THE PURE GENIUS OF JAMES MORRISON
Masterpieces of Irish Fiddling
Shanachie Records, 1978, 33004
Michael Coleman is often mentionned as the greatest Irish fiddler of his time. But county Sligo gave birth to another great fiddler : James Morrison. In fact there were three of them with Paddy Killoran. They all emigrated to the US and made a career there.
This LP is really excellent and shows Morrison's infectious way of playing Irish dance music. During the 20s and 30s Irish music in America was extensively recorded by the major companies like Gennett, Columbia, Victor, etc. These 78rpm were largely exported and sold in Ireland where people used to dance to them at a neighbour's house equiped with a gramophone. Tracks A1, A4 or A7 are good examples of the energy and style of Morrison's solos or duets. These 78rpm were both a threat and an incitement to local musicians in Ireland because dancers could easily dance to Coleman/ Morrison's music and because some musicians tried to imitate their prodigious fiddling. These american records spread the Sligo style everywhere in Ireland.
This,LP was partially reissued on a CD called ''From Ballymote to Brooklyn''.
The notes on the back cover are quite informative about the musical life among Irish people in New York.
THANKS a lot Herve for this music gem!!!
ReplyDeleteFrom back of album cover: "TECHNICAL NOTE: The remastered sound on this Shanachie re-issue is noticeably noisier than on our past historical projects. This is for two reasons -- first many of the original recording presented here are so rare that there are only on or two known copies and they had to be used for lack of existing better condition alternates. Secondly, during the process of remastering, it was observed that some of the techniques usually employed to help subdue noise on old 78's were obscuring somewhat the definition of Morrison's amazing bowing. The decision was made to try and live with a somewhat higher than normal noise content in order to help better communicate the distinctive genius of one of the greatest Irish musicians of al time. If you find this noise content too troublesome we suggest you lower your treble control, as that will greatly reduce the effect --it will, however, also rob definition from the bowing. The choice is yours this way -- if we had taken more of the noise out, however, there would be no way you could add the real musical definition back on your own set."
--Michael Coleman is often mentionned as the greatest Irish fiddler of his time.-- I didnt know that...Maybe you could suggest or share with us a recording of Mr.Coleman. Thank you in advance :)
ReplyDeleteHi Leonidas ! nice to hear from you again. Surely aficionados of Irish music and especially fiddle players know about Coleman's huge influence on Irish music. But I think most of his recordings are available on CDs by now like ''In the Footstep of ... Coleman'' (2CDs)published by the Coleman Society in 2005.
ReplyDeleteIn fact I wanted to mention the double CD ''Michael Coleman 1891-1945-Ireland's most influential traditional musician of the 20th century''. In the Footsteps of Coleman is about Coleman's music played by other musicians from the Sligo/Leitrim/Roscommon area.
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