Original notes
It is a great pleasure to welcome this album of traditional Irish music recorded shortly before the passing of the great flute player from Loughrea, Paddy Carty.
The authenticity of the East Galway style displayed in Paddy's flute playing is further enhanced by the music of Conor Tully on fiddle. Conor on solo fiddle and in duet with Paddy produces an easy, relaxed and flowing music characteristic of the local area. The sensitive accompaniment of Frank Hogan on mandola complete the blend and the result is indeed a pleasure to the ear.
Paddy Carty is one of the very few players who can handle keys such as D minor and G minor on the flute with apparent ease. Such keys are used constantly by local composers such as Paddy Fahy and are part and parcel of the local style, Carty had the wisdom to stay with the wooden flute, but to use one which allowed him to adopt the semi-Boehm system thus overcoming some inherent problems of the simple system in those keys.
The rich and imaginative approach employed by the trio can be seen more easily in some of the simpler tunes. A good example is the first of the two jigs entitled "Carty's Jigs". The
standard version of this fine jig comes from an early recording by the Lough Gill Quartet, repeated more recently on an album issued by the Castle Ceili Band. The version played by Paddy,
Conor and Frank transforms the tune, giving it a totally new perspective and pushing aside the somewhat narrow structures of its previous setting.
The exposure of the individual style of Conor Tully to a wider audience is to be welcomed. His music passed to him by his father Martin, himself a fine musician of the area,
has a freshness and sincerity which can only come froma community proud of its tradition and culture. This album is bound to become a collectors item within a very short space of time.
Obtain a copy now before it reaches that status. The music is for everybody. Charlie Lennon
A special thanks to Joe Burke and Anne Burke for their help and advice in the making of this CD and a sincere thanks also to Finbar Dwyer for his help in the original mixing of this album.
Previously released on cassette in 1989 by GTD Ltd.
Audio
Red Tom of the Hills:
Dowd's:
Galway Bay:
Molly Bawn:
Track Listing
- Reels: Molly Bawn / Ryan's Rant 2.33
- Jigs: Port an Bhrathar/Bryan O'Lynn 2.04
- Reels: Red Tom of the Hills/Tommy Coen's 2.25
- Reels: The Bunch of Keys (Solo) 1.54
- Reels: Come West Along the Road /Four Hand Reel 1.47 5.
- Reels: Bobby Casey's /Broken Pledge (Solo) 2.32
- Jigs: Carty's Favourites 2.03
- Reels: Dowd's /In Memory of Coleman 2.10
- Jigs: Hide and Go Seek/Eddie Kelly's 1.59
- Hornpipe: Galway Bay (Solo) 2.03
- Reels: Brian Quinn's/New Policeman 2.26
- Reels: Paddy Fahy's/Whistler of Rosslea 2.29
- Reels: The Man of the House/The Maid I Ne'er Forgot 2.06
- Jigs: Gan Ainm/Gallagher's 1.59
All tracks traditional except Tracks 3. Red Tom of the Hills (Ed Reevy) Tommy Coen's
Track 6. Bobby Casey's. Track 8. In memory of Coleman (Reevy) Track 9. Eddie Kelly's
Track 11. Brian Quinn's.(Reevy.) Track 12. Paddy Fahy's/Whistler of Rosslea (Reevy).
All arrangements by Paddy Carty, Conor Tully & Frank Hogan.
The Irish Echo
Best archival releases of 2009
'Traditional Music of Ireland'
Paddy Carty and Conor Tully:
CD remaster of 1989 cassette by the flutist and fiddler,
two of East Galway's best.
I was delighted to learn that the music of Paddy Carty and Conor Tully is now available on CD. The flute and fiddle duet, with beautiful and sensitive support from Frank Hogan on mandola was recorded in 1985 shortly before Paddy was called to his eternal reward. Thanks to the efforts of Conor, Frank and their co-workers the original cassette recording issued in 1989 has now been remastered with much improvement in sound quality.The music fraternity should be very grateful to them for allowing us to hear and appreciate
the richness of the tradition and to give us the opportunity to introduce these fine musicians to the new generation of musicians who have grown up in the intervening years. I had the pleasure of writing the sleeve notes for the original publication and these are as relevant today as they were then. For that reason I have left them unchanged as presented below. I am sure the music on this CD will give many hours of pleasure to those who give it good listening time. Charlie Lennon July 2008
Press Reviews
The Irish Echo"TRADITIONAL MUSIC OF IRELAND" by Paddy Carty and Conor Tully: Kilnadeema, East Galway, button accordion living legend Joe Burke sent me this CD, remastered from a cassette recorded in 1985 and issued in 1989 by three fellow East Galway musicians: flutist Paddy Carty (1929-85), fiddler Conor Tully, and mandola player Frank Hogan. The "Carty Flow" on flute is nothing less than spellbinding. My thanks to Joe Burke for ensuring I'd get to hear and savor it again.
A record-company executive once told me that a talented Irish traditional musician was 'well documented,' meaning amply recorded, and so there was no urgency to record that musician again. I disagreed, stating then and now that the notion of limit or satiety in recordings is patently silly for any gifted musician. Would anyone suggest that a recording cap should have been placed on Sligo fiddler Michael Coleman (1891-1945)?
Can there be too many button accordion albums by Joe Burke? Should singer Karan Casey call it a day now that she has five solo CDs to her credit? The folly of such arbitrary cutoffs is obvious.
The real dilemma is not too many but too few recordings by gifted musicians, and East Galway flutist Paddy Carty (1929-85) falls into that latter category.
Only two albums prominently spotlight his flute playing: 'Traditional Irish Music (Shanachie), recorded with banjoist Mick O'Connor and released in 1975 (reissued on CD in 1997), and 'Traditional Music of Ireland' (Trad Ireland), a CD issued this year of a cassette released in 1989 on GTD Ltd. It was actually recorded in 1985, not long before Carty's death, and on it he plays with fellow East Galway musicians Conor Tully on fiddle and Frank Hogan on mandola.
Born in Rafford, Loughrea, Paddy Carty was a former member of the Aughrim Slopes and Leitrim ceili bands and one of the most influential exponents of East Galway music. His flute playing was steady, clear, lyrical, expressive, unhurried, unboisterous, sparsely ornamented, and fluid. The emphasis was on melodicism, not technical flourish, and the effect was an ease deceptively easy to the ears. Part of this effect stemmed from a dulcet shimmer to the playing, and that, in turn, came from exceptional breath control and intonation on a wooden, Radcliffe-system flute providing him with more freedom in tackling difficult keys. Only 31 minutes long, 'Traditional Music of Ireland' is nevertheless long in the impression it creates.
When I first heard Carty's flute playing three decades ago, I was immediately captivated by its buoyancy and grace, and this newly issued CD brings me right back to that initial moment
of wonderment. A former playing partner of East Galway fiddler-composer Paddy Fahy, all of whose tunes are called 'Paddy Fahy's' to ensure perpetually correct attribution, Carty chose one of his friend's reels to pair with Ed Reavy's 'The Whistler of Rosslea' reel for one of three solo tracks by him on the CD. Backed ably by Hogan on mandola
Carty displays his famous flow in all its glory, taking breaths in spots that minimize any sense of pausing while allowing the melody to shine. The same qualities emerge from Carty's other two solos, 'The Bunch of Keys' and the hornpipe 'Galway Bay.' Both stand out by not striving to. It is the mark of a master to let music dictate treatment, not vice versa.
Nine of the album's 14 tracks consist of reels, yet a delicate, assured application of invention prevents any slippage into sameness. 'Molly Bawn/Ryan's Rant,' 'Red Tom of the Hills/Tommy Coen's,' 'Come West Along the Road/Four-Hand Reel,' and 'Dowd's/In Memory of Coleman' are staple reels stamped with a fresh, unflorid flair by Carty and Tully.
Apart from a fine fiddle solo by Tully on 'Bobby Casey's/Broken Pledge' reels, the rest of the CD consists of jigs, including 'Carty's Favourites,' which is self-explanatory after the first delectable listening.
East Galway's proud heritage of flute playing has been forged in the music of Mike Rafferty, Jack and Charlie Coen, Eddie Moloney, Stephen Moloney, Kevin Moloney, Tommy Whelan, Jack Coughlin, and Vincent Broderick, among others. But arguably it was Paddy Carty, winner of three All-Ireland senior flute championships (1960, 1961, and 1963), who significantly shaped
the playing of the instrument in Irish traditional music. As this most welcome, remastered, CD reissue proves, 'the Carty Flow' was unstinting and remains unstoppable. Earle Hitchner
