Atlantic Road Trip

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The three members of Atlantic Road Trip in a field.

Atlantic Road Trip

media release: BlueStem Jazz Presents

Atlantic Road Trip is an international project combining prominent musical voices from Europe and America, exploring the evolution and fusion of traditional indigenous folk musics from Scotland, Ireland and Slovakia, and their historical coalescence through the medium of contemporary jazz and improvised music. The project also draws upon intertwined musical paths of European folk traditions and their historical interplay with music from Africa, South America, and beyond. 

Each musician has their own story to tell, both musically and culturally. Compositions, arrangements and improvisation distil into a story-telling musical narrative that reflects and combines music’s evolutionary journey and its ability to shine an honest light on the history of humanity as well as the present day human experience. 

As such, Atlantic Road Trip presents a unique, ‘multi-angle’ take upon historical world events including Colonialism, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, The Highland Clearances, World Wars, and the rise and fall of the Iron Curtain - all of this reflected in the melding of folk music traditions within, and outside of the jazz idiom. 

Indeed, the importance of cities such as Chicago as a cultural crucible in both the conservation and evolution of Celtic music, is to be recognized and celebrated. One can point to the efforts of people like Francis O’Neill, Chicago’s Chief of Police at the turn of the 20th Century, whose efforts in writing down and obsessively documenting the music played by Irish and Scottish immigrants, played a huge role not only in cementing the traditions into American culture, but in making the music, and it’s associated folklore available on the worldwide stage. 

The ethos of the Atlantic Road Trip project recognises this spirit of artistic conservation and cultural sharing as one which should be ongoing to this day. As the music and the ideas evolve, so must the process of sharing.