Irish-American dance music & songs

 

IRISH-AMERICAN DANCE MUSIC & SONGS

Early Recordings from the late 1920's

with :
Frank Quinn
Sullivan's Shamrock Band 
McKenna & Morrison
Pat White
John Griffin
The Flanagan Brothers
Patrick Killoran Orchestra

Folklyric Records, 1977, 9010

This is an interesting album about the importance of Irish-American recordings in the USA and in Ireland. This compilation gives a good picture of the kind of songs and music Irish artists used to offer to the public. The Irish market was bigger and bigger over the decades because of a huge immigration from the 1840's. The American recording companies were interested in this market; some of the production was more of the vaudeville type (track A7) but there is a good deal of more traditional music from musicians born in Ireland like P. Killoran or J. McKenna. The notes by Bill Healy are informative about all the bands and soloists presented here.
Folkyric Records are a branch of Arhoolie Records. 

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Curente della Val Vermenagna

 CURENTE DELLA VAL VERMENAGNA 1 & 2

COURANTES FROM THE VERMENAGNA VALLEY

Self-production, no dates, FA025, FA033

These tapes come from the North of Italy thanks to a friend who lives near Milan.
The Alps have plenty of valleys linking France and Italy inhabited by people who still speak an Occitan dialect close to the Provençal language. That valley lies in the province of Coni and is about 20 km long.
With the revival of traditional music in Italy since the seventies this area, which is part of Piemont, had also seen the emergence of numerous folk bands such as Lou Dalfin.
Here we can enjoy a great duet with Silvio Vallauri on clarinet and Franco Romana on fisarmonica (chromatic accordion) for a music that sounds more traditional (all tunes are traditional). There are no arrangements and each dance is played straight with a very good style by the clarinet well backed by the accordion which plays chords only (a bit the way the couple piffero-fisarmonica works in Piemont-Lombardia). The dances are the curenta (French courante) and the balet. I don't know whether the clarinet is used in other places; the violin and now the diatonic accordion being the main instruments in those valleys. There is some reverberation. 

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Première anthologie de la musique malienne/4

 

PREMIERE ANTHOLOGIE DE LA MUSIQUE MALIENNE

L'ENSEMBLE INSTRUMENTAL
Médaille d'or au festival culturel panafricain d'Alger

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FIRST ANTHOLOGY OF THE MUSIC OF MALI

THE ENSEMBLE INSTRUMENTAL
Gold medal at the pan-African Cultural Festival at Algiers

Musicaphon,  1971, BM 30 L 2504

Produced by the Malian Ministry of Information, this wonderful collection gathers six albums all recorded in mono. The number four features the Ensemble Instrumental of Mali whose role is to support different female singers : Nantenedie Kamissoko, Saranfing Kouyaté, Wandé Kouyaté, Mogontafé Sacko, Djelimadi Diabaté and Orakya Koiaté. The orchestra is big with four kora, six ngoni, three balafon and two drums. The Malian state had a real policy about the building of a malian nation after the independance in the sixties. A lot of groups were set up and used to participate in contests in Mali or elsewhere.
Musicaphon had a superb catalogue and this anthology well-known to the connoisseurs is one of its gems. Texts in English, with translation of the lyrics (+ French and German).

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Navâ

 

MOHAMMAD REZA SHAJARIAN / NAVÂ

 

This tape comes directly from Iran thanks to a friend of mine. Obviously produced for the Iranian market only, the card is entirely in Persian.  I know that the singer is the master Shajarian and the dastgâh is navâ because I asked an Iranian guy to help me with it. But he had no time for a full translation. So any new information are welcome.
Shajarian sings with a small band made of santur, ney, tar etc.. There is a lot of reverberation as is often the case in Oriental productions.
M.R. Shajarian died in October 2020 at the age of 80. 

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Zeybekler 2

 

DAVUL ZURNA ILE / ZEYBEKLER 2

TURKISH FOLK MUSIC FROM ANATOLIA

Emir Müzik, no date, 021

Turkey is the place where the couple davul-zurna is still very strong in almost every part of the country.
Here the band (grubu) with several davuls and zurnas is led by Üstad Nacı on zurna and kabak zurna. The repertoire comes from the West coast of Anatolia (the list of towns is on the cover) and is totally traditional.
The cover says as well : ''our authentic folklore from the past to the present''.
The zeybek is typical of the Egean area and has four different slow or fast forms based on a 9 beats rhythmic cycle. Usually danced by one man it is sometimes danced by 4 or 5 men in a circle; this dance is said to underline the bravery, power and integrity a man could display.
The kabak zurna is really powerful and the whole music is very exciting.

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Na Ceirnini 78

 

NA CEIRNÍNÍ 78  1957-1960

musics of Ireland

Gael-Linn, 1978, CEF 075

 

Gael-Linn Records was created in 1956 by Gael Linn a body whose goal was to promote the Irish Arts and Language. The first discs produced were 78RPM and the present album is a compilation of recordings made between 1957 and 1960.
All the musicians and singers are soloists : 12 men and only 2 women. The Irish society of the time was  very conservative and women had very little place out of their home (they were not accepted in pubs most of the time). They could play some music or sing but inside the family circle. Some women managed to get such a good reputation as musicians that they could play wherever they wanted like the famous Elizabeth Crotty in Kilrush. Nevertheless these 78RPM were important because Irish traditional music was not as big as it is now. A major part of the population didn't know much about the traditional culture which was seen as backward and recordings made in Ireland were rare enough. 
One man, Seán Ó Riada, was instrumental in the process of meeting some singers and heping them to be recorded.
The singing is in Irish and the instrumental tracks feature four fiddlers, one piper, one flute player and one box player.

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KVAD-DANS

 

KVAD-DANS FRÅN FÄRÖARNA

DANCED BALLAD FROM THE FAROE ISLANDS

Caprice records, 1978, CAP 1148

There are some places in the world which are really unic because of their location, their history, their inhabitants and their culture. The Faroe Islands are one them. This archipelago has been autonomous since 1948 within the kingdom of Denmark. We don't know much about the first settlers (maybe monks from Scotland) but it is pretty sure that the first Scandinavians arrived there around 650 AD not from Scandinavia itself but from Scandinavian settlements in the Orkney Islands or the Shetland. The people speak Faroese and Danish.

What is really striking culturally speaking is the practice of the kvad-dans, a long ballad sung and danced by many people in a long chain and ponctuated by the dancers' feet. There are lead singers (one or several) in order to secure the unrolling of the dance. Here only excerpts are proposed because these ballads or poetry are quite long telling stories about old kings or heroes. It is believed that that practice became part of the local culture in the fourteenth century coming from the continent. During the Middle Ages in France for example people used to sing and dance simultenaously whether they were ordinary villagers or nobles in their castles. It was called ''bransle'' in old French. Some dances based on the bransle characteristics are still alive especially in Brittany where traditionally two singers led the dance among the dancers (the picture on the back cover shows dancers linked to each other as people do in Brittany). That practice of singing in the dance disappeared with the introduction of the microphones and stages among other reasons. The difference in the Faroe Islands is that anybody can sing along if he knows the lyrics. The English part of the presentation text is detailed enough about the songs and their historical background, the languages used as well as the names of some lead singers. A booklet is part of the album with all the lyrics and some accounts in Swedish about the life of the Faroese society.

It is very impressive although we don't understand anything but those old stories mean something to the people. Side B recorded in 1978 features male voices mingled with the voices of women and children. Kvad-dans is more than a simple entertainment; it is a strong way of keeping one's identity as islanders.  The more I listen to it the more I enjoy it although it is possible to get bored quickly. As for any kind of repetitive music the point is the longer the better. 

The Swedish label Caprice was established in 1971 and is now Musikverket.

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