Peter Knight is both an astonishing fiddler and imaginative keyboard player. His talents effortlessly straddle musical genres. On the one hand folk music fans will know Peter’s work through his membership of the group Steeleye Span. On the other ‘new’ music disciples will have heard him working in a free music environment on his own 1991 album ‘An Ancient Cause’ (Shanachie) and in various groups under the leadership of saxophonist Trevor Watts.
For his brand new album ‘The Gemini Cadenza’, Peter draws on the wide musical vocabulary that these folk/jazz polarities both demarcate and encompass. One can hear, for instance, in the tonality of his fiddle playing echoes of Bartok, classicist Henryk Szeryng (particularly his Paganini, Lalo or Kreisler recordings), Donegal traditionalist John Doherty, Cajun music’s Octa Clark, the Scandinavian ECM brigade (Terje Rypdal, Jan Garbarek), Indian Carnatic traditions, the song of the Humpback Whale (the opening passage of ‘The Life And Death Of Mrs Pearson’), Turkish taksim, jazz revolutionary Leroy Jenkins and even 1920s jazz star Joe Venuti (though these are specific connections this critic makes. Peter is probably oblivous to them and never less than his own unique self).
For those who know him chiefly through his fiddle work, a surprise bonus will be how rapidly the Steeleye fiddler has developed additional sensitive keyboard skills. The keyboard landscapes he creates for his fiddle explorations are extremely sympathetic but the piano leads on the introspective yet optimistic ‘There’s Always Tomorrow’ and the lullaby ‘Goodnight, Sleep Well’ introduce an element of lush romanticism that is hypnotically beautiful and the perfect alkaline foil for the fiddle’s acidity.
The ‘Gemini’ of the album’s title hints at duality and much of the CD’s content refers and lays claim to that state—the fiddle/piano lead dialogue, the folk/jazz inspiration, the tension between sweet/sour tonality and the soft flowing linear backdrops/vertical angular solos arising out of them. The ‘Cadenza’ part speaks for itself as Peter builds bravura passages with all the consummate skill, spontaneous invention and imagination that only a master musician can muster (anyone in any doubt about that statement should check out the incredible virtuoso fiddling on ‘The Life And Death Of Mrs Pearson’).
Felicity Buirski’s poetry (included in the CD booklet) succinctly describes the method behind Peter’s music--“No need for a floor/Where none take a stand/Everything happens/And nothing is planned”—and indeed it is this ‘unplanned’ egoless playing that delivers on ‘The Gemini Cadenza’ some of the most melodic and spiritually nourishing music of 1998.
John Crosby
John Crosby is a freelance writer who has in recent years contributed to Q, MOJO, Folk Roots, Living Tradition and many other publications. As a record compiler and sleevenote writer, he has been responsible for over 50 CDs, among them the acclaimed ‘The Very Best Of Woody Guthrie’, June Tabor’s ‘Anthology’ and the Various Artists set ‘Troubadours’.