Latitudes

Latitudes reflects our modern global society, says Jon. The album contains tracks that are equally at home in cafe culture and on the personal stereo, drawing on latin jazz rhythms but with a melodic base to them as with Irish traditional music. The opening track, Bealtaine, specially released earlier in the year for Ireland's Feile Bealtaine festival in May, is one such example. 'There is an inherent groove in Irish music just as there is in latin jazz and my playing in the former category has given rise to a blend of acoustic instruments with a worldly feel on the CD.' Joining him on the album is a host of top musicians including Tim Edey on piano, guitar and melodian, Dessie Kelliher on banjo,jazz singer Gosia Koscielniak from Poland, percussionist Steve White and Hamburg-based tabla and sarangi player Peter Altenberg, Toni Geling on violin and Akki Schulz on double bass and didgeridoo. Film score music has always been a passion for Jon and the Satori track evokes Kashmir landscapes whereas Pure Afghan celebrates the rhythms and melodies of ancient cultures behind troubled areas such as Afghanistan. 'My dream has always been to fit music to images and likewise evoke images with my music,' says Jon. What the media and listeners have to say about Jon... Review of Latitudes in The Irish Times Feb 2006: 'Music can shed light on the delicious intricacies of multiculturalism far more adroitly than spoken language. Jon Sanders is a Dingle-based English guitarist who's continually pushed the boundaries of traditional music, and this time is no different. His is a genteel guitar style, drenched in a love of obtuse rythms and melodies whose provenance is owed as much to Iberian haughtiness as to multi-layered minutiae of Indian and eastern European music. Collaborating with Polish jazz singer Gosia Koscielniak on the Betty Blue-esque Marienetki, and with west Kerry piper Eoin Duignan on Garvbey in Galicia, Sanders has ignited a fire whose embers would burn happily in the quiet corners of a jazz cafe or in the hearth of a snug in Ballyferriter. A canny musical curiosity that refuses to be boxed in' Siobhan Long. 'Jon Sanders should be cloned a nd a copy offered to every guitar player..Mark's fiddle style is fluid, lovely, has more of a hint of Scottish in it, and together they're a powerful combination.' Review from Wellington Folk Club, gig Tuesday 6th April 2004. Sue Iken 'This is pure magic! A blending of Irish musical tradition with primarily Spanish and Latin stylings, it touches the soul with the welcome of gentle rain after a drought. It's hard to pick any track as being particularly outstanding, but mention must be made of 'Poor Wayfaring Stranger' featuring the vocals of Eilis Ni Chinneide, which has been especially popular with listeners on this station. The rest of the album is of equal calibre, superb playing, great melodies and a blance of styles and dynamics that will stand the test of time.' Gayle Cresswell, Radio Woodville. 'Following a characteristically welcoming entree..Jon sanders and Eilis Ni Chinneide inhabited every ecclesiastical nook and cranny with their sinuous pairing of guitar and vocals.. Sanders and Crickard have forged a heady partnership with their salsa-tinged partnering of guitar and fiddle. Crickard, all Northern edginess and quick-fire wit, has found his perfect foil in Sanders' laconic Kentish personality, each of them fired with an appetite for the impish (The Nine Points of Roguery), the impatient (Paidin O Rafferty and Langstrom's Pony) and the unapologetically mournful (Matrin Wynn's slow reel.) Dezzie Kelliher joined the melee later, banjo in hand armed with a fiery set of tunes and a comfort with improvisation that wouldn't have been lost on the most freewheeling of jazz musicians. Jousting with Sanders on a set that swing-shifted from cracking jig to careening two-step, we were left with no option but to succumb to the free-spiritied madness of it all. Guitar and banjo entered a sublime synchrony in which only the truly comotose could have failed to delight.' Review from Irish Times, Tuesday August 24th of concert in St James Church, Dingle. 'The music was superb and the 40 listeners were buzzing at the end of it. Mark and Jon then did that lovely thing of mixing with the crowd and signing albums and showing clearly how down to earth they are despite being awesome musicians. Watch out for them and the album, they are due to head off to New Zealand in February to tour the album extensively there and let's hope they return to the studio before too long to give us more of that sort of summer.' IRISH MUSIC MAGAZINE VOL 9 NO 5 JANUARY - JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2004 Sub-titled 'Music from Ireland and other Atlantic shores', Salsa Summer is a lot more than it's modest title suggests. Casting a line towards Portugese, Brazilian, southern US and Donegal shores, guitarist Jon Sanders and fiddler Mark Crickard share an eclectic taste for the more sublime tunes to be found skirting the Atlantic . Crickard's fiddle travels a languid pathway through the Brazilio-Portugese opener, Rumba Negra and the robust Donegal reel, The Nine Points of Roguery. Jon Sander's intricate accompaniment is a delicate cross-stitch that demands repeated listening to appreciate it's breadth and depth. Fellow west Kerry musician Eilís Kennedy lends faultless vocals too. This is a refreshingly original collection which, judging by their recent live performances, excels in 3D. THE IRISH TIMES 22 JANUARY 2004 SIOBHAN LONG Jon Sanders & Mark Crickard - The Cobblestones: Dublin 'West Kerry rarely enjoyed such tropical highs before. Kent guitarist Jon Sanders and Belfast fiddler Crickard has spent long years inhaling the infusions of Corca Dhuibhne, but here it was the rhythms and melodies of Portugal, Spain, north Africa and Brazil that shaped their session. Fiddle and guitar have long been cosy bedfellows in the tradition (witness Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill), but the Sanders/Crickard axis brings a whole new flavour to this particular duetting and duelling combo. From the minute they kicked off with Rhumba Negra to their closing Wildlife Set (featuring The Swallows Tail, The Otter's Den and The Bucks of Oranmore ), Sanders and Crickard didn't so much break boundaries, as blithely skip over them on their journey from Slea Head to Lisbon via Barcelona and Budapest, with a brief interlude outside the Four Courts. From the opening chords, Crickard engaged in sotto voce communion with his fiddle, tucking not just his chin but somehow, his entire being inside it's curvilinear frame. He fiddles with the intensity of a player who's been lately reunited with an old acquaintance, engaging impishly in hiccupping two-toned couplets, while Sanders traces intricate pathways alongside him on Spanish guitar. With their first album barely off the presses, they resist all temptation to limit themselves to it's decidedly fine repertoire, choosing instead to marry it's exuberant title-track, Salsa Summer, with a goose-stepping Romanian borrowing, a vastly expansive meditation, King Size Blue (that would surely be right at home soundtracking Annie Proux's Montana landscapes) and an angular evocation of dancing bears in Crickard's tune titled, eh, Dancing Bears' THE IRISH TIMES - NOVEMBER 20 TH 2003 SIOBHÁN LONG About Jon... Inspired by his grandmother's career playing orchestral violin, Jon took up the guitar aged 12 and soon made his mark in and around London playing electric and acoustics in rock and folk bands in the 80's including Hot Banana and Three Wise Fools. In the mid 80's Jon switched to a more organic grassroots approach to his music, developing a modal, acoustic style of recording and playing guitar. He moved to Ireland, settling in Dingle, County Kerry in the early 90's and began playing and recording with local and national musicians including fiddler Mark Crichard, with whom he later went onto record Salsa Summer - Music from Ireland and other Atlantic Shores in 2003. Jon continued to develop his style of accompaniment for Irish traditional music, and has played with some of the best musicians in the country, including Mary Black, Seamus and Brendan Begley, Mairead Ní Mhaoinigh and Dermot Byrne from Altan, piper Eoin Duignan, Vinnie Kilduff, Philip King, Kila, Sliabh Notes, Steve Cooney, Gerry 'banjo' O'Connor, Liam O'Connor, singer Eilish Kennedy and the 'Sessions from the Hearth' artists. He has toured the US and Europe extensively and his TV appearances include LWT's 'This is Your Life', RTE's 'Open House' and 'Nationwide', TG4's 'Feilte', 'Sibin' and 'Ardan', a recent documentary on Mary Black produced by Hummingbird Productions for RTE television and for DVD release and BBC2's Irish Diary screened Dec 2005. His film score credits include 'Connomara' (2000) and TG4's 'Scoil leis an gCaid' and 'Ni Beatha go Bás' (1999). His session work includes 'Geantrai' (2000), 'Sessions from the Hearth' (1999), Eoin Duignan's 'Ancient Rite' (2000) and Lumina (2004), Tony Small's ' Galway ' (2001) and Eilís Kennedy's 'A Time to Sail' (2001) and 'One Sweet Kiss' (2005). He produced the 'Geantrai' album in 1999, Áine Ui Laithe and Eilin Ni Chearna's new CD, 'Mná an Oileáin', featuring music from the Blasket Islands . In August 2003 Jon recorded bouzouki and guitar for Benny O'Carroll's new 'Dance It Yourself ' DVD, the first Irish traditional album to be recorded in 5:1 surround sound. When Mark Crickard returned to Dingle from Portugal in 2001 they resumed their musical partnership and began developing the ideas behind their new album Music from Ireland and other Atlantic Shores which was released in 2003. This recording was the second production to come out of Jon's Smerwick Studios following on from Mná na Oileáin. Jon is also known for his original compositions and this culminated in the recording of the Latitudes CD - a collection of 10 of his favourite works. 'Latitudes is a contemporary musical suite which draws on Latino, Balkan and Galician styles, and with the energy implicit in Irish Traditional music.' He runs Smerwick Studios, a digital recording facility specialising in Irish music and song from his base in County Kerry, Ireland. 'A bold explorer and an original thinker.. quantum leaping. A canny musical curiosity that refuses to be boxed in' SIobhan Long: The Irish Times.