What the Critics are saying!
IrishMusicReview.com
"...A superb CD, definitely one of the best of the year!"
Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin & Patrick Ourceau - Tracin’
"A superb CD, definitely one of the best of the year, by Clare concertina player Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin and French-born fiddler Patrick Ourceau, whose command of the East Clare idiom is simply stunning. First off, the combination of concertina and fiddle is one of the best in the business--for proof, if needed, I refer you to the all-time classic Noel Hill and Tony Linnane duet record. Gearóid and Patrick play incredibly tightly, and with great soul, in that seemingly nonchalant, unhurried, bluesy way which one associates with the music of East Clare and East Galway--yet without the posturing of certain other fiddler from that area. Their repertoire pays tribute to all the great players of the area, Canny, Hayes, Fahy, Cooley, Kelly, etc. Gearóid and Patrick have surrounded themselves with stellar accompanists as well, Felix Dolan, his son Brendan, and Barbara MacDonald Magone on piano, and Eamon O'Leary on guitar. In fact, the CD is so satisfying on so many levels, from the great music to the exquisite artwork, the record notes which are as captivating as a summer novel, the wonderful old photographs of those who came before and who are the subject of much of the 'tracin',' musical and otherwise."
IRISH AMERICA (August/September 1999)
"…masters in their own right"
" … a collection of captivating duets. The duo learned their repertoire of reels, jigs, barn dances, marches and hornpipes directly from the older generation of concertina and fiddle players of Clare and Galway. Now masters in their own right, they lovingly reproduce intricate modal melodies in the same old-style and unhurried tempo as their musical masters."
IRISH MUSIC MAGAZINE (July 1999) by Philippe Varlet
"…an album so satisfying to the senses"
"It takes a truly special album to stand from the pack nowadays. Gearóid O hAllmhuráin and Patrick Ourceau's TRACIN' is such a recording. In fact, I cannot remember coming across in recent years an album so satisfying to the senses, from the brilliant instrumental performance to the inspiring liner notes and engaging artwork.
Although the two musicians clearly deserve to be better known, theirs are not yet household names. Indeed the two performers' respect for and genuine interest in the people and their stories permeate every note of their wonderful performances, every word written for the liner notes. Listening to the subtleties of melodic setting, of modal shading, to the thrilling blend of concertina and fiddle, to the miraculously tight duet playing, I felt taken into the musicians' confidence, as if they were "tracing" for me. One could hardly imagine a better tribute to ….Paddy Kelly, Joe Mills, Paddy Fahy, Sean Reid, Paddy Canny, PJ Hayes, Joe Cooley, Aggie Whyte - whose music lives on here."
IRISH VOICE (New York) February 1999, "Tracing the Oral Tradition of Irish Music" by Don Meade
"Listeners new to Irish traditional music are often amazed to discover that many players don't seem to know the names of the tunes they play or even whether a particular piece of music was composed last month or 200 years ago. It is not all as haphazard as it seems, however, and there are musicians who really do care about the names, settings and history of the tunes.
Clare concertina player Gearóid O hAllmhuráin and New York fiddler Patrick Ourceau are two such players. Tracin', their just-released recording, takes its name from what O hAllmhuráin calls 'a natural talent borne by most Irish people.' Irish conversation, according to O hAllmhuráin's liner notes, 'is as much an art of remembering as a means of communication.' Such tracing, he writes, 'can unravel a mosaic of family genealogies, as well as recall a throng of forgotten exiles, political conspiracies, local poets and sporting heroes.' It can also root out the real history of traditional musicians and the tunes they play.
What O hAllmhuráin and Ourceau are tracing on their superb duet disc is music played and sometimes composed by older master musicians of Clare and east Galway. Among the Clare players whose tunes are borrowed for this recording are fiddle legends Paddy Canny and Bobby Casey, uilleann piper Willie Clancy and O hAllmhuráin's concertina mentor, Paddy Murphy. From the east Galway side, they draw on the repertoire of fiddlers Lucy Farr, Paddy Kelly and Paddy Fahy; flute players Jack Coen, Eddie Moloney, Stephen Moloney, Tommy Whelan and Jack Coughlan; and button accordionist Joe Burke.
All these musicians are enshrined in the pantheon of Irish traditional music heroes, and most younger musicians at least know their names. Not all, however, are interested in keeping alive their old-time tunes and styles. Even in traditionalist strongholds like Clare and east Galway, the usually illusory lure of commercial success has tempted many of today's best young players to "modernize" their music by playing at breakneck tempos, performing with bass and drums and generally acting like rock-and-rollers.
It's not possible, or even desirable, for Irish traditional music to stand still. But without some degree of respect for and continuity with the style of the old masters, Irish music could all too easily escape from its roots in the way that commercialized American country music has lost touch with its own down-home folks heritage. Gearóid O hAllmhuráin and Patrick Ourceau know this, and their duets on Tracin' are a salutary reminder of the timeless charms of genuine, old-time traditional music. They are not mere slavish imitators, and occasionally branch out to include newly composed Irish tunes or pieces from Quebec and Cape Breton Island. Whatever O hAllmhuráin and Ourceau play, however, they honor their musical forebears by sticking with the relaxed tempos and lower-pitched tuning preferred by many older musicians, and by preserving unchanged the original settings of classic tunes.
O hAllmhuráin, originally from Ennis, County Clare, is a professor at the University of San Francisco. Ourceau, born in Paris, France, now lives in New York City, where he performs and teaches music. Despite this physical separation, they perform frequently in places as far afield as Alaska and France. They have been playing together, in fact, since 1985, when O hAllmhuráin was studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. These years of musical partnership allow them to play in tandem with almost telepathic sensitivity, producing duets in which fiddle and concertina blend into one seamless stream of sound.
Tracin' includes tasteful and harmonious backing from accompanists who include New Yorker Brendan Dolan and Cape Breton Islander Barbara Magone on the piano, San Francisco harpist Margaret Davis and Dublin-born New York guitarist Eamon O'Leary. New York flute player Linda Hickman also contributes to a couple of lovely trio selections. There are also tracks, notably the jig selection Jack Coughlan's/Lady Gordon's and the reels The Maids of Mitchelstown/The Bunch of Keys, on which O hAllmhuráin and Ourceau are gloriously unaccompanied."
“The Irish tradition is safe, alive, & healthy in the hands of Ó hAllmhuráin & Ourceau”
by Roger Digby, The Free-Reed Journal, Center for the Study of Free-Reed Instruments, The City University of New York
The Anglo concertina has a prominent place in traditional Irish music It is an excellent solo instrument, with plenty of volume and the capacity to provide its own accompaniment. It is also good in instrumental groups, where it can always hold its own. As for its partnership with other instruments of traditional Irish music, it blends surprisingly well with the fiddle.
Though the growth and development that shaped traditional music is unstoppable, recent years have seen some forced changes. A similar process invented the bands of the so-called “Celtic Twilight”: classically-trained musicians with orchestral technique and formal arrangements. But these bands also stood a long way from the music from which they took their tunes. Fortunately, traditional music has its own way of surviving and growing, untouched by these intrusions.
My brief is to review recordings of the concertina in traditional music, and I am therefore leaving aside CDs sent to me by the editor on the grounds that they do not qualify as such. For while their material is traditional in origin, the performances and approaches are those of the concert stage. They represent the worst excesses of a Folk Revival, which admits performances that—and performers who—trample over the music they profess to admire.
The exception among the recordings sent to me is Tracin' from Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin and Patrick Ourceau. If the slow air “Cearbhall ban mo chroi” and the piano part of “Valse à Donald” lean rather precariously towards the self-conscious arrangements against which I railed in the previous paragraph, the remainder of the recording is “traditional”—and excellent—in all respects: a true sense of the tradition, a scholarly awareness of style, and a respectful acknowledgment of sources all make for a powerful combination. All the tunes are beautifully paced, with nothing breakneck or frantic; the rhythm is sure and steady, and allows all the many intricacies of the melodies to develop and shine.
The opening set of reels from Paddy Murphy sets the style: unhurried, controlled, and totally without ostentation; these are followed by a set of jigs that reinforces the style and leaves no doubt that the music is in safe hands. Track after track maintains this standard in terms of the playing, style, and overall approach to the music.
I was particularly delighted to hear tunes from Lucy Farr and Bobby Casey, both of whom I heard often in North London. Lucy is a wonderful fiddle player (and singer), with a sweet, delicate tone that reflects her nature, and she is the source for both an untitled barn-dance tune (it reminds me of the children's song “Penny on the Water”) and “The Slaibh Aughty March.” Bobby Casey was forthright and uncompromising, and from him comes the reel “Miss Macdonald”; he is also acknowledged as an influence on “The Green Fields of America.” (His son Sean, by the way, now carries on the tradition on fiddle and banjo.)
Tracin' comes with a set of notes that contains extensive documentation and further underscores the performers' musical philosophy. Sources are conscientiously “traced,” acknowledged, and cross-referenced against such more wide-spread collections as O'Neill's. The scholarship is impeccable, assured, and straightforward, just like the music.
What both of these CDs share is an awareness of the origins of the music and a determination to put that music first. The musicians are the conduits for the music, presenting it to the best of their abilities within the broad confines of the traditional parameters that they understand and respect. They are not musicians who have chosen “folk music” as the vehicle on which to impose their own musical egos. Perhaps somewhere in there lies another approach to the definition of just what is traditional music in the contemporary setting.
