A Mighty Wind

Le Vent du Nord explores the regional color of the Great White North.

by Mary Armstrong

Québecois music -- the country dances and call-and-response laughter-filled songs of French Canada -- has a universal, but hard to define, appeal. Is it the tapinage, seated clogging while playing and singing, that raises percussive dance to indispensable instrument status? It could be the bouncy accordion lines quipping with the fiddle, or the perpetual grins of musicians playing what they love. Before long those same manic grins spread across the audience, as feet give in to trying a little shy clogging in time.

Welcome Le Vent du Nord (The North Wind), cross-generational proponent extraordinaire of Québecois culture, who will bring all this, with occasional sojourns into other French styles, to their Philadelphia debut at the Art Museum. This is an excellent space to launch the group, as Benoit Bourque, central to Le Vent, built a following there over the years with his former group, Matapat.

Bourque doesn't curb his enthusiasm when speaking of his vocation. With Le Vent, he says, "I feel a very strong aura. We exist less than a year and already our whole summer is booked. There is a magic about this band." Their brand-new CD, Maudite Moisson! (Borealis), proves this is not merely a musician's honeymoon reverie.

The magic started with the group's founding. Bourque recalls knowing in his heart that Matapat's days were numbered, and pondering his next move. "I told my wife, what I'd really like to do would be to work with Nicolas [Boulerice, hurdy-gurdy, piano] and Olivier [Demers, violin]. But they were both part of Montcorbier [another band]." Pause, for effect. "Two hours later I got a call from Olivier, asking for information about a festival. He also mentioned that he and Nicolas were moving to my hometown here on the south side of the [St. Laurence] river." Quelle chance!

At the same time guitarist Bernard Simard, famed for his work with La Bottine Souriante, moved back to Quebec after close to a decade in Brittany. Bourque enthuses about the combination. "In the past I've been the frontman. With Le Vent du Nord, it's more equal. Each has the energy to carry the show." The four-part harmonies are exquisite with Le Vent, and Bourque explains, "[Prior to this] I've been the best singer in the band, all the leads fell to me. Now I'm the least! Bernard we call the rossignol, the nightingale."

Simard's time in Britain lends a Celtic edge in certain spots. Boulerice and Demers have a separate jazz band, which lends an extra swing to the traditional jigs and reels, fueled always by Bourque's pumping accordion.

Bourque, 46, has seen a massive social shift since he first became an ambassador of French Canadian culture with Eritage, while still in his teens. "In the '50s in Montreal, despite the fact that French speakers were the majority, most of the signs and ads were in English. We then had what we call the Quiet Revolution, when the Québecois realized their economic power and started asserting it." Then came the separatists of the '70s who championed the first strong revival of French Canadian traditional music.

Bourque recalls touring Alberta and Ottawa with Eritage in the '80s. Sometimes an audience member would ask if they didn't have any songs in English in their set. "Here we were, speaking with very strong French accents and I'd explain, ŒThis is my culture, it's what I do. And you have so many English singers who are so much better at it than I would ever be!'" Since the '90s, Bourque finds, "People are much more relaxed. Other [Québecois] bands are surprised that we work mostly in the U.S. and in French."

Bourque credits at least some of Le Vent du Nord's magic to the mix of generations, he and Simard in their 40s, Boulerice and Demers in their 20s. At a recent festival in Montreal, all ages were in the audience, but the best of all for the band was the high-school kids crowding up to the front, enjoying their centuries-old heritage with the same enthusiasm they have for the latest hits.

Le Vent du Nord plays Wed., June 25, 5 p.m., Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th St. and the Parkway, 215-684-7500.