Bethany and Rufus / Bethany and Rufus Roots Quartet

"The duo sees themselves as roots...but the musical results are really beyond category, with touches of jazz, gospel and something contemporary. Their unique sound starts with Bethany's phrasing, which can be quite loose, even ethereal. Then there's Rufus' five-string cello - played pizzicato, jazz style and bowed, incorporating the bass range and world music rhythms... It's a bewitching chemistry." - Roger Levesque, Edmonton Journal
- Edmonton Journal

PRESS QUOTES

"This is American music that reaches out to invite and include so much more. Most of the songs have a sad undercurrent and yet at the hands of these two artists they emerge as shining songs for a new time." - ALL ABOUT JAZZ

"I've been in the music business for 37 years now and I've had my artists perform at amazing shows including Live Aid and Carnegie Hall. I have to rank Bethany & Rufus show for us in my "Top 20" of all time. Mezmerising and inventive...our audience was slack-jawed." - MINDY GILES, SWELL PRODUCTIONS

"Filled with dust and desire.... their CD gets better and better with each listen!" - AMAZON.COM

"Yarrow has a keen, dusky-voiced musicianship that blurs folk, rock and pop... it is, though, Cappadocia's brilliance that gives this [music] its remarkable sheen. His palette...is incredibly rich and amazingly clever." - JAZZ TIMES

"There's no denying that in a world where a lot of fluffy pop passes as folk, Bethany and Rufus - in taking a more original road - have come up with the real deal." - ALLMUSIC.COM

"Bethany delivers low, smoky tones that call to mind Nina Simone or Cassandra Wilson. With stunning imagination, Bethany and Rufus move.... in arresting new directions. Bravo!" - GOLDMINE MAGAZINE

"The duo see themselves as a roots... but the musical results are really beyond category, with touches of jazz, gospel and something contemporary. Their unique sound starts with Bethany's phrasing, which can be quite loose, even ethereal. Then there's Rufus' five-string cello - played pizzicato, jazz style and bowed, incorporating the bass range and world music rhythms... It's an often bewitching chemistry." - Roger Levesque, Edmonton Journal (Oct. 12, 2007)

"Bethany & Rufus' simple blues changes, couples with the primordial funkiness of Cappadocia's cello, evoke the ancient world that serves as a backdrop for 900 Miles - all ragged tombstones and railroad unspooling forever in one direction. Still, they're trying to make that world seem less parochial. - Rachel Swan, East Bay Express

"In folk's footsteps... They may be following in them, but Bethany Yarrow and Rufus Cappadocia are also reinventing the genre in a style that's all their own." - Naila Francis, The Intelligencer

"Rufus Cappadocia plays cello. Not just any cello, mind you, but a five-string electric instrument of his own design. It's one of a kind, music like the man himself... Cappadocia has made a career of going where few cellists have gone before." - Mark Miller, Globe & Mail (April 3, 2002)

"When Rufus Cappadocia performs, it's obvious he's transported into a space beyond the walls of the immediate venue. Between pieces, he's modest and gracious to the audience, but everyone seems to evaporate the moment the first notes sail through the air. His entire being is enveloped by music, especially when he finds a groove or a refrain that captivates him. The Hamilton native cannot be described adequately by the noun "cellist." He is an artist, and his canvas is a five-string cello, which he designed himself." - James Hayashi-Tennant, Hamilton Magazine (Summer 2002)

"Dark, minimalist and haunting folk for the new millennium. Bethany Yarrow's debut album, 2003's Rock Island, was a gem of deep, dark folk music that redefined American folk for the new century in the same way that Jim Moray did for British." - Jeremy Searle - Various

The Guardian


Bethany and Rufus, 900 Miles now

When I played the title track of this album to a radio producer, his reaction was that it was too "jazzy" for a world and roots programme. But I'm sure a jazz producer would have rejected it for being too "folky". It seems this unusual but intensely musical duo of Bethany Yarrow (voice) and Rufus Cappadocia (five-string cello and percussion) produce quintessentially "etc" music, a splash of sunlight between the grey cracks of mediated culture. The repertoire is familiar: American folk songs such as East Virginia and St James Infirmary. The treatment is ingenious, with Cappadocia's pizzicato cello evoking both jazz bass and blues guitar practices while his bowed passages add feeling. Despite the minimalist lineup, the production is rich. And quite commercial - perhaps more than the label realises - given that Yarrow, like Norah Jones, has a warm, attractive voice, sultry looks and a famous dad: Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul & Mary.
- Guardian

JAZZ TIMES - Vox from the Jan/Feb 2007 Issue
"And the second-generation beat goes on. First, there was the platinum splash made by sitarist Ravi Shankar's daughter, Norah Jones. Then Jen Chapin, echoing the moralist vibrancy of her troubadour dad Harry, began a slower, though no less impressive, ascent. Now, Bethany Yarrow, offspring of Peter (of Peter, Paul and Mary fame), is, in tandem with cellist Rufus Cappadocia, carrying the folk-fueled family torch. In addition to boasting an iconic dad, Yarrow also shares with Jones and Chapin the distinction of a keen, dusky-voiced musicianship that blurs folk, rock and pop. Working her way through more than a century's worth of material, traveling from the traditional railroad work song "Linin' Track" and the antique title track's wayfaring blues to Jesse Winchester's gently infectious "Isn't That So?" and Phil Ochs' achingly beautiful "No More Songs," Yarrow sounds eerily like a softer-edged Patricia Barber. Consistently proficient as she is, it is, though, Cappadocia's brilliance that gives this disc its remarkable sheen. His palette, extending from the baroque majesty of "No More Songs" to the Nashville kick of "If I Had My Way," is incredibly rich and, as superbly demonstrated on the Spanish lament "Asturiana" with its intriguing dirge/hymn dichotomy, amazingly clever." -Christopher Loud
.
. - Jazz Times Christopher Loud

ALL ABOUT JAZZ
At the celebrated and celebratory New Orleans Jazz Festival, a walk through the fairgrounds is an astonishing experience as the strains of myriad musics come together in the air and everything feels connected. The same feeling is to be had from the debut album by Bethany Yarrow and Rufus Cappadocia. With a minimum number of voices -- guitar, cello, vocal and some percussion -- the duo creates colors and textures that suggest a world of musics coalescing.
Yarrow is the daughter of Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary and so we might expect that she'd have a sense of the folk tradition, but what she does with and to that tradition is nothing short of brilliant. Her voice is rich, dark and true and in this quiet and simple framework it cuts right through to express all that the music needs. But somehow she goes beyond and makes more of these mostly traditional folk songs.
She has the rhythmic sensibility and depth of feeling to call forth the jazz and blues tradition and the breadth of textures to take a listener around the world. Her voice blossoms in extraordinary ways. "St. James Infirmary" could be located in any place where there is loss -- it's a bleak, lonely place but, alas, we want to go back there. And the duo follows that grimly rich story with Jesse Winchester's almost rollicking "Isnít That So" -- a sassy response to a jealous and angry divinity. Yarrow's voice is stark and powerful, feeling both informed by years of tradition and yet brand new.
Cappadocia plays a specially designed electric cello and often provides the bass complement to Yarrow's striking vocals. His pitch and timing are right on the money -- hear how he blends the two in amazing fashion on the Reverend Gary Davisí "If I Had My Way" -- everything he does rocks the foundation and pushes the story forward. No produced band could sound more powerful or more right. And then he moves Phil Ochs' gorgeous "No More Songs" in quite a different way, revealing the funereal march qualities with a steady pulse and a heartbreaking arco solo.
This is American music that reaches out to invite and include so much more. Most of the songs have a sad undercurrent and yet at the hands of these two artists they emerge as shining songs for a new time. - All About Jazz

GOLDMINE MAGAZINE
"Bethany delivers low, smoky tones that call to mind Nina Simone or Cassandra Wilson delving into field recordings... Cappadocia bows and plucks [his] cello with dramatic tension and stately grace. With stunning imagination, Bethany & Rufus move music linked with her father's era in arresting new directions. Bravo!"
. - Goldmine Magazine

AMERICANA UK: (8 of 10 stars):
"Nearly all the songs are traditional, but every one is reinterpreted in a way that takes them to a place youíve never dreamed of, no matter how many times youíve heard them before... leaving you utterly transfixed... where the cumulative effect and intensity are simply astonishing." - AMERICANA UK

Nov/Dec 2009

"A diabolically funky bass is joined by the song of a fulani flute and the cadence of a vodou drum, and the cello bows under an incantation of the ancestors... a revelation of Les Nuits Atypiques Festival of Langon and the the love at first listen of studio 105 of Radio France, the folk duo Bethany & Rufus have transformed themselves into a post-modern quartet for an evening of spellbinding music." - Yannis Ruel

"Une basse funky en diable rejointe par le chant d’une flûte peul et la cadence d’un tambour vaudou ; une incantation ancestrale qui chevauche l’archet d’un violoncelle électrifié… : révélation des Nuits Atypiques de Langon et coup de coeur du Studio 105 de Radio France, le duo folk Bethany & Rufus se transforme en quartet post-moderne pour une séance d’envoûtement définie comme « musique folklorique de New-York, c’est-àdire du monde entier ». Articulée autour de standards militants du répertoire US, cette création voit les talents de la chanteuse Bethany Yarrow et ceux du violoncelliste Rufus Cappadocia produire, en compagnie du flûtiste et chanteur de Mamar Kassey, le Nigérien Yacouba Moumouni et du maître du tambour d’Haïti, Bonga, la délicieuse image sonore d’une autre Amérique." - Yannis Ruel - Mondomix

"Part of the series Live a FIP, and after the excellent Live a FIP of Eric Bibb, here is a new album that absolutely confirms that the recordings made in Studio 105 of Radio France result in very high quality albums which rival, without a doubt, some of the best studio recordings. Invited by Radio FIP, it was on March 12, 2009 that The Bethany & Rufus Roots Quartet gave an exceptional concert, whereby the four musicians: Bethany Yarrow, Rufus Cappadocia, Yacouba Moumouni and Bonga Jean-Baptiste offered a genius blend of American Folk and African Desert Blues to the soft rhythm of a morning breeze. A musical collaboration that dates to the beginning of the Y2K millenium, whereby two New Yorkers, Bethany Yarrow (voice) and Rufus Cappadocia (cello), form a duo which revisits traditional songs of American folk, blues and jazz. After their first opus, 900 Miles, was well received by the international press, the duo became a trio when they crossed paths with Yacouba Moumouni, a flute player and singer from Niger and leader of the group Mamar Kassey. In July 2008, the trio became a quartet with the addition of the Haitian percussionist Bonga Jean-Baptiste, a world-reknowed master of the voudou drum. The night before the opening of the 17th edition of the Nuits Atypiques Festival, the group recorded a live show which was broadcast by Radio FIP and instantly there was (voudou?) magic in the air. What was just supposed to be a show became an event -- a moment etched in eternity -- and Jean Luc Leray (from FIP), immediately proposed that they record a Live a FIP cd ... and it is this recording that became this album. It is an album that will make you vibrate with pleasure and touch you as only artists who play with their hearts can do. Unquestionably an album rated coup de coeur (5 of 6 stars)."

Dans la série des ‘Live à FIP’, et après l’excellent ‘Live à FIP’ d’Eric Bibb, voici un nouvel album qui confirme que décidément les enregistrements réalisés au studio 105 de Radio France se traduisent ensuite par des albums de très haute qualité et qui rivalisent sans peine avec les meilleurs productions en studio.
Invités par la radio FIP, c’est le 12 mars 2009 que le Bethany & Rufus Roots Quartet a donné ce concert exceptionnel où le quatuor composé de Bethany Yarrow, Rufus Cappadocia, Yacouba Moumouni et Jean-Baptiste Bonga a offert un savant mélange de folk américain et blues sahélien à la rythmique aussi légère que la brise du matin. Une complicité musicale qui date du début des années 2000, lorsque deux new-yorkais, Bethany Yarrow (chant) et Rufus Cappadocia (violoncelle) fondent un duo pour revisiter des standards du répertoire américain, entre folk, jazz et blues. Après un premier opus salué par la presse internationale, ‘900 Miles’, le duo croise la route de Yacouba Moumouni, flûtiste et chanteur du Niger, leader du groupe Mama Kassey, et devient trio. En juillet 2008, le trio devient quartet avec l’intégration du percussionniste haïtien Jean-Baptiste Bonga, l’un des maîtres reconnus du tambour vaudou. La veille de l’ouverture de la 17ème édition des Nuits Atypiques, le groupe se produit en direct, pour une soirée retransmise sur FIP, et la magie (vaudou?) opère, instantanément. Ce qui ne devait être qu’un concert devient événement, moment d’éternité, et Jean-Luc Leray (FIP) leur propose immédiatement d’enregistrer un disque ‘Live à FIP’. C’est cet enregistrement que vous propose cet album. Un album qui vous fera vibrer de plaisir et qui vous touchera comme seuls savent le faire les artistes qui jouent avec leur cœur. Un album ‘Coup de Cœur’, indiscutablement. (5 de 6 étoiles) - Frankie Bluesy Pfeiffer
- Paris-Move

"The unclassifiable duo from New York return with a new album, Live a FIP (on the label Daqui/Harmonium Mundi), marking an important new milestone of their wonderful musical trajectory. They first met in 1999. She, Bethany, belle of the ball, of folk music, and of Peter Yarrow (of the group Peter, Paul & Mary), was looking for a bassist. She found a cellist, Rufus Cappadocia, a virtuoso on his instrument (an electric cello with 5 strings), but also a incredibly gifted multi-instrumentalist who would soon be the compass on her great musical voyage. The album 900 Miles, released in 2006 to unanimous critical acclaim, shot them to international recognition. In 2008, they met up with the flutist and singer from Niger, Yacouba Moumouni, and the Haitian percussionist Bonga Jean-Baptiste, and the duo morphed into a quartet.

An invitation by Radio France last march for one of their now-famous "FIP concerts" gave birth to a new album of exceptional energy and feeling: 12 tracks drawing from the deep source material of American song including folk, jazz and blues standards. The intuition and incandescent voice of Bethany; the musical intelligence and incredible, innate sensitivity of Rufus; and the broad palette of the group form a rare musical alliance that creates an authentic source of happiness."

"L’inclassable duo new-yorkais revient avec un nouvel album « Live à Fip » (sur le label Daqui/Harmonia Mundi).
Leur rencontre remonte à 1999. Bethany et Rufus Cappadocia, violoncelliste et multi-instrumentiste surdoué, signaient en 2006 l’album « 900 Miles » qui allait faire rayonner mondialement leur musique au niveau international. Aujourd’hui, le duo a muté en quartet à la faveur de la rencontre en 2008 avec le flûtiste et chanteur nigérian Yacouba Moumouni et le percussionniste haïtien Jean-Baptiste Bonga. Une récente invitation à Radio-France vient de donner naissance à un nouvel album exceptionnel d’énergie et de feeling, décliné en douze titres puisés aux sources profondes du répertoire américain, entre standards folk, jazz et blues. La voix incandescente et l’intuition de Bethany, l’intelligence musicale et le sens inouï et inné du son de Rufus, et la palette colorée du groupe forment un alliage musical rare, authentique source de bonheur. - Jean-Luc Caradec - La Terrasse Nov. 2009

The new record from the Bethany and Rufus Roots Quartet, Liv À Fip, is like nothing I have ever heard before. Styles from everywhere and anywhere come together seamlessly. One hears distinctly Afro-Cuban rhythms pop under driving bass lines, folksy lyrics and screaming flute.

"Death Don't Have No Mercy" is particularly characteristic of this mixing and meshing. The cello is inescapably funky, the bongos complexify the rhythms, the flute line seethes with fiery reverberance, and Bethany's vocals lament the world in a way only American folk music can.

Bethany Yarrow's voice has a deep resonance, a profound that blends oh so perfectly with the earthy sound of her band. Perhaps her voice sounds so good in this group because all of the instruments have a distinctly vocal quality about them. Yacouba Moumouni's flute imparts an especially human sound, a personification of woody vibrations that conjure images of life in its rawest form. 'Bonga' Jean-Baptiste's rhythms are complex and gel with Rufus Cappadocia's funky bass lines. Cappadocia's sound is also unique. His five string cello sound is rich in overtones that compound the earthiness of the group, and Yacouba's chants send shivers through your spine.

This whole album feels alive and growing. These are the sounds of life piercing a dry and crusted earth, its roots twisting and crawling, crackling and snapping. This music transcends the genres in which it finds its origins. It's not roots music, or blues, or funk, or jazz. While it contains elements of all of those styles, it is also unmistakably new and impossible to characterize in the traditional musical panacea. This pure, vibrating, swelling sound is open and honest.

The Quartet is sincere and their music, all recorded live, makes you feel what they feel. This is an original and refreshing album. Live À Fip is scheduled for release on October 22. - Buzznet

"This is American music that reaches out to invite and include so much more. Most of the songs have a sad undercurrent and yet at the hands of these two artists they emerge as shining songs for a new time." - ALL ABOUT JAZZ

"I've been in the music business for 37 years now and I've had my artists perform at amazing shows including Live Aid and Carnegie Hall. I have to rank Bethany & Rufus show for us in my "Top 20" of all time. Mezmerising and inventive...our audience was slack-jawed." - MINDY GILES, SWELL PRODUCTIONS

Filled with dust and desire.... their CD gets better and better with each listen!" - AMAZON.COM

"Yarrow has a keen, dusky-voiced musicianship that blurs folk, rock and pop... it is, though, Cappadocia's brilliance that gives this [music] its remarkable sheen. His palette...is incredibly rich and amazingly clever." - JAZZ TIMES

"There's no denying that in a world where a lot of fluffy pop passes as folk, Bethany and Rufus - in taking a more original road - have come up with the real deal." - ALLMUSIC.COM

"Bethany delivers low, smoky tones that call to mind Nina Simone or Cassandra Wilson. With stunning imagination, Bethany and Rufus move.... in arresting new directions. Bravo!" - GOLDMINE MAGAZINE

"The duo see themselves as a roots... but the musical results are really beyond category, with touches of jazz, gospel and something contemporary. Their unique sound starts with Bethany's phrasing, which can be quite loose, even ethereal. Then there's Rufus' five-string cello - played pizzicato, jazz style and bowed, incorporating the bass range and world music rhythms... It's an often bewitching chemistry." - Roger Levesque, EDMONTON JOURNAL (Oct. 12, 2007)

"Bethany & Rufus' simple blues changes, couples with the primordial funkiness of Cappadocia's cello, evoke the ancient world that serves as a backdrop for 900 Miles - all ragged tombstones and railroad unspooling forever in one direction." Rachel Swan, EAST BAY EXPRESS
- Various