Set Dances Of Ireland

I found this on an old compilation cassette, and it now seems to be well out of print.

"Set Dances Of Ireland, Volume I"

Set: The Myserks
Figures 1 - 6, reels
Figure 7, hornpipes

Musicians:

Eamon McGivney - fiddle
Michael Tubridy - flute
Tommy McCarthy - concertina

Set: The Orange & Green

Figure 1, 3 & 6 ~ reels
Figure 2 ~ single jigs
Figure 4 ~ polkas
Figure 5 ~ jigs

Musicians:

Junior Crehan - fiddle
Eamon McGivney - fiddle
Michael Tubridy - flute
Tommy McCarthy - concertina

Dance: The Stack of Barley

Musicians:

Eamon McGivney - fiddle
Michael Tubridy - flute
Tommy McCarthy - concertina


(More info. including Set List here)


This about as traditional as it gets - core instrumentation, core repertoire and no accompaniment. What more do you want?

Download (as a single file @192)

Tape Dumps etc....

Previously with tape rips etc. I have carefully taken the raw dump, set break points, and split it all up into separate tracks for writing to CD (Audio format). However I'm now iPod and laptop enabled and hardly play any CD's at all. So what's the point of all that audio editing when I can just scroll through a lump of audio to find the bit I want?

From now on I'll just post things as 'Side 1' and 'Side 2' and to hell with 'shuffle'.

Mystery Oud Album

My daughter was on her honeymoon in Morocco last year, and I asked her to pick up recordings of oud music if she happened across any. She brought a couple back including one with only arabic script on the labels. The artwork is pretty cheap and cheerful, and looks like a CD-R labelled "Super Mégazone" and with a copyright warning in French. The oud in the picture looks Egyptian, and to my inexpert ears the music sounds Egyptian too.

Can any one tell me what the Arabic (or Berber, or whatever) says?

The music is poorly recorded (a cassette dump?), oud with percussion backing and no vocals, and may be belly-dance music. It would seem to be in the same class as uncredited recordings of e.g. "Irish Reels And Jigs", or "Bluegrass Hits" or "Jazz Band Classics" or whatever. The musicianship is good, but the material is just horsed out. I've uploaded it anyway for those that are interested.

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Sean Keane and John Kelly

Tracks from the old 'Seoda Ceoil" LPs, which I borrowed years ago and just taped the bits I liked i.e. these two guys.

Sean Keane (fiddle)

01 The Wind That Shakes The Barley - Drowsy Maggie
02 Willie Clancy's Fancy - Garrett Barrett's Fancy
03 The Oak Tree
04 Jennie's Welcome To Charlie - The Connaught Heifer

John Kelly (fiddle+concertina)

05 The Old Concertina - Tom Keane's
06 Garrai Na Saileog
07 The Tinker's Wife - The Flogging
08 Bimid Ag Ól - Patsy Geary's
09 The Moveen - Mary Delaney
10 The Humours Of Carrigaholt
11 John Kelly's
12 Caher Rua
13 The Cabin Hunter - Delia Crowley's

The names of tracks 6 and 11 are guesses from the lists on session.org

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Northern Fiddle Session

I taped this at the All-Ireland Fleadh in Buncrana, Donegal, in 1979. Most of my session tapes are complete messes, but this time I wasn't trying to play myself and so could concentrate on recording things properly. The session is mainly Seamus Quinn, Francie Quinn and Fealey Kearney, with Andy Dickson and Dermy Diamond doing a 'turn' now and again. I think Tara Diamond is in there somewhere too, as is Eugene Kelly on bird-whistle!

This isn't what would now be regarded as 'Donegal fiddling' but it is very much a 'Northern' session and has all those big fiddle tunes you don't seem to hear a lot of these days.

Changed times.

This was a C90 which I originally ripped onto 2 CDs and I've kept the two parts here, if only to save me changing all the track names.

Part 1
Part 2

(Re-posted with '/'s replaced by '-'s)

Comments

Reading a comment by Willard in the Record Fiend blog, I see you can choose to have comments emailed to you. I've done this and re-dated the Postbox post.

Let's see what happens.....

Letter Box

I'm not good at looking back for comments. Put things here and I'll see them straightaway.

Repost....

....of 'Ulster's Flowery Vale' (for Didier).

Download

Ragged and Rough and the Zoom H2

I've got a new toy, a Zoom H2 Handy Recorder (check the Web for details), which will replace my aging minidisc setup. It seems pretty good, and more than suits my need for a simple device for recording around the house and at sessions. I took it down to Ragged And Rough's regular fortnightly 'gig' in Bittles Bar in Belfast to test it out.

Ragged And Rough are me and Geordie McAdam on fiddles, Ian Carmichael on banjo, Eugene 'Spooley' Kelly on guitar, Wilson Davies on bass, with Gerry McCartney guesting on mandolin. I suppose we sort of play Turbo Old Time music.

Here, @ 192, are:

Bonaparte's Retreat
Buckin' Dun
Midnight On The Water

A Job Of Journeywork

Details below from Tom Sawyer in session.org - I heartily concur with his closing comments. The original cassette had a lot of chat by Ciarán Mac Mathúna about the players and tunes which I must have removed so as to get the whole thing onto a CD, which with hindsight is a pity. What amuses me is the fact that not far from where this was going on the whole 60's music / culture explosion was taking place with no effect at all on things here.

Download

Irish Traditional Music of New York and Philadelphia

RTE 124 cassette, with commentary by Ciarán Mac Mathúna between tracks, presumably originally broadcast on his radio show The Job of Journeywork.

Recordings from 1962 & 1966.

Fiddle-player and tune-maker Larry Redican, (sometimes spelt Redigan, Reddican, Reddigan, Rhattigan) died in 1975.
Cassette released in the 1980s I think. No date in the notes.

Artists:

FIDDLES

Larry Redican
Mary Brennan-Grant
Paddy Reynolds
Andy McGann
John Vesey
Denis Murphy
Paul Ryan
Vincent Harrison
Paddy Sullivan
Joe Lamont

FLUTES

Jack Coen
Eddie Meehan
Mick Flynn
Jimmie Smyth

PIPES

Thomas Standeven

CONCERTINA

Charlie Mulvhill

BOX

Sean McGlynn
Joe Madden
Gene Kelly
Charlie Mulvihill

PIANO

Felix Dolan
Geraldine Mulvihill
Thomas Standeven
Bill Greenall

with others as well on the final track.

Highlights include:

several solos by Larry Redican: his own reel The Culfada, to which he gives a verbal introduction; Jenny's Welcome to Charlie, and a nice version of the Harvest Home;

Redican duets with Coen; with McGann, backed by Dolan, and Vesey backed by Standeven;

several solo performances and an interview by Mary Brennan-Grant, friend of Michael Coleman and first teacher of Andy McGann;

a solo by Paul Ryan (friend of Paddy Killoran) & a duet with Vincent Harrison;

Denis Murphy on a couple of tunes with the Mulvihills (can you guess the track?);

solo box by McGlynn & Madden, and a duet of Kelly & Lamont;

the Mulvihills (father and daughter) on a lovely Co. Clare-style concertina/piano duet;

Reynolds, Sullivan and Smyth playing Lad O'Beirne's,

and a Vesey/Standeven duet not featured on Sligo Fiddler.

The RTE archives must be loaded with music of this quality. A pity they don't release much of it--a slow trickle at best. It would be easy enough to put mp3s up on a web site.

Yet the attitude of some archives towards the music seems to be that of of some players of old: don't let others have it.

I don't think releasing old music would hurt living professional traditional musicians one bit. Only musicianers would buy the old stuff anyway and they buy everything, old and new. Besides, this is supposed to be folk music, not just a commercial phenomenon.

RTE and ITMA for example could easily produce an audio collection to rival and surpass the book collections of the early 20th century, with comparable influence. Why not? It's the 21st century.

They should all take a lesson from Captain Francis O'Neill.

The Baile Bhúirne Jig Set

And this is the last. This set is all slides and is usually danced right through without stopping between figures. Once again some terrific music.

Download

The Corca Dhuibhne Set

Some more Begley, Bevan and Cooney from the Piper's Club tapes. Foot-tapping stuff!

Download

Repost....

....of 'Going Up The Country' (for teekay).

Download

Music Of Galway

And finally, here is Galway