There is plenty of reprehensible behaviour that is carried out in the name of tradition these days, and thankfully plenty of traditions that have fallen by the wayside as they have proven to be inappropriate to the realities of the world we now live in. By not allowing culture to breathe you run the risk of turning the sublime into cliche. There's a real danger of that happening with the music of the cedar flute as we keep hearing the same things performed on it over and over again. One only has to look to the work of people like Buffy Saint Marie, Martha Redbone, Robbie Robertson, and Pura Fe, to name only a few, to see the potential for diversity in Native American music and for examples of how to keep a culture growing and alive.
When I started playing a cedar flute twelve years ago I quickly saw both it's limitations and its potential. While it's true the range is limited, although if you have really good breath control and have a well made flute you can coax it up into the next octave, it also allows amazing opportunities for improvisation. Unlike other wind instruments that have multiple valves and keys the cedar flute is very technically easy to master, and once you have the technique down the only thing to limit your is your imagination.
While there is no denying that Kevin Locke is a highly proficient flute player, the music on Earth Gift doesn't bring anything new to the instruments repertoire. I love the sounds the cedar flute is capable of creating, yet it seems that very few performers are willing to experiment with its potential, and this recording is no exception.
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