Dreaming of Appalachia, most classical buffs will conjure Copland’s spring peepers. The laterally minded will picture Cecil Sharp. The folk-minded will muse about Jean Ritchie or maybe Alan Lomax and Shirley Collins chugging through the Appalachians in search of the Sounds of the South. It is the title-track of “Appalachia Waltz” which best evokes the mountains – indeed does it with Shaker-like serenity. Perhaps this is purely associative because Appalachian Spring used something of the Shaker in its “Gift to be simple” movement. Yet Copland captured but a sliver of the Shaker spirit beside Lord of the dance, Sydney Carter’s Shaker borrowing – or Appalachia waltz’s spiritual clarity. If the whole ultimately evokes little of the Appalachians, at very least it is a fetching title.
Ma on cello, Meyer on bass and O’Connor on violin are fluent, conjuring pathos and heart-longing with Mama and Butterfly’s day out, swinging out through Druid fluid and F. C.’s jig, or summoning Kronos-like clarity and candour on Schizoozy. Its compositions burst with engaging ideas.
If the trio’s Appalachia is an apparition, it is the broad sweep of Texas which defines much of the work’s horizons, courtesy of O’Connor’s violin guru, Benny Thomasson. Cross-cultural collaborations frequently rely on their audience’s unfamiliarity with the mixed-and-matched cultures. Appalachia waltz may lack the chutzpah of Hindustani maestro Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, dobroist Jerry Douglas and Meyer and their “Bourbon & Rosewater” (on Water Lily Acoustics) but the “Appalachia Waltz” ensemble at worst plays deftly or slightly stiffly and at their best exquisitely. Docking a few tracks – canning Pickles, for example – would have made “Appalachia Waltz” a true glory, instead of 90 per cent grandeur.'