Mighty, mighty, mighty box playing...

Azalin · Post by **Azalin** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 1:38 pm

Heya folks,

Well, I've been making box jokes for the past few years, but I'm being kind of an hypocrite (darn word I never know how to spell). The fact is, one of my favorite musician is a box player, and I could listen to him for hours. He is a very subtle player, and does not play the box like many box players do. With him, it's not about volume and "special effects" (although he can push the special effects a little bit sometimes) but it's all about subtelty and box phrasing, he seems to bring so much life out of his tunes. I can't be totally objective with this because he plays Clare style, I'd say, and it's my favorite style. Nonetheless, you really can do amazing stuff with the box... Here's a clip of him, and the second tune has been composed by himself. A big kiss from me to whoever can guess who he is. (No Steve you can't play this game, especially since I see you often and would have to give you a real kiss!).

http://www.metayer.info/mp3/R09_0039.MP3

PS: I'm not saying there's no other box players like him, but from the few ones I've heard before, he's the one who "fits my taste" the most.

Azalin · Post by **Azalin** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 2:19 pm

Well, here's a clue... He would be about half his age. (If that's Andrew on the picture?)

PS: Peter just cheated and removed a post of his... Hehehe.... Caught him pants down!

Bretton · Post by **Bretton** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 6:51 pm

Sounded good! Not sure who it was...nice playing and a nice sounding box too.

-Brett

ceemonster · Post by **ceemonster** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 1:32 am

hmmmm. this is a touch akin to andrew macnamara, but this player rolls while andrew does that little "push" triplet-y sound we've been sighing over on the concertina.net site in a discussion about mary mac's triplets.. i might guess christy mcnamara, who has a clare sound i believe you would also really love, but christy plays a b/c with a more "flowing," paddy carty-ish rhythm. without being extreme about it a la joe derrane, this player sounds a little more in the punchy c#/d vein, a la andrew, tony macmahon, or cooley. it isn't conor keane, who is more staccato, but also a lovely old-style clare sound. the healy brother who plays clare box is tuned dry, so it isn't him, but his style is lovely. claire griffin, who is married to timmy collins and like him plays in the kilfenora, has a beautiful clean clare-ish style, but again, more "flowing," than punchy....oh, wait a minute. i think i know who this is. i heard him in the catskills last summer and thought to myself that his tremolo setting was perfection itself---he is a younger player who taught in the catskills classes. i didn't do box classes, only concertina with gearoid & fr. charles coen. but i was in raptures watching this guy in the listening sessions. i am gonna guess damien connelly.....am i close?

but azalin----i know exactly what you mean about box styles, and being much of your taste and a player myself, i have to say, welcome to the party, however late your epiphany. news flash: there are quite a few irish box players with the kind of lovely style you would probably really like.

this person, whoever it is, is my personal favorite style, and here is the key:

a) a box tuning set to middle reeds, with no low reed in the mix.
b) a hint of tremolo to make it "sing," but not so much you get a distorted, shrill sound. about "ten cents."
c) the biggie: very clean ornamentation pattern. best is very low ornament-to-melody ratio, if any at all. this individual is playing rolls, but very unobtrusively, thank god.

if you like this, i highly recommend:

the younger paddy o'brien with a pulse, based in minneapolis, of the band Chulrua.....gorgeous solo cd titled "snug in the blanket."

johnny mccarthy of ennis. his album is called "solo run." it's full of haunting old bobby casey and east clare tunes played at old-style relaxed clare speed. one of the most beautiful and too-little-known irish box recordings ever.

for clare-style playing that is middle-reeds but dry rather than tremolo, but very much in the vein you may like:

john canny of east clare. he has a cd called "suantrai," with a fiddle & a guitar. his box is tuned dry, but that is some lovely, flowing clare box playing.

mary rafferty: ornaments and flows swing-wise like a ballinakil flute player. tuned dry, but lovely.

josephine marsh: same as above.

ceemonster · Post by **ceemonster** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 1:32 am

sorry...my post went on in triple duplicate and i seem able to "edit" it but not erase.

ceemonster · Post by **ceemonster** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 1:33 am

good-bye to the third of my long triple duplicate posts. sorry!

oh---i see i listed mary rafferty above with "clare" players. her style is actually east galway/ballinakil, which is not clare, though it is in the slieve aughty region and shares common ground with the east clare style......

lixnaw · Post by **lixnaw** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 5:27 am

That sounded like a Hohner alright, but it's hard to guess who's playing.
My favourite player is Dave"the Bullet from Belmullet"Munnelly, he's only around 25 years of age.
It's rather fustrating to try and copy his style though...
http://www.davidmunnelly.com/music2.htm

Azalin · Post by **Azalin** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 5:30 pm

Thanks cee for the info, I'll definitely give the names you mentionned a try in the future. Ahhh sorry lixnam but I listened to the first clip of this guy and my stress level went up 500%. It's the track where he's playing the Cocoo's Nest as a reel. Really not my type, sounds a lot like quebecois box playing if you ask me. I'm sure he's very good, just not my type.

lixnaw · Post by **lixnaw** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 5:46 pm

Azalin wrote:Thanks cee for the info, I'll definitely give the names you mentionned a try in the future. Ahhh sorry lixnam but I listened to the first clip of this guy and my stress level went up 500%. It's the track where he's playing the Cocoo's Nest as a reel. Really not my type, sounds a lot like quebecois box playing if you ask me. I'm sure he's very good, just not my type.

Try some vazalin in your ears then, you won't get too much of a headache from listening

StevieJ · Post by **StevieJ** » Sun Feb 04, 2007 7:07 pm

As you know Az, I accept kisses on the knee. But only from world-famous musicians. And you won't get back into my good books so easily anyway.

I have no idea who the player is except that it's nobody I've heard. Yes very nice playing.

I wouldn't have thought it was a Hohner. I'd guess a Cairdin judging by the gutless sound of the basses (no low bass).

ceemonster · Post by **ceemonster** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 1:49 am

well, i'm still guessing damien connolly. and regardless, i'm going to buy his cd, pronto.

here's another rec: charlie piggott, onetime founding member of de dannan. at that time, chiefly a banjo whiz. returned to box after being unable to play banjo after a hand injury. charlie, who is from cork but lives in the galway/kinvara area and is a specialist in the history of joe cooley and the great south/east galway composers such as fahy, kelly, and o'brien, plays an extremely soulful, sparsely-ornamented box. he wrote the liner notes to last year's irreplaceable fiddle cd of lovely, slow east galway playing by claire's sister breda keville, and has done two super-beautiful cds that are faves with the clare & galway crowd that is into more unhurried "pure drop" type stuff:

"the lonely stranded band": 90s cd with charlie on box, plus west clare concertina player miriam collins, who is in the mary mac, dympna sullivan, claire keville vein, plus guitar. i think this may be getting scarce, but it is really special. i learned the whole thing by ear last year....

"the new road": charlie on box plus gerry harrington on fiddle. some kerry stuff and some clare-ish/galway-ish stuff. there is a solo cut of charlie on there playing the set dance "sean o'dhuir an gleanna" that will melt your heart....

az, i am with you on dave munnelly. very impressive chops, but so not my thing....i listened to some while googling the names i didn't know on the east durham box teacher page to figure out which one it was i heard last summer and was gonna guess as yer man.....

Martin Milner · Post by **Martin Milner** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 6:24 am

ceemonster wrote:good-bye to the third of my long triple duplicate posts. sorry!

oh---i see i listed mary rafferty above with "clare" players. her style is actually east galway/ballinakil, which is not clare, though it is in the slieve aughty region and shares common ground with the east clare style......

Hi Ceemonster,

you can only delete a duplicate post if there's no post following it, yours or someone else's. Thus you could have deleted your THIRD post, then gone back and deleted the second. But no harm done, we don't suspect you're trying to boost your post count.

StevieJ · Post by **StevieJ** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 8:10 am

Charlie Piggott is a wonderfully subtle player, I love listening to him. A couple of us around here are playing his Sean O Duibhir (great tune) a lot these days, which Az would realize if he stopped boycotting any session that I am likely to go to

You might be right about Damien Connolly, ceemonster - the thing that makes me wonder is that the clip Az posted sounds like a 2-voice box to my ear, and AFAIK Damien plays his dad's boxes which are all 3-voice with no couplers or stops.

Let us know what the CD is like won't you.

Azalin · Post by **Azalin** » Tue Feb 06, 2007 7:57 pm

StevieJ wrote:Charlie Piggott is a wonderfully subtle player, I love listening to him. A couple of us around here are playing his Sean O Duibhir (great tune) a lot these days, which Az would realize if he stopped boycotting any session that I am likely to go to

Hey wait a minute.... You are boycotting sessions I'm likely to go! Hehe...

well, i'm still guessing damien connolly. and regardless, i'm going to buy his cd, pronto.

Cee, you are the winner, that's him! He's the King! He's a good guy, really, he's got a super beautiful girlfriend... and he plays the box amazingly! I will buy his CD for sure next time I'm in Catskills...

Sylvester · Post by **Sylvester** » Wed Feb 07, 2007 2:46 am

Is he playing a C#/D or a B/C?

Lovely playing. Thanks all for the post, links and info.