Working Both Sides of the Musical Border
October 13th, 2006

Santa Barbara News-Press
By Josef Woodard
October 13, 2006

Musical alliances are sometimes formed in mysterious ways and in unexpected locales.

For the multicultural acoustic act Gil & Tuey, who play at SOhO on Tuesday, the ampersand in their group name was cemented in San Miguel Allende, Mexico, thanks to a happy, accidental meeting.

Tuey Connell, the accomplished Brooklyn-based banjo player and multi-instrumentalist, was on a family vacation in January 2005. Thickening the plot further, Connell first encountered guitarist Gil Gutierrez with violinist Pedro Cartas when the duo played "Gypsy jazz" in an Irish pub in that popular Mexican town.

"They just totally blew us away," Connell recalls. "We invited them to come over to our table to have a drink at the next break. When Gil learned that I was a musician, he then invited me to his house for coffee the next day and asked me to bring my banjo. For the rest of the vacation, I sat in with them every night and we realized that there was something special in the way we played music together."

Out of that musical bond, a band was born.
"Gil is a virtuoso, and I have learned so much from him," Connell noted on the phone from Brooklyn before heading west for a tour. "We both like intricate, challenging music as well as the simple 'ear candy' aspect of something very easy to hear and understand."

Strong playing and accessible sounds are in abundance on an impresive independent debut album, "Lonely Hippo," a happy song set full of musical border crossings.
The group was basically a trio on its debut album, with the addition of Cartas plus cameos by percussionist Miguel Favero, mandolinist Don Stiernberg, and textural touches from the Queretaro String Quartet.

The challenge is to suggest a larger and more varied ensemble sound, through resourceful arranging and a broad stylistic itinerary.

The tour that brings Gil & Tuey to SOhO also features Venezuelan violinist Ali Bello and percussionist Stefan Schatz, whose pan-global palette includes tables from India, the cajon from Peru and the flamenco tradition, plus other instruments.

Ironically, one of the most disarming sounds in the band is the most "North American," Connell's banjo.

A player whose resume includes work with Taj Mahal, Vassar Clements and the Chicago Symphony, Connell joins the ranks of modern banjo players who love their bluegrass roots but have pushed the instruments to new places and fresh levels of technical finesse.

Does he feel that the time is ripe for music of multicultural ambitions, such as this one?

"Yes," he says. "I do think that multicultural music is in these days and how could it not be with, a) the sameness that the major lables are pumping onto the radio waves and stocking in the stores, and b) the Internet. The world is a smaller place simply because of information and the immediacy with which it can be obtained. This info on demand allows the insular kid growing up in central Nebraska to be aware of the Afro-Peruvian cajon or the Indian tables and to hear and see examples right in his or her bedroom through the computer window.

"Gil & Tuey is just a small but growing world music group that plays music that can appeal to anyone who is not afraid to open their ears and listen with an open mind to something new."

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