Jimmy O'Brien-Moran, "Uilleann

Pipes: Sean Reid's Favourite Piping", Pig Productions,

PPCD001 (45 mins)

Dial a track code: 1201

The protracted nature of a piper's induction invites a corresponding caution in the matter of recording. Taking less than 15 years to get into the studio could be viewed as unseemly haste. This long run in ensures that expectations will be high. Happily Jimmy O'Brien Moran meets and exceeds anticipation with this album, the culmination of 21 years' steady development. An elective piper who first encountered the pipes through Planxty albums and Liam O'Flynn, he plotted his course to piping through Ennis, Clancy, and others, under the gentle tutelage of Sean Reid, to whom the album is dedicated.

A thoughtful selection of unaccompanied airs, jigs, hornpipes, reels and set dances locates him in a line of succession which stretches back to the 19th century and on to the 21st. Every tune, from the opening reel, The Boy on the Hilltop, to the robust version of Frahers Jig, played on the mellow B pitched Colgan pipes, is authoritative and convincing. More than a homage, the 17 tracks reveal a player whose command of technique and repertoire underlie a personal style of marked expressiveness.

On The Bunch of Keys, Ennis's impish sense of humour is evoked by a short tapped obligato on the regulator, closing the album, appropriately enough, with a musical joke.

Catherine McEvoy with Felix Dolan, "Traditional Flute Music in the Sligo Roscommon Style"

Clo-Iar Chonnachta,

CICD 117 (50 mins)

Dial-a-track code: 1311

An exemplary player in the enduring, seductive, Sligo Roscommon style, Catherine McEvoy is a flute player whose solo debut is pleasing on many levels. Like Jimmy O'Brien Moran's, her album salutes her mentors and teachers even as she carries the baton on. The opening track, a set of reels, The Duke of Leinster/The Ladies Pantalettes namechecks two legendary stylists: "Fireman" John McKenna and Michael Coleman and reinvents the wheel with a sure touch and unerring feel for the demands of the music. These are, among other things, a willingness to let the tune reveal itself gradually and with minimal elaboration

Inventive and subtle phrasing and impressive use of the breath are used to achieve this, across a repertoire running from the heart of the tradition e.g. The Heathery Breeze, to customised tunes like the reels Fr. O'Grady's visit to Bocca/ Trip to Birmingham, composed by the late, great Leitrim flute player, Josie McDermott, and two jigs by Vincent Broderick, the East Galway flute player.

The Streetplayer, a fine, fluid reel of Ed Reavy's, segues seamlessly into a McEvoy composition, the only one to be included by this most modest of players. It is to be hoped there are more where this came from.

Alan Kelly, "Out Of The Blue"

Blackbox Music,

BMM001 (45 mins)

Dial-a-track code: 1421

An impressive arsenal of contemporary weaponry is deployed on yet another debut album, this time from Alan Kelly, a piano accordionist. Fast out of the traps in every sense, Out of the Blue falls into the category of young virtuoso mode, supported by a team of like minded (male) musicians, Steve Cooney, Jim Higgins, Sean Smyth and Donogh Hennessy, to name but a few. While he can execute the "Look Ma no hands" (e.g. Reel de Pointe au Pic) with the best of them, he can also render airs like Beautiful Lake Ainslle with elegiac spareness, delicately changing into dance time and a light fingered version of The Three Sea Captains.

His own composition, The Trip to Dingle, accompanies the native born Tom Sullivans like a frisky younger cousin. His is a traditional sensibility, his mentors the piano less accordionists; echoes of the Mairtin O Connor and Seamus Begley style are discernible. This album brings his instrument into the heart of the music. No mean feat.