AN FHIDIL SRAITH 1

 AN FHIDIL SRAITH 1 

THE FIDDLE ALBUM 1

Gael-Linn, 1978, CEF 068

This is the first album in a series of three dedicated to young fiddlers. These 5 musicians were under the age of 20 when they recorded their bit and were all All-Ireland Champions in different age categories. Martin Hayes was the youngest (16 years old) and shared the 20 tracks allocated to them with  Séamus Glackin, Maurice Lennon, Seàn Montgomery and Séamus Thompson meaning they had 4  tracks each to display their talent.
This kind of  album is interesting because it reminds us that Irish music is first a soloist affair. In France the session aspect is very strong and rightly so for it is part of the Irish way of life in some areas but I think that  the pleasure of playing this music is the freedom we have when playing on our own. These 5 fiddlers were the next generation after big names like Paddy Canny, Patrick Kelly, Padraig O'Keeffe, Séan Ryan, John Doherty among others and they had to respect a certain tradition but also to forge their own way. It is what is called style that is really exciting in Irish music : the choice in the ornements and how to use them, the tempo, the swing and the variations in the melody, all things you can't do (a little bit though) when playing in a session of more than 3 or 4 musicians. I think  solo playing is like a test : if you can't listen to it you probably don't like Irish music in the end.
Hope you'll be attracted enough to those young fiddlers; some of them have reached international fame with albums, concerts, TV and radio programs etc..

Gael-Linn is one of the major companies in Ireland and the production is very good both technically and editing wise. 

 

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FINBARR DWYER

 

FINBARR DWYER
Ireland's champion traditional accordionist

Outlet, 1977, SOLP 1032

F. Dwyer (1946-2014) was part of a family of musicians from Cork. He was known also as a good and prolific composer along with his brother Richard who played the box also. Most of the time musicians who won some competition were sought after by big companies. This is not his first album. His style is the style which dominated Irish box playing at that time and reminds me of Joe Burke and others.

Outlet was a Belfast-based label, now disappeared, and was notorious enough for its poorly recorded LPs.
It is the case here; first the piano well played by Teresa MacMahon is almost totally inaudible and seems at times out of place because of the reverberation; second there is some light wow  due maybe to a poor moulding. Items of the Outlet catalogue are available on CDs but not this album according to http://www.irishmusicreview.com. 

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THE RAYES MOHAMMED ELMARRAKCHI

 THE RAYES MOHAMMED ELMARRAKCHI

Sawt el Ahbab, no date, 24

Moroccan artists have recorded a huge number of tapes over the years reflecting the great diversity of this culture between Arabic and Tamazight speakers. Here we have a good example of music from the Souss  area where amazigh culture is still very strong musically and linguistically. One feature I like is the dialogue between the male singer and the women typical of this music. Those voices and the way of singing are really exciting along with the rabab and lotar playing. The whole thing being backed by a very solid section of percussions as usual. Too much reverberation characterizes many tapes but we get used to it after a while. The sound quality is not great in general but what a music !

Being unable to read the cover, I asked the help of a friend, Julien, who speaks and writes Arabic but he told me that the titles of the songs being in Tamazight mostly it was difficult for him to give me an accurate transcription.  There are 5 songs mentionned but there are 6 tracks...  If somebody has a better comprehension I'd be glad to modify the following :

أدي بيد ربي أزمزن أوالي يالان - Adi bid Rebbi azemzen awali yalan

وريد أو اوريد - Werid aw urid

تنضامت - Tendamet

الرجاء في الله أدنيت - Al-raja fi Allah adnayt

آح يا احبيب - Ah ya hbib 

 

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CONCERTS AT THE REGHISTAN

 

CONCERTS AT THE REGHISTAN

Second international  musicological symposium  
''Samarkand-83'' (2)

 

SSR OF AZERBAIJAN

Melodiya, 1985, C30 22571 001

 

ΚОНЦЕРТЫ B PEГИСТАНЕ

ВТОРОЙ МЕЖДУНАРОДНЫЙ МУЗЫКОВЕДЧЕСКИЙ СИМПОЗИУМ

CAMAPKANД – 83 (2)

АЗЕРБАЙДЖАНСКАЯ  ССР

 This album is part of a series about that symposium held in Samarkand in 1983 (cf post published on the 12th of May).
I must say that the sound quality is bad enough; the recording was made during a concert and the music sounds ''far''; and there are occasional saturations when the singers go very high; I don't know whether it is due to a bad moulding or to my turntable. I post it all the same because we can listen to Alem Qassimov on track A2 and the great tar master Bahram Mansurov on B1. Hope you can enjoy it in the end.
I want to thank Sacha from Leningrad (at the time) musician and painter who provided me with nice Soviet LPs in the 1980's. This disc is one of them and others will be posted.

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DYNAMITES

 DYNAMITES - ΔΥΝΑΜΙΤΕΣ

Panivar, no date, PA 40007

I know that this tape was reissued as a CD but according to the main Greek site for the sale of CDs studio52.gr it has been unavailable for a good while meaning nobody knows whether it will be published again or not. So I decided to post it here because it is a good compilation of Cretan great artists like Skordalos, Skoulas, Vardoulakis among others. There is one bagpipe solo (askomandoura) by Manos Grilos. So it is like dynamite indeed !
Panivar label was founded in 1967 by Panayotis Vardoulakis (who figures on the tape) and released many LPs, tapes and CDs.

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CRETAN PAGES

 CRETAN PAGES

KPHTIKEΣ   ΣΕΛΙΔΕΣ

traditional music from Crete

Μουσική παραδοσιακή Kpήτης

Psiloritis, no date, psil 119

One of many tapes produced in Crete. Another one of them ! would you say. But if you enjoy Cretan music you would want to listen to it anyway. Here we have Manolis Alexakis on lira, Manolis Saloustros on laouto and Yioryos Doulyerakis on guitar. They play throughout each side of the tape with the vigour that characterizes Cretan dance music.
Crete is another example of some places in the world where a small amount of people produces a huge lot of music due to the vitality of their culture. It's amazing how strong a tradition can be in spite of mass tourism, under developement in some cases, bad management from local administration, etc...

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STEPHEN BALDWIN

 STEPHEN BALDWIN ENGLISH VILLAGE FIDDLER

Leader, 1976, LED 2068

S. Baldwin was a fiddler from Bishop Upton, Herefordshire. He was recorded on 22 June 1954 by Russell Worley at the local primary school because there was no electricity in Baldwin's house. It is possible to hear children play and other noises from the people taking part to the session.
Baldwin was born at the beginning of the 1870's and died in 1955 so shortly after those recordings. He was old enough in 1954 and his playing was somehow impared for this reason. But we can hear that his bowing was still very good; he used to play for dancers in his youth and the tempo and rhythm are very important to them. All the tunes are played one after the other without any real break so I had to make tracks out of it.
The repertoire is typical I guess of any English fiddler of the time with a lot of hornpipes and jigs, waltz, scottisches, polkas etc ... Some of these tunes or settings are probably local so this album is interesting for that reason too. Note that B11 and B12 are on the same track.  Finally, records of English fiddle music before the revival is not that common.
Leader was a very good label founded by Bill Leader in 1969 along with the label Trailer. He was very instrumental in the British revival in the 60's and 70's with the publication of the works of Woody Guthrie, Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, Pentangle, The Dubliners, etc ...

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DANCES AND SONGS FROM PONTOS

  DANCES AND SONGS FROM PONTOS/ANGEIOU (TOULOUM)

ΠΟΝΤΙΑΚΟI XOPOI KAI TPAГOΥΔΙΑ

AГГEIOΥ (TOΥΛΟΥΜ)

Vasipap, 1975, TC-LVAS 206

 This is one the many tapes produced in Greece for the Pontic community by Pontic Greeks whose parents or grandparents came from Anatolia in 1923 when the war between Greeks and Turks led to the formation of the Republic of Turkey. According to a nationalistic vision (coming from the Western world !) Atatürk decided to expulse all the Greek people who were on the Egean coast, in Cappadocia and on the Black Sea coast in order to have a homogeneous country. The refugees from the Pont were settled by the Greek gouvernement mostly in Macedonia to replace Slavic and Muslim people who had to leave the area as well. Since then the Pontic Greeks became part of the Greek nation but kept some of their traditions especially music. This music could be very old knowing that Greek settlements could be found 7 or 8 centuries before our era on the Black Sea. But I suppose that what is sung and played today couldn't be older than the Ottoman period. Some tunes and rhythms remind me of Thracian music (mostly modern Bulgaria and Northern Greece). This kind of music is still alive in Turkey played by Laz/Turkish people on the same instruments.
Here due to a lack of information I suppose that the singer is also the bagpipe player : Ioannis Kalpatsinidis. All the tracks have some drumming from a darbuka-like percussion. Note the term ''angeiou'' for the bagpipe while ''touloum'' is the Turkish name.
I'm very fond of that kind of music and solo touloum tapes and LPs are rare enough.  

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THE GREAT GAELIC SOUND OF NA H-OGANAICH

 THE GREAT GAELIC SOUND OF NA H-OGANAICH
(ALL GAELIC ALL VOCAL)

Beltona Sword, 1973, SBE 145

This vocal trio was formed early in 1971 by Margaret MacLeod, Noel Eadie and Donnie MacLeod in Glasgow. They won the Celtavision Song Contest during the Pan -Celtic Week in Killarney in 1971. Then they recorded 3 albums for Beltona Sword a division of Decca.
This is the first LP including mi le m'uilinn composed by Murdo MacFarlane with which they won the competition mentionned. They sing and play guitars, double bass and add occasionnally some drumming.
Out of 12 songs, only 3 are traditional but the other songs sound traditional, musically at least.
This show the great vitality of Gaelic-speaking people until now for the number of bands and composers is big compared to the small population of Gaelic Scotland.
This band is one of my favourite Scottish folk revival groups with their nice balance between tradition and modernity (at the time) and their excellent rendering of these beautiful melodies so typical of Gaelic Scotland. 

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