REVIEW: Jay Gilday concert held in Port Hardy

Jay Gilday performed at the Port Hardy Civic Centre on Nov. 23. According to his promotional material, in his songs, “Jay threads together the colours of his own ancestral traditions: Dene spirituals, Irish ballads, Canadian folk and rock.”

Gilday has a gem of a voice. It has a raspy, smoky kind of Gordon Lightfoot vibe but is also unique it its own right. I feel, however, Gilday could benefit from some experimentation with his song structure. His songs all have a very similar rhythm: like a train “rolling down the tracks” kind of beat. Because of that, the songs tended to blend together, even though they supposedly came from different cultural influences. It was like they were all the same tune, but with different lyrics.

Take Gordon Lightfoot, for example, who uses a very similar “rolling down the tracks” kind of rhythm…but…not really. I was checking out his music on the internet and discovered that he changed the rhythm and intensity of his music significantly to suit the themes of his songs. In The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, the dramatic heavy beat emulated the choppy waves of Lake Superior in a roaring November storm. In If You Could Read my Mind, the guitar is relatively quiet, playing an understated role to create a feeling of thoughtfulness. In Early Morning Rain the guitar strumming is fast and relentless like hard pouring rain. The tune for each of his songs is distinctive, as if each has its own unique personality, which, in turn, effectively enhances the meaning of the lyrics.

To get new ideas for sound, he could look to his mother’s Dene heritage and the sounds of the environment he grew up in: the wind blowing across the tundra, the howl of the wolf, the hooting of the owl, the thundering of a caribou herd. From his Irish Canadian father’s side, he could gain inspiration from the Irish jig. Although his promotional material does mention that he incorporates his Irish heritage into his music, my ears did not pick up any sounds that were distinctively Irish. He could even explore different sounds at his job at Canada Post: the slamming of the doors of the trucks, the revving of the engines, the repetitive sounds of the sorting machines (some may know that the song “Jive Talking” by the Bee Gees was inspired by driving across a bumpy bridge).

Gilday needs to vary the speed, shift gears, change direction from time to time, vary the volume, do something unexpected now and then. He needs to find some way to push himself outside his comfort zone, to discover new and different ways to work with sound.

I think Gilday also needs to consider building a stage persona. I very much liked his frilled and beaded jean jacket, but he took it off before the show started and left us with a just a white shirt and blue jeans. It helps to have something colourful and interesting to look as we watch someone perform.

Stringed instruments and smaller instruments seem to suit Gilday’s voice the best. When he switched to the piano, something was lost. Although he is a competent pianist, I don’t think it is his “power instrument.” Because the piano was so big, it made his powerful voice somehow smaller. Gilday is a very statuesque man, and a smaller instrument emphasizes that, gives him more “presence.” I could see him being much more effective with a flute instead of piano. It’s a personality thing. Artists (whether musical or otherwise) need to choose the medium or mediums that suit their temperament the best to produce a message with maximum impact.

Debra Lynn has a BFA in art and design from the University of Alberta and an MA in art education from Concordia University in Montreal. She lives in Port Alice.