Mistress of the Musical Saw, Johnnie Day Durand

Published: January 11, 2017
The music of Silver Bridget is both eerie and familiar. The latter descriptor applies because the Burlington-based instrumental trio primarily trades in covers of popular songs. With a repertoire ranging from the Beach Boys to Radiohead to Henry Mancini, the group winks at enough pop-music touchstones that you're bound to recognize at least a few tunes. But it might take you a few minutes to do so, and that's where the eerie quality comes in. A Silver Bridget concert is kind of like an audience-wide version of the classic TV game show "Name That Tune." Typically, John Townsend and Matt Saraca lay down the backing music on acoustic and electric guitar, respectively. Saraca also helms a minimalist drum kit, played largely with foot pedals. The game really kicks in when Johnnie Day Durand takes up the melody on her instrument: a musical saw. As Durand's strange, warbling tones bend and vibrate across the room, you can pinpoint the moment when recognition dawns on each face in the crowd. I can name that tune in four measures ... "You Got It" by Roy Orbison! Durand's every elegant pass of bow across steel shrouds the tunes in mystery — even familiar pop standards by the Beatles or the Rolling Stones. Like the warped sci-fi sounds of the theremin, the saw's shimmering voice seems alien. Also like the theremin, the saw is generally seen as a novelty. Rarely do bands deploy the "singing saw" as a lead instrument, much less their melodic centerpiece. But Durand, with her group and other projects, is cutting through that perception one tremulous note at a time. Durand, 38, grew up in Rhinebeck, N.Y., a Hudson Valley town two hours north of her birthplace of New York City. She started playing piano at age 8. In high school, she took up saxophone and, like any number of teenage horn players in the 1990s, played in a ska band. When Durand was 19, her twin sister witnessed renowned saw player Natalia Paruz busking at Grand Central Station in New York City. "She told me about it, how it was this beautiful, mesmerizing sound," says Durand. "It made me instantly think that I wanted to do it." A week later, Durand was visiting that same sister in Portsmouth, N.H. While window-shopping downtown, they walked into a music store. "And there on the wall was this musical saw for…
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