NEWBURYPORT
The voice soars over the band’s ensemble sound. Sometimes it drops below the group’s register, dipping into emotional depths or simply lending the song a soothing, calming tone. Other times, it simply becomes another instrument, blending in and adding to the mix.
And sometimes the voice just keens right through the band.
“I’m trying to find my own frequency,” said Cathy Jordan, lead singer for the Irish band, Dervish, after the band’s March 18 performance at the Belleville Congregational Church on High Street. “Down or up. Or I’m just another instrument.”
Dervish played to a full house Friday night, with the crowd filling the pews on the first floor and spilling up into the balconies that run the church’s length, left and right.
The concert was an auspicious start to the season’s Belleville Roots Music series that will next feature the bluegrass Gibson Brothers, on Saturday, April 9, and conclude with singer-songwriter Cheryl Wheeler, on Saturday, May 14.
Dervish’s six members hail from Sligo, County Sligo, Ireland, home to an institute of technology and Sligo College.
The city of 20,000 — and the county — have a reputation for producing bands and musicians and Dervish did nothing but enhance that reputation with its performance the day after St. Patrick’s Day.
The band specializes in traditional Irish folk music. Some songs date back 350 years. Other songs were written within the past decade. All of them are steeped in Irish history and culture.
Jordan sings sometimes in English and other times she sings in Irish Gaelic.
The music moves from toe-tapping reels and heartbreaking love songs to the humorous to aching ballads.
“This song dates back to a time in Ireland when we didn’t know anything about family planning or contraception,” said Jordan introducing a song with her typical patter. “So that means, it’s about 10 years old.”
And the crowd chuckles as Jordan removes her tongue from her cheek and prepares to sing.
Sometimes Jordan gives a full and serious background for a song and sometimes she’s simply tweaking the audience. And no one is really sure, until she delivers the punch line. Or she doesn’t.
Through it all, the five Dervish members let Jordan run on. They’ve been together for 27 years and by now they must know what to expect from their lead singer. And they know the path Jordan’s stories create for the audience — from the seat, through the stage and into the music — is vital to the audience’s understanding and enjoying the music.
“I am not the boss,” said Jordan to a fan as she signed a CD, with the rest of the band sitting, signing and chatting with fans after the show.
Founding member Brian McDonagh, on the mandola, similar to the mandolin only with a deeper voice; Liam Kelly on flute; Shane Mitchell, another founding member on accordion; Michael Holmes, another founding member, on the bouzouki, a guitar-like instrument that originated in Greece, seemed content to let their instruments and Jordan speak for them, even after the concert.
On this night, Dervish’s regular fiddle player, Tom Morrow, joined the band. Morrow was unable to make the tour because he and his wife were expecting. But for this night, this tour’s fiddle player, Kevin Burke, had another gig, and Morrow was able to rejoin his mates because his son, Dara, had been born 10 days earlier.
Through two-plus hours, the band brought its audience through laughter, tears and history.
Jordan, for the first encore, sang “Bold Fenian Men,” a cappella. The song tells the story of the Irish uprising of 1916 against English rule, also called the Easter Rising. The English broke the uprising and executed most of the leaders, but the uprising ultimately led to the Irish Republic.
Dervish plumbs Irish heritage in its music with such songs, but also remembers their culture loves, laughs and relaxes.
Jordan said the band tries to include three basic emotions in its performances: Goltra, or sad music; geantra, or lively dance music; and sauntra, soothing music.
A band like Dervish, who plays a country’s history and culture, with centuries-old music or music that draws on that tradition, may be an endangered species.
“Music has been changing,” said Jordan. “With the internet and travel today, it’s hard to keep to tradition. We’re getting influences from all over.”
Upcoming Belleville shows
The Belleville Roots Music Series has two shows left this spring at the Belleville Congregational Church, 300 High St.
The Gibson Brothers will play bluegrass Saturday, April 9, 8 p.m.
Singer-songwriter Cheryl Wheeler will perform her folk ballads Saturday, May 14, 8 p.m.
For more information and to buy tickets go to: bellevilleroots.org