Multi-instrumentalist and songwriter Jeff Bird has collaborated with a wide variety of artists over the past 40 years to produce his eclectic body of work and his latest creative partner is a kindred spirit more than 800 years old.
“When I first heard it, it felt like I had been there,” said Bird. “It was so familiar. It was like, oh, I know this music. Where have you been hiding?”
The music was written by the 12th-century German nun Saint Hildegard of Bingen.
“She was just this ferocious force,” said Bird. “She wrote music and she wrote books about plants and medicine. She was a healer and she had very strong opinions about the church and debated and argued with the Pope even.”
Bird recorded eight of her songs for his latest CD, Felix Anima, and will be performing material from the record Sunday, Oct 29, at Silence on Essex Street accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Gary Diggins, violinist Anne Lindsay and pianist Wytek Grabowiecki.
Bird’s interpretation of Hildegard’s work is drawn from 70 compositions preserved in two collections of manuscripts.
“There are two codices, they call them, and people draw from both,” he said. “It is vocal music, but I am an instrumentalist, primarily so, I am doing those types of interpretations.”
Bird was drawn to the experimental nature of her work.
“People do recognize that it is unique to its period,” he said. “It is kind of experimental for what was going on. It is transformative and transporting. It takes you to another place.”
Felix Anima loosely translates from Latin to “lucky or happy breath” and the focus of breathing is expressed through the harmonica and the Indian, accordion-like instrument called a Shruti box. Bird plays all the wind and string instruments on the record and the piano is played by Grabowiecki.
“They think they might have been playing instruments, the ones that were around, but no one knows for sure,” said Bird. “It doesn’t say, play the harmonica. It wasn’t even invented.”
Bird was introduced to Hildegard’s music in 1976 as a student in the music program at the University of Guelph
“They introduced me to medieval and renaissance music, which I had never heard because it wasn’t on the radio or the tv,” he said.
He was already an accomplished player with a growing collection of musical instruments in 1978 when he, Randy Sutherland and James Gordon formed the Celtic-based band Tamarack.
“We always liked the Celtic music and that’s what we were drawing on,” said Bird. “Our thing was Canadian history. The songs were contemporary musically, but they were done like story songs about work – about people doing their work and people’s lives.”
Tamarack celebrated its 40th anniversary during a special Hillside Festival performance in 2018 but Bird had essentially left the band 30 years earlier to join the Cowboy Junkies.
“They were looking for a mandolin, fiddle and harmonica player and their brother said you should get this guy Jeff in Guelph because he plays all of those things,” said Bird. “It was literally that simple.”
It was the second album for the Toronto-based group consisting of siblings Michael, Peter and Margo Timmins and Alan Anton. The unorthodox nature of the recording session fit perfectly with Bird’s equally unorthodox approach to making music.
“It was recorded in this church, around one microphone,” said Bird. “They hired me to do this one recording and it was very magical. I remember listening back and thinking wow, this sounds amazing. Then I said good-bye to them and thought I would never see them again and 32 years later I am still with them.”
The Trinity Session, recorded in Toronto’s Church of the Holy Trinity, defied all expectations and became a hugely successful and influential album. It propelled the Cowboy Junkies to legendary status and on Oct. 27 they are being inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
“No record company wanted it,” said Bird. “If they were mildly interested, they would say well you have to go into a studio and re-record it. They stuck to their guns and said no, no this is the record. Take it or leave it. People say you have to be true to yourself and do your own thing and that is exactly what they did.”
The success of the Cowboy Junkies has given Bird the economic security to follow his muse and experiment with a variety of styles and mediums. He lives with his wife, musician and music teacher Sue Smith, in a quiet neighbourhood near the river in Guelph where they both surround themselves with music every day.
“I like playing with a lot of people doing all kinds of music,” he said. “That really is my favourite thing to do. People ask if I am ever going to retire and I say what? Stop playing music? I don’t think so.”
To learn more about Jeff Bird’s music and Felix Anima visit: www.jeffbird.com and www.felixanima.ca
