Garth Hudson – The Sea To The North
After listening to The Sea To The North, the only question remains, “Is there an instrument Garth Hudson doesn’t play?” His instrumental credits include bass, tenor and soprano saxophone, accordion, synthesizer, piano, Moller pipe organ, Allen organ, melodica and tarogato. Tarogato?!
Like the instrumentation, The Sea To The North is challenging, far-reaching and a lot of fun. “The Cyrus And The Mulgrew” is a wild, nearly 12-minute journey, equal parts early ‘70s Frank Zappa and Weather Report. There’s a wild version of the Grateful Dead classic “Dark Star,” and plenty of surprises in between. Hudson closes the show with a lovely piano solo, “Little Island,” resembling something akin to Chopin playing jazz.
This is about as far from his work with The Band as one can imagine, but that’s the point of solo efforts. I’m sure Hudson has a lot more music left in him. Let’s hope we hear it soon.
Yes, Garth Hudson does have a lot more music in him and he’s now busy producing as well as playing. For one thing, watch for an upcoming all-Canadian tribute album to The Band with Garth playing on every song and all the musicians and songs chosen by him.
The tárogáto, by the way, looks somewhat like a large, wooden clarinet but has a very unique sound and an interesting history: http://www.reference.com/search?q=Tarogato
Thanks for shedding some light on the tárogáto Richard. Like I said, I look forward to hearing more from Garth soon. He’s a singular talent.