Guitar aficionados may be ready to hail the new display of virtuosity on Russ Barenberg’s When At Last—his first solo album in almost 20 years—but for the legendary guitarist himself, the value of the collection is somewhat different. “What I maybe have to bring to the world,” he says with a kind of wry deliberation, “is some good tunes.”
Of course, When At Last does, indeed, showcase subtle, compelling musicianship—and not only from Barenberg, but also from the carefully chosen crew of players who accompany him—yet the point is well-taken. In a world filled with guitarists renowned for technique, Russ Barenberg has always stood out for his intensely melodic approach to playing and writing, and the new album shows that the years since he, resonator guitarist Jerry Douglas and string bass maestro Edgar Meyer made the widely acclaimed, supremely influential Skip, Hop & Wobble have only deepened his musicality. For while Barenberg decided in the late 80s to forego a full-time musical career—or, more accurately, to defer one—he hardly stopped making music, and Skip, Hop & Wobble was only the most visible manifestation of that determination.
“I moved to Nashville in 1986 to be around the scene here and try to get studio work,” Russ recalls. “I thought that possibly I could make a living at it, that I might not have to travel so much. And I did some when I first came down here, but it became clear that it wasn’t a great match for me—I wasn’t deeply enough into pop music that I could thrive in that world. So I took a job that allowed me to have a predictable income, that let me be at home more while my kids were growing up, and that allowed me to do the music I really wanted to do without having to feign interest in stuff I didn’t care about just to put together a living. But it felt to me like I was still dead in the thick of music, because for a lot of that time I was playing in the trio with Jerry and Edgar, and I thought, this is as good a musical situation as I could ever hope for. And so I really felt that even though I was just doing it part-time, I was still doing it in a pretty fulfilling way.”
And indeed, despite the restraints on his time, Barenberg was still wrapped up in music, not only with the trio but with a variety of other projects, most notably the Transatlantic Sessions—a set of filmed-for-TV performances featuring musicians from the British Isles, Canada and the United States in a stunning, evocative cross-cultural exchange. “I’ve been in the house band for all three of them, and a featured artist, too” Barenberg says. “In some ways, it’s the best musical experience one could have. You wake up every morning learning these tunes, and then you film them with different combinations of great musicians—some of whom you’ve never met before. It’s very invigorating.”
Still, despite the satisfactions of projects like the Transatlantic Session, the Barenberg-Douglas-Meyer trio and a miscellany of appearances with friends like fellow guitarist Bryan Sutton, fiddler Aubrey Haynie and singer Tim O’Brien, Barenberg looked forward to the resumption of a career fully devoted to music. “What you miss when you’re working during the day is having the time to really practice and write as much as you would like,” he notes. “One of the most satisfying things for me is writing tunes, and even more, to actually record them and put them together and play them with other people. So I’m very happy to be back in that situation again.”
The fruit of that long gestation, and of his move back to full-time status, When At Last is likely to make a lot of people besides Barenberg happy too. Leading off with the taut groove of “Little Monk,” the set winds its way through bluegrass, Celtic and contradance-flavored tunes that frame Barenberg’s lyricism and rhythmic subtleties in intricate ensembles that feature long-time friends and collaborators. Douglas, fiddle giant Stuart Duncan and percussionist Kenny Malone, who appeared on Barenberg’s last solo album, Moving Pictures, are back for the ride, while the bottom end is held down by Viktor Krauss and Dennis Crouch. “I’d played with both of them in various settings, but I hadn’t recorded with either of them before,” Russ says. “I wanted acoustic bass on the album, and those are two guys whose playing I really like.”
Less familiar contributors turn up too and add a delightful new flavor to the work. “Ruthie Dornfeld is just a fantastic musician,” Barenberg notes. “I played a lot of contra dances with her up around Boston in the early 80s. She’s a great dance fiddler, but she does a lot of other things too and she has a great feel and rhythmic sense; she plays a lot of traditional music and understands it really well. And Jeremiah McLane is a fine accordion and piano player from Vermont who plays in a wonderful trio called Nightingale; they’re one of my favorite bands. He and I and Ruthie, along with Susan Kevra, who’s a great contradance caller and teacher, went to France a few years ago and did a little tour doing dances and concerts. So we have that history together, and I wanted to have some different people from outside of the Nashville crowd on there, particularly on some of the more traditional-sounding tunes.”
Still, while ensemble interplay is the foundation of When At Last, its heart and soul ultimately is to be found in Barenberg’s tunes—some dating back to the early 90s, others composed shortly before recording began—and in his glistening playing. Few guitarists so perfectly blend a mastery of roots music traditions with melodic originality, or so finely balance muscularity with delicacy, and each moment of the album is shaped by these artistic dualities—and by Barenberg’s newfound energy and re-dedication to making music central to his life. “I’m at a point in my life now where I really appreciate what a gift it is to be a musician,” Russ Barenberg says with a smile, “and I’m ready to embrace whatever’s involved in doing it for a living. It’s just a great time for me.”
Conjuring a unique but universal language from that most ubiquitous of instruments, the acoustic guitar, Tony McManus has both extended and transcended the parameters of contemporary Celtic music. Ranked by peers and predecessors alike alongside the guitar world’s all-time greats, his fiendishly dexterous, dazzlingly original playing draws on traditions from the entire Celtic diaspora – Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, Galicia, Asturias, Cape Breton, Quebec – along with still further-ranging flavours, such as jazz and east European music. Long applauded for his uncanny ability to transpose the delicate, complex ornamentation characteristic of traditional bagpipe or fiddle tunes – even the phrasing of a Gaelic song – onto his own six strings, McManus is increasingly being acknowledged also as a pioneering figure in bridging the realms of Celtic music and other guitar genres.
Born in 1965 in Paisley, near Glasgow, his surname the legacy of an Irish grandfather, McManus was introduced to traditional music via the family record collection. Having first tried his hand at the fiddle, whistle and mandolin, he took up the guitar aged ten, although subsequent academic inclinations got him halfway through a PhD in maths before the music won out. After rapidly making his name as an unusually fluent and sensitive accompanist, he took the solo plunge with a triumphant main-stage debut on the final night of Glasgow’s inaugural Celtic Connections festival in 1994, supporting Capercaillie in front of a 2500-strong crowd.
Since then, McManus’s ascent into Celtic music’s international premier league has been simply unstoppable. His first, self-titled album was released in 1996, a formidably accomplished calling-card that earned widespread critical acclaim. Its mainly Scottish and Irish material was rounded off with a taste of eclecticism to come, an arrangement of Louis Armstrong’s Wonderful World that remains one of his most often-requested numbers. Jazz-tinged and improvised stylings were boldly in evidence on 1998’s Pourquoi Quebec?, recorded in Quebec with leading Breton and French-Canadian musicians Alain Genty (fretless bass) and Denis Frechette (piano).
Abetted by an increasingly crowded and globe-trotting live schedule, the album underlined McManus’s growing reputation as a truly prodigious talent, equipped by his deep-rooted grounding in traditional music to articulate its idioms and nuances with rare empathy, while seamlessly incorporating influences from further afield. His skills are also in constant demand by fellow musicians. To date, he has featured on over 50 albums by other artists, including Kate Rusby, Alison Brown, William Jackson, Brian McNeill, Liz Doherty, Colin Reid and Catriona Macdonald, in addition to innumerable live guest appearances. Other current collaborations include his celebrated partnership with master Scottish fiddler Alasdair Fraser – as captured on their breathtaking 1999 album, Return To Kintail – and duo or trio work with the aforementioned Alain Genty, and Breton guitarist Soig Siberil.
Admiration for McManus’s intricately concocted, precisely honed style, however, extends far outwith the Celtic domain. He remains the only non-classical player to be invited three years running to the Dundee International Guitar Festival, from 1997-99, while the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama has enlisted his skills to host seminars for their classical guitar students. Jazz virtuoso Martin Taylor booked him for the inaugural Kirkmichael International Guitar Festival in 1999, while more recently he has performed at the Bogota Guitar Festival in Colombia (directed by Cuban composer Leo Brouwer and Urugyan guitarist Eduardo Fernández) and the Chet Atkins Convention in Nashville. He has also released two highly-praised instructional videos on Stefan Grossman’s world-renowned Guitar Workshop series, with hands-on teaching, also assuming an increasingly important place in his schedule. 2002 will find Tony teaching at both the Fingerstyle and Flatpicking weeks of Steve Kaufman’s Acoustic Camps in Knoxville, Tennessee.
This breadth of mastery and vision is now revealed in yet more abundance with the February 2002 release of his stunning third album, Ceol More. Featuring artfully sparse, subtle accompaniment from Capercaillie’s Ewen Vernal (bass) and Salsa Celtica’s Guy Nicolson (tablas), its eleven tracks continue to extend his musical explorations both within and beyond the Scottish tradition. The title is a pun on the Gaelic phrase ceol mhor, or “big music”, referring to the noble piobaireachd tradition of the Highland bagpipes, a form rendered here with hauntingly stark grandeur in Lament for the Viscount of Dundee. Other tracks range from Burns’s Banks and Braes to Charlie Mingus’s Goodbye Pork Pie Hat, with Breton and French-Canadian material again featuring prominently alongside Scottish and Irish tunes. Having opened with a tenderly lyrical sean nos song air, Sliabh Gheal gCua na Feile, the album closes in exquisitely contrasting – though equally spine-tingling – fashion with a 17th-century Jewish hymn-tune from eastern Europe, Shalom Aleichem, a greeting to the angels traditionally sung before the Sabbath. Eagerly anticipated by guitar fans worldwide, Ceol More resoundingly confirms McManus’s standing as one of today’s most gifted and groundbreaking instrumental artists.
“These guys get it, and Tripswitch is an instant contender for Instrumental Album of the Year—McSherry in the hunt again! Brill.”
– LIVEIRELAND.COM
The pairing of John McSherry on Uillean Pipes and Dónal O’Connor on fiddle brings together two of Ireland’s most celebrated musicians on the scene today.
John McSherry – Hailed as one of the finest exponents of the art of the Uilleann piping in the world today, he’s called “a true master” by Irish Music Magazine and has taken piping to new heights with his unique style. His sense for improvisation has even been compared to that of the great jazz legend John Coltrane. John was a founding member of Irish super-group, Lúnasa and released the duo CD, At First Light (Compass 4430) with musical comrade Michael McGoldrick. At First Light received the award for 2001 Best Traditional Album of the Year from Irish American News.
Dónal O’Connor – Son of the celebrated fiddler Gerry O’Connor (Skylark, Kinvara) and renowned singer Eithne Ní Uallacháin (Lá Lugh), Dónal O’Connor has inherited a great musical legacy of at least five generations of fiddle playing and countless generations of traditional singing. Highly regarded as a fiddle player, the Irish Times calls him “immaculate” “electrifying” and “…born out of naked talent and consummate professionalism.” Recent collaborations have included tours with Michael McGoldrick (Capercaillie, Flook, Lúnasa), live festival performance with Karan Casey (Solas), T.V. Performances with the legendary Sligo Flute player Séamus Tansey and recording work with Brian Kennedy and Máire Brennan of Clannad.
“If there’s a better Irish album released in 2006 I’ll willingly dance naked in Trafalgar Square with a ferret on my head. But only if Tripswitch is playing in the background.” – Geoff Wallis, Songlines
From his early days with his family band Tamalin to his role as a co-founder of Lúnasa, to his recent solo work, Uilleann piper John McSherry has helped to reinvent Irish music, bringing to it urgency and precision matched with an ambitious, sophisticated rhythmic sensibility. That immediacy and sophistication is heard throughout Tripswitch, McSherry¹s new collaboration with young fiddler Dónal O’Connor. Tripswitch mates the pair’s virtuosity and mastery of traditional forms with a fluid, jazz-inflected sense of rhythm casting this ancient art into an exciting new context. McSherry and O’Connor are joined on Tripswitch by Austerian Musician of the Year – Rubén Baba (guitars, bouzouki), as well as McSherry’s brother Paul (guitars), guitarists Tony Byrne and Giles LeBigot, and Shaun Wallace (percussion).
As the son of internationally renowned fiddler Gerry O’Connor and acclaimed vocalist Eithne Ní Uallacháin, Dónal O’Connor comes from a line of traditional musicians spanning back through countless generations. He first encountered John McSherry when asked at the age of 21 to participate in the prestigious Music Network Tour of Ireland, where he was joined by McSherry, the brilliant Scottish guitarist Tony McManus, and vocalist Gabriel McArdle. As both a solo artist and supporting musician he has toured throughout Europe and the United States, including performances in his parents’ group Lá Lugh. Recently, he produced his father’s 2004 solo album Journeyman, and has performed or recorded with Karen Casey, Séamus Tansey, and Brian Kennedy and Máire Brennan of Clannad. O’Connor has also served as a presenter for BBC Radio, and his credits there include BBC Northern Ireland’s ten-part music series An Stuif Ceart.
Deemed a true master piper by Irish Music Magazine, John McSherry hails from Belfast, and is apart of a well-known musical family there. He took to the Uilleann pipes early on, and earned two All Ireland Championship titles by age fifteen. At eighteen he was the youngest musician ever to win the coveted Oireachtas piping competition. He formed the group Tamalin with his siblings, which quickly won acclaim for their forward-thinking fusion of Irish music with elements of rock, Cape Breton music, and sounds from beyond the western world. McSherry is also a first-call session musician, recording with artists ranging from Nancy Griffiths to Clannad to Dónal Lunny’s genre-dissolving Coolfin project. In concert, his versatility and adventurousness has lead him to perform with Sinead O’Connor, Ornette Coleman, and many others. His duo album with fellow Lúnasa co-founder Michael McGoldrick, At First Light (also available on Compass Records), was named Best Traditional Album of the Year by Irish American News.
Despite their formidable individual accomplishments, it is the clarity, focus, and unity of their sound that makes Tripswitch such a thrilling collaboration. Whether soaring in close-knit unison passages or darting around one another in hair-raising counterpoint and harmony, O’Connor and McSherry demonstrate remarkably telepathic empathy. The progressive, escalating rhythmic settings O¹Connor and McSherry devise with their supporting musicians serve to push their playing further into the stratosphere. Opening set “Rose in the Gap” begins with a churning rhythmic backdrop for the titular march, then shifts via a thrilling unaccompanied passage into a pair of reels impeccably delivered at high velocity, complete with a spot-on rhythmic modulation. A set of Castilian dance pieces set in 5/8 time (Spanish 5’s) are hauntingly modal, yet rhythmically spry and demonstrate the rarely-acknowledge impact the Moors had on European music.
While the uptempo selections are riveting, the quieter moments such as the slow-jig set “Commonalty Set” and the slow reel title track speak more directly of the passion that exists at the core of Tripswitch. “Tight as a drum and as louche as a bordello queen,” wrote Siobhán Long in the Irish Times, “Tripswitch is a collection for the wide open road, fuelling the miles long after the tank runs dry.”
“No one has succeeded more in taking this once vital part of Irish American culture out of musty archives and moldering dissertations and placing it afresh on CD and concert stage than Mick Moloney.” – Earle Hitchner,The Irish Echo
Musician, singer, anthropologist and musical historian Mick Moloney celebrates the joyous and creative era in American popular song from the early 1890’s to the end of vaudeville and the start of the Great Depression on his new release If It Wasn’t For the Irish and the Jews. Each of the album’s 14 tracks is notable for having been created in a collaboration between Irish and Jewish lyricists and composers. Irish/Jewish Tin Pan Alley collaborations were commonplace in the heyday of vaudeville and Tin Pan Alley, and, though there were doubtless the usual business break ups and make ups, these collaborations represent a charming story of decades of good natured ethnic flux, competition and cooperation which left a lasting imprint on the history of American popular music. The end result is a fascinating and highly entertaining look at a historically critical point in American music.
Equally qualified as a musician and anthropologist, Mick Moloney brings the perfect balance of historical insight and musical relevance to these songs. Born in Ireland, Moloney came to America in 1973 and pursued a career that uniquely combines the roles of musician, folklorist, author, presenter, radio and television personality, and educator. He holds a Ph.D. in folklore, and teaches at New York University in the Irish Studies program. Mick Moloney has been featured on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, in the Village Voice and in Irish Music Magazine. He is also the recipient of the National Heritage Fellowship from the NEA, the highest honor a traditional artist can receive in the United States.
Departing from an Irish pub circa 1962 and passing through Hungary for a chance encounter with a blue-eyed beauty before stopping in the Virginias for an old-fashioned hoedown, Mozaik’s Changing Trains is a musical journey hindered not by genre, place or time signature. Recorded in 2005 in Budapest, Mozaik’s first studio album explores and celebrates the fusion of Irish, European and American folk music. While Changing Trains is a “unique cross-cultural exercise” (Irish Music Magazine), the strength of this album lies within each individual member’s deep respect and understanding of their own musical traditions.
Mozaik are Ireland’s Andy Irvine and Donal Lunny (both original members of Planxty), American born old-time musician Bruce Molsky, Dutch guitarist Rens Van Der Zalm, and Hungarian multi-instrumentalist Nikola Parov. Together they form the ultimate global stringband with a legendary lineage. It was on a lengthy drive through Australia that the great Irish singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Andy Irvine first envisioned Mozaik. According to Irvine, “The Muse said ‘Get a bunch of your favorite musicians together and do a tour of this beautiful country.’” He continues, “I pondered for not very long before emailing the suspects I had in mind. To my delight they were all into it and thus emerged Mozaik – a band to die for…”
ANDY IRVINE
Born to Irish-Scottish parents in London, Irvine began his artistic career as a young child, trying his hand in acting, acoustic guitar, and traditional music. He moved to Dublin to further develop his Irish trad musical talents, playing such instruments as the guitar, bouzouki, and mandolin. Irvine collaborated with several talented musicians, and formed such bands as Sweeny’s Men, Planxty, and Mosaic. After Mosaic, Irvine began producing music with fiddler Kevin Burke, guitarist/vocalist Gerry O’Beirne, and accordionist Jackie Daly as Patrick Street. Mozaik (a revamped version of the old name) is the most recent culmination of Irvine’s diverse musical experience and visionary propensity.
DONAL LUNNY
Irishman Donnal Lunny’s thirty years of musical prowess is the stronghold of Mozaik. He has been hailed by Irvine as one of the most innovative musicians that Ireland has ever produced. Multi-talented Lunny acts as not only a close friend to Irvine, but also as a professional musician and master arranger for the group. He hears each band member’s niche flavor and acts as the glue that holds the sound of Mozaik together.
BRUCE MOLSKY
Bruce Molsky and Irvine met at a house party Molsky was hosting in Atlanta, Georgia. Irvine first became aware of Molsky’s incredible talent when he first heard him perform “I Truly Understand.” Molsky’s talents with the guitar and 5-string banjo in combination with his old-time musical style contribute a unique zest to the group. Intricate string arrangements perfectly complement Molsky’s plaintive vocals.
NICOLA PAROV
Irvine first met Parov in Budapest twenty years previously, playing with his Balkan band Zsaratnok. Irvine has commented that Parov’s musical propensity is so extensive that an instrument that Parov cannot play has not yet been invented. When Irvine and Parov played together in The East Wind Trio, Parov wielded not only the gadulka, gajda, kaval, and other traditional Bulgarian instruments, but also the guitar, bodhran, and clarinet. As if Parov’s instrumental talents were not astounding enough, he was additionally involvemed with the finest Irish musicians through his performance with Riverdance.
RENS VAN DER ZALM
Rens Van Der Zalm and Andy Irvine first met in Slovenia on the road immediately after Van Der Zalm had graduated. Ver Der Zalm’s style is inventive and creative, incorporating such instruments as the mandolin, fiddle, guitar, accordion, bass guitar, tin whistle, and many other zany gadgets.
Philip Aaberg • Darol Anger • Alison Brown •
Mike Marshall • Tim O’Brien • Todd Phillips
NewGrange is the quintessential Americana band. These six celebrated acoustic music veterans take the listener into the heart of American folk music, the common ground from which jazz, blues and country music emerged. By looking backward to move forward, NewGrange has created a completely unique band sound. They pay homage to the roots of American music while delivering a sophisticated, contemporary take on the string band. No other group has been as successful at combining traditional stringed instruments with piano and creating such a cohesive texture.
With the 2007 release of A Christmas Heritage on Compass Records, these six giants of acoustic music come together to explore musical holiday traditions at the roots of Americana. This collaboration is a seasonal recording unlike any other, featuring traditional holiday music from Ireland, France, and Eastern Europe woven together with Americana and Gospel repertoire. A Christmas Heritage digs deep to explore the full diversity of the American Christmas season.
From the first strains of Mike Marshall’s solo fingerstyle guitar on ’Greensleeves’ through Tim O’Brien’s spirited blues reading of ’Go Tell It on the Mountain,’ this all-star acoustic ensemble offers a variety of lush soundscapes, fresh takes on venerable chestnuts, and some surprising new additions to the holiday canon. Alison Brown’s five-string klezmer banjo breaks fresh ground in a medley with a fiddle trio led by Darol Anger on “Shalom Aleichem/Breakin’ Up Christmas.” Pianist Philip Aaberg leads the group through an extended romp on “Christmas Eve,” and bassist Todd Phillips provides the impeccable underpinnings for the sextet’s flights of fancy.
Imaginative, whimsical, and at times contemplative, this collection is a welcome addition to the Christmas music library.
NewGrange was born on the road. In 1998, Mike Marshall and Darol Anger assembled their personal “dream team” of acoustic musicians for a 22-city holiday season concert tour. The performances drew raves, as did the group’s recording: more than anything, audiences and critics responded to how well the band played together. Probably no one was more delighted than the band itself. Mike Marshall explained, “I was ready for anything when we decided on the players. I thought, ’Well, this is going to be really great or really horrible.’ I was amazed at just how easily these musicians worked together.”
The series of concerts was such an exciting musical experience that the six members decided to transform NewGrange from a one-off touring ensemble into a band. In the spring of 1999, they reconvened in San Francisco and recorded a self-titled album. Though the members of New Grange maintain busy schedules as solo artists, session players, and music business executives, their work together is clearly something special, the sort of innovation that inspires new directions in music.
“It’s exciting to me to think where this style is going,” Mike Marshall said following the release of NewGrange’s self-title. “I’m most excited by the initial impulse that creates a new form. Earl Scruggs, or Bill Monroe, what was going on in their heads at the moment they created those styles? What music were they aware of? What did they want to bring out?”
It should come as no surprise that NewGrange has ventured off the beaten path. All six members of the group are musical innovators as well as instrumental virtuosi. “Darol Anger and Todd Phillips were in the original David Grisman Quartet,” bandmate Alison Brown notes, adding, “That band was the beginning of new acoustic music. I can’t imagine what acoustic instrumental music would be like without these innovations and these innovators. These guys took it to a whole new place.” Brown herself has made a distinctive mark on acoustic music both as a genre-bending, jazz-savvy banjo player/composer and as the president of Compass Records. Mike Marshall, another former member of the Grisman band, has moved beyond American roots and jazz to explore Latin and classical styles, playing mandolin, guitar and violin with everyone from Bela Fleck to Stephane Grappelli to MacArthur Fellowship winner Edgar Meyer. Tim O’Brien, a singer/songwriter whose material has been covered by the likes of the Dixie Chicks, Garth Brooks, and Kathy Mattea, was an early, steadfast exponent of the country/bluegrass/roots-rock fusion now known as Americana. Philip Aaberg, perhaps the boldest choice for the group, has lent his talents as a pianist and composer to a variety of projects, classical to country, jazz to rock. His credits include recordings and performances with the Boston Pops, Peter Gabriel, Elvin Bishop, and John Hiatt.
However, NewGrange not only draws on the innovative style of each of its members: it pushes each musician to extend their creativity even further. “I think they challenged me, pushed me to try new tonalities and stretch a bit,” said Tim O’Brien of his bandmates following the group’s second recording. Brown agreed. “It really is an inspiration to play with these guys, who are some of the giants of modern acoustic music.”
The name of the group reflects the combination of spontaneity, inspiration, and discipline the six-person ensemble generates. “There’s a place in Ireland called Newgrange, and Tim wrote a song about it for our Christmas record,” explained bass player Todd Phillips. “It’s a place where the people of an ancient civilization built this structure so the light would shine through it on the winter solstice kinda like a ’Raiders of the Lost Ark’ sort of thing where you have to stand there and wait for the sun to shine through at just the right time.”
Gerry O’Connor, described by many as the best four string banjoist in the history of Irish music, lets creativity take him where it wants to. He’s been doing this for some time now, and in the process has collected a great army of admirers not only in Ireland but also around the world.
O’Connor’s first U.S. release and Compass debut, Myriad is a musical journey of sorts. O’Connor says, “It is really an album about where I’ve been musically over the past while and most importantly where I am at the moment.” The album contains a wide range of colors, textures and rhythms for the listener to experience. “I haven’t done a solo album in a while. That has given me time to feel and experience a great range of influences, ideas and emotions and they’re all sort of collected here.”
Myriad was recorded over a 5-year period, during O’Connor’s time as a member of the Irish band Four Men and a Dog. The band recorded three albums in that time and toured excessively throughout the U.K., U.S., Canada, Australia and Europe. During his off time from touring that O’Connor entered the studio and put down tracks for the album. “Myriad is definitely influenced by the music I’ve been exposed to on my travels. But I was also aware that I carried inside me the musical heritage of my grandparents, my mom and my dad. So that’s why the last track features tunes with my dad and brother. It’s my effort to give back something of myself to the tradition.” The album features many guest artists including Kevin Doherty of Four Men and a Dog on guitar and Manus Lunny on bousouki and bodhran.
Described by Irish Music Magazine as a “banjoist extraordinaire,” O’Connor has developed a phenomenal technique on the tenor banjo, which sometimes gives the impression that there are perhaps three or four clones of the man all playing at the same time, as is apparent on Cam a Lochaigh (Cam-a-luck-ig). “It just sort of happened. I have no conscious memory of, for instance setting out to develop a particular way of playing triplets. I suppose if you keep at it and it’s inside you sooner or later it will wriggle out from that part of your being where it has been hiding.” Indian Storm was composed in a hotel room in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. O’Connor explains, “I had just witnessed the biggest thunder storm of my life. It was awesome, as you say in America. We don’t get storms like that in Ireland. We have ’soft days’ as they say. I couldn’t help but wonder what it was like for people back centuries ago who didn’t have hotel rooms, or the comforts of the 20th century. I tried to capture that feeling in this tune.”
O’Connor’s family heritage has always played an important part in his love of music and to celebrate that, The GarryKennedy Set became a family event. “My father travelled over 100 miles from Tipperary to Dublin to play these tunes with my brother Michael and me. It was my wish to give something back to him for all the music and encouragement he gave me over the years.”
In the tradition of the O’Connor family, Gerry was presented with a fiddle even before he was old enough to hold it properly. His father and uncles were all fiddle players. “The fiddle I got was too big for me and I couldn’t manage it at all,” he says, “But there was more to it than that. I wanted to be a bit different, sure I loved the music but I wanted to make a sound that was different from the fiddle.” It was this desire that lead him to the banjo after hearing a player from Limerick play at the Barge Inn in GarryKennedy. O’Connor instantly fell in love with the bright, rippling sound and had at last discovered the vehicle that would allow him to make an enormous contribution to the development of Irish music.
O’Connor’s music has been featured on the BBC Series Tacsi and he has appeared as a guest on over 12 albums by such artists as Gordon Duncan and Niamh Parsons. Is he satisfied? “Well, I suppose it is the curse and the joy of the musician and the artist in general. You’re never quite satisfied. I suppose the day I’m satisfied is the day I’ll lay down the banjo for good.”
“…the hottest new guitarist in the Celtic Realm.”
– SCOTT ALARIK, BOSTON GLOBE
Innovation combined with tradition: that’s a hallmark of Clancy family musicians, and it’s one that guitarist Donal Clancy is carrying forward into the twenty first century with his first solo release, Close to Home.
The title is no accident, either. “These are songs I grew up with, songs I can’t truly remember learning,” Clancy recalls. The tunes include the slow air “An Buachaill Caol Dubh”, the hornpipe “Kitty’s Wedding”, and the jig “Ask My Father”. Donal did indeed ask his father, Liam Clancy of Clancy Brothers fame, to show him a few chords on the guitar when he took up the instrument as a young boy after starting out on the tin whistle and trying out the mandolin. He’d found a home. “Something about the the sound of the guitar, the plucked strings, just appealed to me,” he says.
That’s where the innovation comes in, too. The acoustic guitar adds many colors and textures to Irish music, but there’s no long history of it in Celtic tradition, as there is with the fiddle and the accordion. Donal Clancy is one who’s bringing the guitar forward to its rightful place as a strong part of Irish tradition. He’s been involved with the best bands in Irish music, starting out in Clancy, O’Connell, and Clancy with his father Liam and his cousin Robbie O’Connell, helping to found the band Danu and then moving on to become part of Eileen Ivers Band before taking a pivotal spot playing guitar with one of the hottest Irish and Irish American bands around, Solas. When it was time to make a change, he found his old band Danu in need of a guitar player again, and that’s still one of his main gigs. “It was like coming home again, bringing it all back home,” he says, laughing.
Band work isn’t the only thing he’s done, though: Donal is an in demand session guitarist and road warrior, supporting top Celtic artists including Kevin Crawford, Cherish the Ladies, Aoife Clancy, The Chieftains, Niall Vallely, and Cathie Ryan. That may explain why it has taken him a while to get aroudn to making a solo album, but it was worth the wait.
Close to Home is a chance to hear one of the finest guitarists of this generation in a quiet, intimate setting, just the man and his guitar. Donal produced the disc himself and “I just went into the studio and played. I just wanted to capture the way I played the tunes on that day, without a lot of editing and things that you often go through in recording,” he says.
Though the tunes are all traditional, he’s still the innovator: they are all melodies Donal heard first on other instruments and brought over to the guitar with his own arrangements. “ I just absorbed this music over the years,” he says. “This is a record I’ve always wanted to make.”
Developed by Trapezoid’s Paul Reisler in collaboration with the Nashville Chamber Orchestra, Kid Pan Alley: Nashville includes songs co-written by more than 1,000 children from 40 different Nashville area schools and features top Nashville talent including Amy Grant, Delbert McClinton, Kix Brooks (Brooks & Dunn), Raul Malo, Beth Nielsen Chapman and many more.
Kid Pan Alley brings these professional songwriters and musicians together with school children in a group songwriting process. Through songwriting, children are able to articulate their feelings in a way that aids with the prevention, intervention and healing of crisis situations. Through Kid Pan Alley they develop self-awareness and self-confidence in their own abilities while learning respect for intellectual property in a direct first-hand way. To date, Paul Reisler has collaboratively written over 600 songs with nearly 12,000 children.
Founder and artistic director Paul Reisler comments: “Kids need to know they can be creators and not just consumers. I see what it’s like for these students to have their first song recorded by artists such as Suzy Bogguss, Beth Nielsen Chapman, and Darrell Scott, and it’s hard not to imagine what they are going to be able to create now that they are off to such a powerful start.”
Kid Pan Alley: Nashville received the 2005 Parent’s Choice Foundation Gold Award for excellence in children’s music, a Gold Medal Prize from NAPPA, and a GRAMMY nomination for the track Scary Things.
About Kid Pan Alley:
Kid Pan Alley started with a brilliant, yet obvious discovery – kids make the best co-writers. Kid Pan Alley is a national children’s songwriting project developed by Trapezoid’s Paul Reisler in which children are inspired to be creators and not just consumers of music. To date, KPA has written more than 600 songs with more than 12,000 children and won five ASCAP Foundation awards. www.kidpanalley.org
About Nashville Chamber Orchestra:
The Nashville Chamber Orchestra has come to be recognized as one of America’s most creative and innovative orchestras, presenting it’s unique style of Music Without Boundaries. Under the leadership of music director Paul Gambill and executive director Connie Linsler Valentine, the extraordinary music making of this ensemble has garnered a steady of national media attention plus recordings for Warner Bros., NAXOS, Angel, Almanac, and Alabaster Records, and a national award for Adventurous Programming from ASCAP. www.nco.org
Track Listing
1. Suzy Bogguss / Bouncin’ off the Bottom
2. Beth Nielsen Chapman / Little Drop of Water
3. Jonell Mosser / The Cheetah
4. Darrell Scott / Rainforest
5. Mustafa Abdul-Aleem / Goin’ to the Park
6. Jimmy Hall / True to Me
7. Raul Malo / Whispering in Spanish
8. Delbert McClinton / Freaky Friday
9. Kaset/Middleman/Lloyd/Vezner / Download it all for Free
10. Kix Brooks / Cartoons
11. Tommy Sims / Can’t Remember What I Forgot
12. John Bindel / Scary Things
13. Paul Colman / Pretty Good Day
14. Lari White / Stinky Socks
15. Amy Grant
Christmas in Tennessee
16. Will Hoge / No Fair
17. Nashville Bluegrass Band with Kathy Chiavola / Extra Hand
18. Kim Richey / Sleep All Day
Master musicians Paul Brock and Enda Scahill accompanied by the brilliant piano playing of Ryan Molloy and percussion of Tommy Hayes have evoked the atmosphere and artistry of the Irish dance hall era in dazzling fashion with the first ever CD of Irish traditional music on the melodeon and tenor banjo.
PAUL BROCK
Paul Brock has been at the forefront of button accordion playing for many years. A multiple All-Ireland champion born in Athlone, County Westmeath, and now residing in Ennis, Paul pursued a solo career through the 60’s and 70’s. His collaborations with fiddle player Frankie Gavin during the 70’s and 80’s culminated in their 1986 Gael-Linn recording ‘A Tribute to Joe Cooley’, regarded by critics and fellow musicians as one of the outstanding traditional albums of the modern era. Paul’s solo album, ‘Mo Chairdin’ (Gael-Linn, 1992), was described in the Rough Guide to Irish Music as a ‘modern masterpiece of accordion music’. In May 1989, Paul co-founded the group Moving Cloud with fiddle player, Manus McGuire. This Clare-based group produced two albums for Green Linnet Records, including their 1994 self-titled release that was selected by well-known U.S. music critic Earle Hitchner as the best Irish traditional album of that year. Paul was recently voted as ‘Best Male Musician’ of 2004 by the Irish American News. He founded Brock McGuire Band jointly with Manus McGuire and the band continues to tour internationally.
ENDA SCAHILL
Enda Scahill comes from a very musical family from Corofin in East Galway and has long established himself as one of the finest exponents of traditional Irish banjo playing. His solo album Pick It Up (SUNCD 36. 2000) was widely acclaimed. Enda has been described as “just about the strongest banjo I’ve have ever heard” (Art Ketchin, Celtic Beat) and Irish American News in Chicago said “Enda does things on the banjo which should be impossible”. Irish Music Magazine has described his playing as “simply divine”.
Enda has been a member of the Brock McGuire Band since its inception in 2001; has performed with Sessions from the Hearth whose debut album was acclaimed by Hotpress as “the best ever live recording of Irish Music”; with the Furey Brothers and most recently with The Frankie Gavin Band in Ireland and Canada. He has been All Ireland Champion 4 times on Banjo and Mandolin and was finalist in the Celtic Note Young Musician of the Year in 1999.
“The most exciting new traditional band to emerge from Ireland this century.” —Wall Street Journal
“Super vocals, a terrific staccato beat to the rhythm with a real sense of style and wit. This is a major, major band to be reckoned with.” —The Chicago Irish-American News
“A heady, virtually head-spinning, sonic blend stamping Beoga as perhaps the most audacious Irish band rooted in trad today.” —The Irish Echo
Since forming ten years ago, Beoga has expanded the vocabulary of Irish music with a unique accent all their own, becoming one of the most celebrated Irish bands of the century. To commemorate a decade of musical innovation the band returned home to Ireland for a gala performance featuring material from their 4 critically acclaimed CDs. The resulting live concert DVD/CD project titled Live at 10 showcases the band at its virtuosic best.
Beoga, consisting of the twin dueling accordions of Damian McKee and multi-instrumentalist Seán Óg Graham, pianist Liam Bradley, four time All-Ireland bodhrán champion Eamon Murray and vocalist/fiddler Niamh Dunne are joined by special guests from among Irish music’s glitterati including Alan Doherty, Bríd Dunne, Brona Graham, Trevor Hutchinson, Martin O’Neill, Niall Vallely and Clodagh Warnock. Over the course of their 20 song, 93 minute performance, Beoga’s madcap instrumental prowess and gorgeous vocals shine, illustrating why the critics have called them one of the most influential ensembles in modern Irish traditional music. The concert DVD was mixed in 5.1 surround sound and includes over 80 minutes of extras, including highlights from Beoga’s debut concert in 2002 and five behind-the-scenes tour diaries filmed over several years.
Beoga (gaelic for ‘lively’) is based in County Antrim, in Northern Ireland. The bedrock of their sound lies firmly within the Irish tradition, however they are not afraid to incorporate other genres’ nuances into their arrangements. From bluesy riffs to Astor Piazzola-style jazz, to a raunchy New Orleans jamboree vibe, their music always returns to a wonderfully bouncy Irish sound. The result is traditional, with a huge sense of fun and adventure and it all works—wonderfully well.
Born of a long-standing partnership stretching back over a decade, Raven is an album of assured, fully-realized performances that confidently, nonchalantly distort and dissolve boundaries. Lesser musicians adhere righteously to the lines separating tradition from innovation, soloist from accompanist – but the duo of multi-instrumentalist John Williams and guitarist Dean Magraw interact so effortlessly, and draw from such a wide range of traditions and techniques, that existing borders cease to be relevant. With one listen, the insight and instrumental skill that went into creating Raven is immediately apparent. Repeated listenings reveal a host of subtle musical undercurrents that speak of Williams and Magraw’s profound empathy and endless musicianship.
John Williams and Dean Magraw first met in St. Paul, brought together by the city’s thriving Irish music scene. The twin cities area is home to Magraw, though he is often away performing for audiences around the U.S. and the world. While he has an extensive background in contemporary jazz, Magraw’s passions have lead him to perform in an extraordinary range of contexts, from Celtic and bluegrass to jam band and avant-garde. His solo guitar albums draw from those experiences, synthesizing them via his impeccable technique into soundscapes both moody and tranquil. Hailing from a musical Chicago Irish-American family with its roots in County Clare, John Williams is the first and only American to have won the All-Ireland concertina title. He was a founding member of the group Solas, a band whose unrelenting drive and precision reawakened musicians on both sides of the pond to the potential of Irish traditional music. Upon leaving Solas, Williams has released a series of acclaimed solo albums and served as the traditional musical director for the Dreamworks film Road to Perdition.
“Irish music is our common ground, and the fiddler Martin Hayes was a mutual friend of ours,” explains Magraw. “About ten years ago, Martin and I were doing a show at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. We had John come out and do a 45 minute encore – a 45 minute tune set, one after another!” The audience’s reaction was overwhelming, encouraging Williams and Magraw to pursue their partnership, setting aside a few weeks each year to perform as a duo. “We recognized that the possibilities of playing as a duo were intriguing,” says Williams, “and we always get a huge response, year after year. As time went by, there was a lot of pressure from audiences and presenters to make a recording.”
Recorded outside of Chicago, the eleven core tracks of Raven “either took four days or ten years to record,” says Williams, “depending on how you look at it.”
They chose to not bring in outside musicians, keeping the focus on the duo’s well-honed interplay and an intriguing range of original, traditional, and outside material drawn from their concert sets. “You can get more textures the more people you have, of course,” Magraw explains, “but the duo is a special combination that fully exploits each member, yet you really have to listen closely to the other guy. In the future we may bring in guests, but it was really great to explore the sounds we make together…”
Magraw and Williams delight in attacking the material on Raven from a variety of angles. Some tracks find the duo stating the melody straightly in a fine, traditional fashion. Others feature them approaching it more expansively, letting the song arise gradually from the mists of their improvisations. Williams’ work in film-scoring comes to the fore on several cuts, particularly the evocative “Perdition Piano Duet,” which derives from Williams’ contributions to Road to Perdition. A slow-smoldering intensity, such as heard on “Lianna” and the haunting title track, betrays the influence of master Argentine tango composer Astor Piazzolla.
Far from merely accompanying Williams (who contributes whistles, flute, and piano in addition to accordion and concertina), Magraw is an equal partner in the music – engaging in tight unison passages, shaping the tracks’ unfolding with deft counter-melodies and chord voicings, and taking exhilaratingly fleet solos.
The importance of the live experience to their collaboration is apparent in the album’s coda – three songs recorded live at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis. “The Cedar was the first place we played together,” Magraw says, “and a place we play together every year. They have always been very supportive of our whole musical journey.”
“We originally sequenced the album to conclude with ‘The Raven,’ which is a very smoky, atmospheric track,” says Williams, “but then we decided it needed to end on an exclamation point. Luckily our shows had become popular with a Grateful Dead, newgrass audience, and were being recorded and traded among those fans. So we went back through all the live tapes people had given us, and found that set.”
With the release of Raven, Magraw and Williams plan to expand their annual duo tours and continue to cultivate their rewarding partnership – a partnership whose range Williams feels is well-documented on the album. “A lot of Irish CDs,” Williams concludes, “linger on the same vibe through the course of the entire program. This album unfurls – it doesn’t stay on one flavor for very long. That said, we didn’t feel the need to reinvent the wheel every time. But we do want to take it for a good spin.”
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