Mick O'Brien: "May Morning Dew" ACM Records, ACM CD 101 (49 mins)
Dial-a-track code: 1421
This is piper Mick O'Brien's first solo album, although he has featured in the past on many compilations and group recordings. It is an assured and confident debut, not surprising when one considers the lifetime of playing that has gone into the making of this piper. May Morning Dew reveals a piper located right at the heart of traditional piping. He is technically accomplished to the standard of a master piper, and in his playing can be discerned the restraint of the great players. His concert pitch set, made in the 1920s by Willie Rowsome and given to O'Brien by Dan Dowd, sounds noble in his hands - memorably so on the opening solo set of jigs, tight crisp articulation and finely-judged regulator work - while the title track displays both control and depth of expression, the secret of great air playing, in this case topped off by the reel Sporting Nell. His flat set, not yet 10 years old, mellow and expansive-sounding, features on six tracks, the solo set Higgins/The Cuckoo's Nest a showpiece of exemplary technique, and with whistle and fiddle on three splendid reels in Clare style. The set of reels The Cameronian/Green Fields Of Rossbeigh/Connaught Heifers, where he is joined by guitar, mandocello and fiddle, closes in fluent - contemporary mode.
Joe Burke: "The Bucks Of Oranmore" Green Linnet, GLCD 1165 (56 mins) Dial-a-track code: 1531
A living legend in traditional music, the box player Joe Burke from East Galway has been an object of adulation for thousands and a role model for many musicians, both box players and others. As a young man in the 1950s, his impact on the traditional music scene was Elvis-like: nothing was the same after him. There are many testimonials to this fact and if change, virtuosity, and novelty come almost to order today, in the 1950s musicians like Joe Burke were few and far between.
He is one of a rare breed whose individuality as a player is developed to a remarkable degree. This is the case today as much as it was in the 1950s, as can be heard on this album. The hallmarks of the Burke style - technical supremacy, complexity in variation and phrasing, difficulty, energetic, dynamic playing, a huge, wide-ranging musicality - are all in evidence. Every track stands out, but his rendering of Master Crowley/The Jig Of Punch and The Bucks, with its blizzard of triplet runs, is one of the glories of the album.
Gerry Harrington/Eoghan O'Sullivan Paul De Grae: "The Smoky Chimney" Faetain, Spin CD 1001 (49 mins)
Dial-a-track code: 1641
Where traditional music is concerned ancient rivalries between counties Kerry and Cork are suspended within the cordon sanitaire provided by Sliabh Luachra. These three musicians, fiddler Gerry Harrington (Kerry), box player Eoghan O'Sullivan (Cork) and guitarist Dubliner Paul De Grae are musically domiciled in that region and this album is their successful, personal take on the eponymous style. Another happy coincidental influence on all three was the playing of box player Jackie Daly from Newmarket.
The Smoky Chimney, while it pays homage, does more than replicate a style and a repertoire; it enhances it and adds to its store. This it does in many ways primarily through the grace and delicacy of the playing and the striking originality of its arrangements. Tremulous rainstick and bells announce a set of reels on track two, slide guitar punctuates a tight, punchy set of reels played by O'Sullivan, - while the air An Clar Bog Dell has box accompanied by fiddle drone and overlain with birdsong. In addition there are splendid new compositions like Gerry Harrington's set of jigs Out Of The Mist/The Furze In Bloom/The Bells Of Lismore, or Eoghan O'Sullivan's set of reels. Box and fiddle make good partners, and Harrington and O'Sullivan are well matched - to the point where one collective musical intelligence seems to be directing operations. DeGrae's fluent versatility across a wide range of rhythmic variations extends the possibilities even further.
