Story by Baynard Woods
Photos by Edwin Remsberg
Cliff Murphy and Elaine Eff
In any renaissance it is important to remember and learn from tradition. Maryland Traditions is relentless in their promotion of the state’s artistic and cultural traditions and a couple weeks ago they brought together some of the most amazing practitioners of the state’s folk arts in an all-day Folklife Festival to celebrate their tenth anniversary.
Maryland Traditions’ Folklife Festival felt a lot like living in Baltimore: there were so many cool things going on at once that you just had to resign yourself to missing something during this all-day event at the Creative Alliance’s Patterson Theater on Eastern Avenue. Last year’s event occupied the inside of the Patterson, but this year, for their 10th Anniversary, Cliff Murphy and Elaine Eff, of Maryland Traditions, went all out and the event filled the street beside the theaters with tents, booths, and a big stage. Which meant that there were usually two great bands playing at the same time.
Murphy, a musician himself, works documenting the musical traditions in the state and his effort really showed in the quality and variety of music being performed.
Carl Grubbs
Carl Grubbs, the saxophone great, started off the day on the indoor stage. It was a small crowd to begin with, but by the time he and his band had finished, and I turned around to look, the room was full. Grubbs, who learned how to improvise as a young boy when his aunt married John Coltrane, was in an expansive mood. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the history of this music. When I was a kid, my dad had these 78s of Muddy Waters and I thought ‘I want to hear something cool’ now I wish I had them because it is out of that, and gospel, that our music came,” he said before launching into a blues. Next came a modal number, which Grubbs and his band seemed to take particular delight in. By the time they finished the set with Coltrane’s “Giant Steps” all three men were both exalted and exhausted.
After Grubbs finished, I wandered outside and found myself talking to Bob Cicero, of the Globe Poster Shop, which has been a Baltimore institution for almost a hundred years and which was recently saved from almost certain doom by MICA, where Cicero will begin to teach. “The best thing is that we’ll be able to keep all of the hand cut letterpress stuff together. I didn’t want it to be scattered,” Cicero explained.
As much as I enjoyed talking to Cicero, the sweet gospel sounds of The Zionaires pulled me towards the outdoor stage just in time to catch the final numbers of their inspired gospel/ soul set. Wandering back from there, I talked to Rhonda Aaron, a champion muskrat skinner and cooker. “I once got the skin off three muskrats in under a minute thirty,” she said. “But it’s all luck really. If you get one that the trap didn’t get clean, it’s going to be all gunked up and take longer to skin. The men trap them and the women skin and cook them.”
All that talk about muskrat got me hungry. By that time there was a Mariachi band playing and I saw that Tortilleria Sinaloa had a booth, so I got a couple tacos and a cold Natty-Boh, sat down on the curb and enjoyed.
For people who like sweets, there was Smith Island cake, and there were also traditional biscuit beaters. But I got caught up with the screen painters.
The whole day was set up as a showcase for Maryland Traditions’ Master- Apprentice program and so at most of the tents there would be several generations of practitioner of an art. Elaine Eff, one of the event’s organizers, is the authority on screen painting and she brought together everyone who is working in that field. She watched the Masters and Apprentices work together. Then she turned to survey the booths all clustered together as the country blues drifted over from the stage. “This is just a part of all the cultural traditions alive in Maryland. It’s really amazing.”
Let’s hope Maryland Traditions can continue to bring us such amazing mixtures of culture from the Free State.
Story by Baynard Woods
Photos by Edwin Remsberg
