Black Violin. Photo credit: Mark Clennon
WILMINGTON, NC – There are few forms of joy quite as contagious as a joyful artist. Traditionally, we like to think of artists as tortured figures who wring themselves for angst to turn into art. There are spaces for these sorts of artists, to be sure, but artists whose work comes from a place of joy and playfulness are often dismissed as trivial or less interesting. But the “dirty little secret” of the arts is that if you enjoy the art for its own sake, then you as an artist often spend so much time refining it that you reach a level of technical mastery that is often unmatched.
Black Violin are such artists; they love what they do and they are proud to tell their audience as such. Not only is this love self-evident, but also Black Violin’s instrumental mastery allows for the group to create a truly spectacular live music experience.
Looking back, I didn’t notice that the main stage of the Wilson Center had been dressed slightly for Black Violin’s needs. I notice it now, comparing the shallower stage set up and the black walls with the way the Wilson Center is normally set, but at the time, the biggest things I noticed were all the lights, and the way the stage fog caught a purple glow. So lulled was I, that I was almost caught off guard when the performance began. DJ SPS occupied his turntable, with Nat Strokes on the drums and Liston Gregory at the keyboard. Last out on stage were the Black Violin founders themselves, Wil B on the viola and Kev Marcus on the violin. It’s difficult for me to pinpoint how the performance started in my memory, as it took off at such a delightful pace that I didn’t have the time to register that we had begun.
Black Violin got off to an eager start rather than a fast one, and I was in awe, for they managed to keep the stamina up for the entire evening. Certain individual numbers were at slower or faster tempos to be sure. However, the proceedings kept an overall consistent pace, with smooth transitions from track to track, and pauses that felt like breaths of air. When Wil B or Kev Marcus needed a moment to either rest or make preparations for certain other numbers, they very smartly turned the stage over to one of their bandmates, whether it was Gregory playing Liszt arrangements, or DJ SPS working his turntables like a madman. This was clever – the audience was so enthralled that they didn’t even seem to notice the transitions taking place.
All this before getting into the music itself. I don’t know if it’s controversial to say that all string instruments have an inherent drama to them, but this has at least been my observation. All instruments are expressive (that’s what makes music music), but string instruments have a certain je ne sais quoi to their expressiveness: an inherent drama that heightens whatever emotion the instrumentalist is expressing. Think about how often strings are used for emphasis in film scores or popular music. Black Violin understands the inherent drama of the strings and they grow their entire sound from it, with the keyboard, turntable, and especially the drums adding rich layers and color to the music. Black Violin’s sound has an immediacy and an energy that, combined with their performance stamina, creates a positive feedback loop with the audience.
Furthermore, Black Violin compositionally occupies a space where they have a lot of fun playing with hundreds of years of music history; their arrangements add modern bombast to older compositions, and older complexities to modern compositions. And the band members are so musically literate that you’re just as likely to hear an arrangement of “Just the Two of Us” as you are to hear “Lord of the Dance” and it makes for truly thrilling music. I especially enjoyed the “freestyle” section, where the audience was treated to the spectacle of the creative process itself as the band improvised.
If live music is only as good as the musicians themselves, then you are unlikely to have an experience to compare with seeing Black Violin live. Not only is it clear that the process of creating and performing music is pure joy to them, but it’s hard to not get swept up in that joy and feel your spirits lightened. When I saw them at the Wilson Center, they ended their set by briefly recreating their 2005 winning performance for Showtime at the Apollo before transitioning seamlessly into a dance set and calling it a night.
The transition was so seamless – the audience was already on their feet for a standing ovation by that point!
The Wilmington performance was part of Black Violin’s “Then & Now” tour, celebrating their twenty years as a group. They have already performed in many locations in Western North Carolina, including a free concert in Boone in cooperation with hurricane relief efforts. Upcoming tour dates can be found here.
