Working on the Railroad Theme, Silkroad Style

At Union Station in Los Angeles last week, I noticed a poster advertising a free performance by the Silkroad Ensemble’s special new project American Railroad in this historic site. Ironically, Union Station is also presenting an exhibition detailing the thriving parts of L.A.’s Chinatown uprooted by the Station and its intricate rail complex, opened in 1933.

Silkroad’s gig here in Santa Barbara seems to make for an interesting and loaded juxtaposition, given that the project — conceived and guided into being by current director Rhiannon Giddens — is hardly a ringing endorsement of the subject of America’s railroads. Embedded in the musical-visual project is a sympathetic accounting of the roots and damage done along the way of the railroad’s intercontinental enabling of the American adventure.

Needless to say, it’s a complicated story, lined with displacement, racist exploitation (of Chinese, Black and other workers), tragedy, Machiavellian ambition, and explorer zeal attached, and it’s a tale poetically told via the new Silkroad venture. Way out west, the natural end of the line for the railroad’s expansionism in America, Silkroad’s project had its west coast debut at The Granada Theatre on November 9.

One of the cultural highlights of the year, American Railroad landed in Santa Barbara thanks to UCSB Arts & Lectures, which, as long-standing director Celesta Billeci told the audience in her introduction, falls in line with a tradition of repeatedly supporting and showcasing Silkroad’s efforts. At least to my ears and senses, American Railroad struck deepest of all the Ensemble’s projects heard in Santa Barbara. And that’s anything but an ethnocentric, “America first” impression.  

When idealistic cellist Yo-Yo Ma launched Silkroad, back in 1998, the central idea was to link different cultures through the power of music, with strands cohering into a symbiotic tapestry celebrating cultures along the Euro-Asian silk road, literally and symbolically. Giddens, appointed as director just before the pandemic and finally unveiling her first project in that capacity, has spearheaded a notable achievement of cultural and socio-historical proportions.

At the Granada, the musical mission tied in with the Ensemble’s mission statement, but comes home to America through the logical connection to the nation’s cultural/immigrant melting-pot experience and yes, the snaking, ravaging maze of the railroad.  

As usual, Silkroad’s musical landscape was broadly based, from various strands of Black culture (banjoist and soulful, folk-fueled singer Giddens), and Native American (indigenous singer/songwriter Pura Fé), Chinese (featuring pipa master Wu Man), and Indian music (including a dazzling tabla solo by Sandeep Das). All the elements are carefully interwoven and with its underlying story told mostly through visuals and lyrics, narration would have been overkill.

Giddens herself, though presently riding on a wave or three of cultural fame, limited her own time in the spotlight, the better to showcase the talents of the many. Among the highlights of the varied program were Fé’s earthy delving into folklore and modern treatments, starting with the show’s virtual theme song, “Swannanoa Tunnel” (later done by Giddens in a different form) and later with “Mahk Jchi.” A moment of transcultural resonance arose when Giddens’s banjo and Man’s rippling pipa found common instrumental and textural ground (shades of what Steely Dan called “angular banjos”).

Jazz singer Cécile McLorin Salvant (who has wowed local audiences at Campbell Hall and is due for a return) was commissioned to write the impressionistic bluesy lament “Have You Seen My Man?” — the one who goes “down the track” — as sung in four-part harmony, leans into Karen Ouzounian’s mournful cello interlude and returns to the bluesy turf. Mazz Swift, a captivating violinist and vocalist, offered up their commissioned song “O Shout!” in homage to the musical encoded communication system among slaves.

At the show’s end, Giddens offered the first spoken words of the evening’s presentation: “If you take anything away from tonight, it should be that there isn’t any difference between us. We have to be kinder and more generous to each other than ever. That’s the only way we can fight the darkness.”

Her hopeful statement had the ring of an echo, in words, of what music and imagery had conveyed eloquently from the stage.