With six members, the Gigspanner Big Band is not particularly big, though their collective elan has a forceful presence unmatched in British folk: a little classical, a little jazzy, highly inventive while their material remains almost entirely traditional. Founded by fiddle player Peter Knight, once of Steeleye Span, the ensemble contains two duos and a trio as well as the full six piece. Knight plus guitarist Roger Flack and percussionist Sacha Trochet make the Gigspanner trio, with Hannah Martin (fiddle, vocals) and Phillip Henry (dobro, vocals) are duo Edgelarks, while John Spiers (concertina, vocals) often duos with Knight and is celebrated for the (truly) big band Bellowhead.
Named after an inquisitive riverbank bird, this third album is their most accomplished. They bring a freewheeling but precise presence to songs like the 17th-century Suffolk Miracle and Child ballad Hind Horn, while Silver Dagger is dressed in anguish for its doomed lovers. There is a southern American hymn, What Wondrous Love, a gypsy reel, Betsy Williams, and a stately treatment of Stephen Foster’s Hard Times Come Again No More. The variations of its multi-talented cast are part of its charm, though Knight’s playing – by turns sprightly, yearning and melancholic – shines brightest. A faultless cavalcade.
