Sean Maguire

 SIXTY YEARS OF SEAN MAGUIRE

IRISH FIDDLE MUSIC

((His original 78 Recordings)

Celtic Music, 1987, CMC 043

S. Maguire (1927-2005) was one of the most outstanding fiddlers of his time. Born in Belfast to a musical family he started the fiddle at the age of 12. Then he joined the Youth Belfast orchestra but turned down an offer to join the Belfast Symphony Orchestra because he felt more attracted to traditional music in the end. At the age of 22 he won the All Ireland Oireachtas Fiddle Championship and his musical career began only to end in 2005. His style is very personal (as it should be) with a mixing of traditional and classical features. He was close at times to the scottish classic fiddle style of Scott Skinner among others. He was extraordinary in the playing of hornpipes like Mathematician/ Golden Eagle on track A4 or of big reels like the Mason's Apron on track B2.
This tape is a compilation of recordings made in the 50's and 60's.

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LAUNEDDAS

 

SARDAIGNE LAUNEDDAS

Luigi Lai, Aurelio Porcu

SARDINIA LAUNEDDAS

Ocora Radio France, 1984, 558611

Sardinia is well known for its rich vocal tradition and for the launeddas. These instruments are very old going back at least  to the 7th century B.C. and have now two chanters and one drone played by one player with circular breathing. They probably came from eastern Mediterranean perhaps with some Phoenician settlers. There are about twelve different types of launeddas with different pitches and scales. They are used for religious processions (as shown on the cover) but above all for dance music as it is the case here.
Bernard Lortat-Jacob has been working on Sardinia for years (he's a member of a religious brotherhood there) and knows perfectly Sardinian music be it vocal or instrumental. This album is very impressive thanks to L.Lai and A. Porcu, two masters of the launeddas. As usual the information given is useful although not too technical. The launeddas are really something to play and Lortat-Jacob says that at that time very few players were considered as real masters in dance music.
These triple clarinets are found in Sardinia only in Europe but they were perhaps played in Ireland during the 9h-10th century as the famous celtic Cross of  Scriptures at Clonmacnois, Co. Offaly shows. 

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AENGUS

 

AENGUS

Tara, 1978, Tara 2001

Aengus was an Irish trio with brothers Tony and Jackie Small and Gary O'Briain. This was their first and only album. Tony and Jackie are from Galway and Gary was from Dublin but settled in Co. Clare. Tony died in 2013. They are joined by super fiddler Maurice Lennon who had won an All-Ireland title in 1977.
Tony was the singer and he sings 4 songs including the Card Game with double entendre about a sexual encounter. The tunes are played by Jackie on uilleann pipes, fiddle and mandolin, Gary on mandocello (and fiddle on some songs). Maurice doesn't play on the songs; track B3 is the reel with which he won the fiddle competition at the age of 17.
The trio seems to have been influenced by Planxty but shortlived. Aengus was part of the Irish revival nevertheless.
M. Lennon joined the famous band Stockton's Wing and is presently living in Toulouse (France). J. Small is currently on the staff of the Irish Traditional Music Archive (www.itma.ie); he was also a producer for the RTE and published CDs about musicians from the past.

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H-BLOCK

 

H-BLOCK/Various artists

no date, HB LP001

H-Block was the other name given to the ''Her Majesty's Prison Maze'' (previously Long Kesh Detention Centre) by prisonners and the Catholic population in Northern Ireland. There many militants and fighters for a unified Ireland spent years in awful conditions. One of the most famous of these IRA members or sympathizers was Bobby Sands who died after a long hunger strike in 1981. But the resistance inside that prison had started 5 years earlier when prisoners refused to wear the prison garment because they considered themselves as political prisoners and not as criminals. So they has only blankets to put on them; one of the songs talks about it. Then there was a hygiene strike among the female and male prisoners etc... until the hunger strike.
Although the official position of the Republic of Ireland was not to interfere in British internal affairs a good part of the Irish people in the south gave help with money during the hunger strike. Some Irish artists felt concerned by the situation in the H-Block and Donal Lunny and Christie Moore produced this tape/album to give all royalties to the Relative Action Committee in order to help the prisoners' families.
Two poems written by prisoners and smuggled out of the jail are read with another poem by Brian Ua Baoill.  C. Moore composed a song and D. Lunny plays bouzouki with Matt Molloy and the duet Tony Linnane and Noel Hill. The slow air on the uilleann pipes is played by Dan O'Dowd. Matt Molloy's musical contribution is quite strong and moving.

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Luzmila Carpio

 

LUZMILA CARPIO

''a people that doesn't sing is a dead people''

Ocora Radio France, 1988, 558 700

Some of the LPs published by Ocora have not been reissued surprisingly. This album by L. Carpio is one of them. She's a singer and charango player from the Quechua people in Bolivia. She was born in 1954 near Potosi and started her career in 1971 at a radio station in Oruro. Like numerous other artists in Bolivia and Peru she considers herself as a fighter for Indian and women's rights. She was ambassador in France in 2006 sent by Evo Morales.
What strikes us is the way she's able to sing very high : this is part of  Andean esthetics in music; women sing that way on the altiplano. She is joined by 2 more female singers and 2 singers and musicians. The kena and the charango are mostly used. The songs are either traditional or composed by Carpio always in Quechua. This is not 'the 'South American'' music we used to know from the 70's with Los Incas and Los Calchakis for example but the expression of a whole people with deep roots in spite of 5 centuries of white-metis domination.

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KOMA DILAN

 

KOMA DILAN/HALAY

KURDISH FOLK MUSIC  

Umut Müzik, no date

Another tape of Kurdish music from Turkey. Here we have a band (koma) very well known which has released a good deal of tapes and CDs. The electric saz player is Şirin Esmer and the zurna player is Aziz Kurtar. There are plenty of groups of this kind in Turkey with musicians and dancers appearing on videos. Koma Dilan has backed some famous singers as well. Once again several songs are put together so I made tracks whenever it was possible. Thus on side A the first track has songs from 1 to 4, track 2 songs from 5 to 9. Side B track 3 has songs 1 and 2, track 2 songs from 3 to 9. This is commercial music in a way but still nice to listen to if you like Kurdish music in its diversity

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Xeyredîn û Ekrem

 

BUHARÊ BUHARÊ

XEYREDÎN Û EKREM

SPRINGTIME SPRINGTIME

XEYREDÎN AND EKREM

Aydın Müzik Yapım, no date

A lot of tapes are still made in Kurdistan as this one which is recent enough I think by two kemanche players from Turkey. It's rare enough to listen to this kind of music (in France I mean) while what we know mostly from that part of Kurdistan are saz, zurna, kaval or balaban players in bands. I would say that this duet sings and plays local music but there is nothing on the cover to be more precise. So maybe real connoisseurs in Kurdish musical traditions would know where they come from. Any information about them is welcome. Their style of playing is very rhythmic and the 15 songs/tunes on this tape are dance music. Some tunes are composed by them like the song that gave the tape its title.  There is only one track per side as all the songs are sung together. 

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Nevesincs

 

NEVESINCS

no label, 2000

Cassettes have been for decades the quickest and the cheapest way for millions of musicians to express themselves and to get some repute. Sometimes tapes get copied by millions and circulate widely sometimes they don't. It seems to be the case with this tape made by two Hungarian revivalist musicians Miklós Demeter and Ferenc Morvai. According to the instruments they use and the type of repertoire I suppose they have connections with Moldavia and the Csángó tradition. They play mainly the shepherd flute (furulya), koboz, jew's harp, gardon etc... but don't sing. Their ''name'' means ''no name'' in Hungarian which shows a certain modesty. I couldn't get any information about them on the web. The music is straight and ''simple'' and traditional in its approach.
There are 19 tracks mentionned but only 18 on the copy I made. I can't remember whether the tape was like that or if I made a mistake when digitalizing it. Sorry about that.

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an fhidil 2

 AN FHIDIL SRAITH II

THE FIDDLE ALBUM II

Gael-Linn, 1980, CEF 069

After the first album issued in 1978 (see post of the 8th of July) this second album presents older fiddlers : Seán Keane (born in 1946), Kevin Burke( born in 1950), Paddy Glackin (born in 1954) and Séamus Creagh (1946-2009). Four different styles partly reminiscent of Clare, Sligo or Donegal traditions. As the presentation text says they are the product of the folk revival starting in the late 50's and they play the tunes they like whatever the origin of the tunes. The tunes recorded here are standards with sometimes an unusual setting like on track B4 with K. Burke's version of the Mountain Road in three parts. If  you enjoyed the first album you surely will enjoy this one.
I have an affectionate thought for S. Creagh I met in Cork several times at the Spailpin Fanach pub. I was lucky to share some tunes with him. He was a real gentleman and an excellent singer. The album he made with Jackie Daly for Gael-Linn in 1977 is for me one of the ten best Irish records ever made. It is available on CD.

As far as I know this series should have three albums but the third one  has not been released yet and probably will never be. Too bad !

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