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FANFARE CIOCARLIA/Nuala Kennedy’s New Shoes****
OLD FRUITMARKET, GLASGOW – part of Celtic Connections 2008

‘impressive….tight-sounding’
Jim Gilchrist, The Scotsman

AS BRASS bands go, Fanfare Ciocarlia must register pretty high on the Richter scale. From the moment they sashayed on stage – three trumpeters, three sax and clarinet players, propelled by a mighty "rhythm section" of four tubas and horns and a big bass drum (later augmented by a second percussionist), the 12-strong Romanian gypsy band displayed a bravura and ferocity of attack that suggested that in the Fanfare Ciocarlia tune book, very little is marked anything other than furioso.

Out of these brazen maws blasted impassioned dance music that had many of the stand-up audience bopping gleefully. Frenetic trumpet and raging tax soloed against the insistent staccato rasping of the rhythm brass, as repertoire ranged manically through eastern Europe, the Balkans and beyond. Their tradition, we are told, stretches back to the brass band propensities of the Ottoman Turks: one can only presume that, somewhere along the line, it was ineradicably informed by The Flight of the Bumble Bee.

There were songs, too – trumpeter Radulescu Nürnberg's Lume Lume sung with a passion echoed by accompanying sax, while one cheeky little number sounded engagingly like a Romanian take on George Formby's Cleaning Windows . They were still hurrumphing through a Balkanised version of the James Bond theme as this reviewer headed trainwards.

The impressive opening set from flautist Nuala Kennedy's New Shoes ensemble also featured brass, in the shape of guest trumpeter Colin Steele adding a certain carnival flavour to their closing New Shoes set. By that time, her tight-sounding septet of second flute and fiddle (Claire mann), melodeon, drums, double bass and guitar had taken on board further guests in Nova Scotian fiddler/pianist Troy MacGillivray and the inimitable Cathal McConnell, whose additional vocals in the lovely Erin on the Rhine were, sadly, all but lost in the mix.