buy your way to an ennoblement (you still can of course, though doubtless, it costs a lot more) and Allan imagined the great Cathal McConnell as the Lord of Lough Erne (after Cathal’s classic 1978 album On Lough Erne’s Shore). Allan MacDonald is one of those rare musicians whose tunes and playing are steeped in ancient culture but also somehow still have a contemporary sensibility. It was an evening of wonderful, memorable music imbued with a sense of joy and amusement, built on the very secure foundation of Allan’s longstanding musical prowess.