A little over a year ago, some musician friends I hadn’t seen in years–Ken and Jeannie of Bayou Seco–came through Tucson and spent the night at my house. I was happy to hear from them; we had a super time and some home-made pie and they played some great tunes around the dining room table:
We got to talking about fiddlers, and I mentioned familiar fiddle phenom Mark O’Connor; and they told me Mark O’Connor was all well and good, but that I really needed to expand my understanding of what it means to be a real phenom and learn about Gilles Apap. They’d just spent some time w/Gilles in California and showed me photos of their visit, which to me looked idyllic.
Well, I forgot all about that conversation until today.
Today on Link TV (available on Dish TV, Direct TV and some community public access cable channels) I watched a new hour-long documentary called Gilles Apap: Renegade Fiddler. It’s such a well-made and inspiring film. Wow. AND it’s available as a FREE download. Click here and watch. For any fiddle geek it’s a must-watch; but even if you don’t play the violin, the film is about transformation on so many levels, and anyone (with any sense or sensitivity) can appreciate it. Transformation is not an easy undertaking–generally we are unwilling participants in the process–or anything over which we have any control: but the end result is generally an improvement over the place we started from.
I’m happy to support Link TV; there is still some serendipity to the experience of turning on a television.