One of the world’s premier acoustic folk duos that many say is igniting young listeners’ passion for traditional music, fiddler and singer Jay Ungar and his wife, guitarist, pianist and singer Molly Mason, will perform American roots music Saturday, Sept. 24, at 7:30 p.m. at the Sounding Board in West Hartford.
Typically, Ungar and Mason come out swinging with a hot medley, a hoedown showdown opener.
“We just want to make sure everybody is wide awake,” Mason jokes over the phone from the couple’s home in Saugerties, N.Y.
Without losing a beat, the duo’s concert swings right into what they call “a traditional fiddle travelogue.” With the couple’s empathetic musical interplay and informative but breezy patter between songs, it’s a swift-moving, picturesque, open-ended journey.
Exuding a friendly, living room ambiance, the performance provides a crackling historic overview, which might transition into mournful Civil War era songs or bright 19th-century classics by the likes of Stephen Foster, before gliding into Appalachian tunes, Irish stomps or a saucy taste of Cajun.
Right alongside a Celtic reel there might be a Scandinavian song, even pieces celebrating American icons like jazz great Fats Waller or a classic honky-tonk heartbreaker by Hank Williams.
Ungar and Mason thrive on spontaneity even after years of crisscrossing the states, playing everywhere from coffeehouses to the White House, including one with the great Irish flutist James Galway celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with the Irish ambassador.
“We like to get people singing along with us,” Ungar says of another one of the duo’s practices, “and build a little community right in the room. And the Sounding Board crowd is always ready, willing and able to join right in.”
Wherever the two troubadours travel, they must, without fail, play Jay’s renowned, Grammy-nominated waltz “Ashokan Farewell,” which famously served as the heart-rending, sorrowful signature tune for Ken Burns’ classic 1990 PBS documentary, “The Civil War.”
A profoundly evocative lament, the piece has been canonized as a “folk classic” performed at commemorative Civil War ceremonies at Gettysburg and recorded by a diverse array of artists.
Since the tune was first heard on TV, Ungar has received many letters and emails from people who have related personal anecdotes about how his melody has deeply affected their lives — a tune heard at a funeral or wedding.
A man in Africa emailed Jay that he first heard the piece on the radio while driving alone on a highway, and immediately began crying for the first time since he was 10 years-old. That lonely traveler confided he really needed the moment because, in his culture, men don’t cry.
“If God had wanted to get my attention,” he signed-off gratefully, “she certainly did.”
The folk evangelists spread the good word of the music’s appeal through their noted Ashokan Fiddle & Dance Camps they run in the Ashokan Center in the Catskills. Their camps provide training in traditional instruments, vocals, dancing and styles ranging from Appalachian to zydeco.
Both Ungar and Mason say they see an ever-widening audience today, boosted by an increasing interest shown by young people intrigued by what Mason calls the music’s open door to self-expression and freedom and a sense of history.
“Young people are tired of the fake in culture and they want the real thing. They’re finding authenticity in folk. It’s a pretty huge phenomenon,” she says.
Clinching her argument about the winds of change invigorating folk’s demographics, she adds: “There’s even a huge group of young people who are totally into old-time, traditional music in Brooklyn, which is a hotbed of traditional music these days. Yes, of all places, Brooklyn!”
THE FOLK DUO OF JAY UNGAR and MOLLY MASON perform at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 24, at the Sounding Board at the Universalist Church, 433 Fern St., West Hartford. $22 general, $20 members, $12 students with ID; $10 children 12 and under. soundingboardcoffeehouse.org and 860-770-3001
