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Bartlett’s Trio Provides Wonderful Fusions at The Effie

Emilio Suarez bass, Evan Snoey fiddle, Harry Bartlett guitar

On Thursday, November 7 The Effie hosted “a night of jazz” featuring Harry Bartlett, with Evan Snoey and Emilio Suarez. The opening act was local blue grass/country band Lost in the Woods. The two bands provided a delightful evening of genre bending accoustic music.

Harry Bartlett is a Canadian guitarist and composer from Vancouver, who is currently living in Nashville, TN. While Bartlett has a background in jazz, his music is tough to characterize. In my mind there was a blend of classical, jazz, folk, and western music styles.

Emilio Suarez from Vancouver bowed the double bass and Evan Snoey from Nashville played the fiddle. This talented trio had a great rapport.

At one point Bartlett mentioned listening to Pat Metheny, and those influences could be heard in some of the tunes. Some of the other songs reminded me of Bill Frisell’s ventures into Americana and folk like the album East West and maybe some of pianist Brad Mehldau’s work. The result was both interesting and good. They played mostly Bartlett’s compositions such as “Trail Song,” “Storybook Pictures,” and “Big Foot Liquor.” His nod to jazz was a very cool version of Irving Berlin’s “When I Lost You,” which was followed by his a tune that contained his personal feelings about that song. Both were beautiful.
Bartlett is touring to support his latest album. He recorded “Mountain Air,” with an all-star cast of Canadian folk-jazz musicians, including Aline Homzy on violin and Andrew Downing on bass. It is now available on most streaming sites.

Locals Lost in the Woods, consisting of Sean Poissant on guitar, Dave MacCuish on banjo, Matt Stanley on double bass and Matt Cardinal on fiddle provided a lively upbeat opening set.

Matt Cardinal fiddle, Sean Poissant guitar, Dave MacCuish banjo, Matt Stanley bass

Their fun set was mainly folk, blue grass and country music that included some vocals. This skillful group had a good affinity with the audience. Some of their selections were “Big Eyed Rabbit,” “My Old Home,” “Western Country,” and a couple of songs referring to “Cindy.”

There was a good turnout and it was a wonderful night of music at The Effie Arts Collective.