Cormac Breatnach:
The Chiff & Fipple Interview
The Chiff & Fipple Interview
Cormac
has been playing whistles and the timber flute for over 20 years now. He was
born in Dublin 35 years ago and was brought up in an Irish and Spanish speaking
household. He now concentrates on playing plastic and low (aluminum)
whistles. Described as The Fresh Prince of Jazzy Jigs (The Irish Voice, October 94) Cormac was
described as …. “not the first musician
to add modern rhythms and jazz-style improvisations to Irish traditional music
but he has taken the concept further than anybody else.”
Drawing on his native Irish and
Spanish speaking background, Cormac recorded his album last year with producer
Garvan Gallagher (formerly of the Mary Black Band) in which he sings for the
first time two songs, one in Irish and one in Spanish. Featuring 11 tracks with
20 contributors, combining traditional with modern jazz inflections, he has
recorded some of his new compositions with others from Donal Lunny and Niall Ó Callanáin.
This new album “Musical Journey”, totally self-financed is the first to be
released on Mandala Records by Cormac.
Cormac now lives outside
Larragh, Co. Wicklow beside the picturesque and ancient Glendalough. Cormac
lives there with his wife, Adele King, whose colourful and vibrant artwork
comprises the cover on Cormac's album(see below.....for those whistle players
out there, she is available to do more !)". He is now rehearsing and
recording with Cork guitarist Martin Dunlea (teaches guitar in Ronan
Guilfoyle’s School of Music, Newpark, Co. Dublin). They are interpreting some of the album melodies and introducing
new compositions, also form Martin himself.
They hope to introduce singing also to their repertoire.
Dale Wisely for Chiff &
Fipple:
Tell us about your very first
encounter with a whistle.
Cormac
Breatnach: I must have been about 4 or 5 years old. My father played a bit on the whistle, the
harmonica and the concertina. A friend
of his, called Piaras Ó Gréagáin taught whistle to local kids and I was
encouraged to start classes with him.
An amazing man, because he played so many instruments, including the
bagpipes, and he taught for free. May
he rest in peace…you can probably hear him on the bagpipes on a clear day!
When did you play the flute?
I'd
always recommend starting on the whistle, for any instrument; I think it's a
great starter. In 1979 when I heard the
infamous "Bothy Band" perform live on TV while I was doing my
homework on the floor in the sitting-room, I heard Matt Molloy's playing and it
blew me away so I got a loan of IR£125.00 from my mom and bought 
the flute, a "Thurgood"1860 with a few keys, a
large bore and a sweet sound.
Regretfully, through my many phases of frustration, I sold it a few
years back, one of the biggest regrets I ever made as I would have liked to
have kept it. Although I bought many
flutes I never really got into them as much as the Thurgood…. first love, I
guess…
When you were growing up, just
how commonly would one encounter tin-whistles?
Quite
enough. Even at school, there were
times during the day we were ALL encouraged to play. Niall Ó Callanáin, (bouzouki player) with whom I played for the
last 20 years, started off on the recorded and I remember him being paraded
into class and we all had to listen to him…for selfish reasons, I have to
admit, I encouraged him to play the guitar and bouzouki, even getting my Dutch
sister-in-law's cousin to bring over a 6-string "Greek" bouzouki
which my brother in Holland checked out.
What kind of musical education
existed in school for you?
Well,
apart from an encouragement in primary school fortified by time off from
classes in secondary (high school?) to rehearse for school competitions,
including whistle classes, there were no exam structures or possibilities to go
to third-level education fro trad. music at the time; now, I am glad to note
that there are courses in Limerick at the World Centre for World Music and
elsewhere. I do, however, consider myself
lucky to have been facilitated with such time off from classes..it made school
enjoyable for me!
Now, in all sincerity, I must
say that if one encounters someone named Cormac Juan, one gets the feeling he
has encountered someone with an interesting background. Tell us about your family.
Yes, I
was brought-up in a tri-lingual semi-musical background. My mother is actually Basque-born in
Algorta, in the Basque country (her maiden name is Menchaca-Diliz) but she was
brought-up in Madrid and Germany. She
was 12 when the Spanish Civil War broke out and when the Second World War broke
out, she had to flee to Germany (her father was German, his surname,
Hellmann). My father met her in Madrid
when he went there as a journalist to interview General Franco. They lived in Tangiers, North Africa and
then came back to Ireland, so I suppose, they were aware of the fact that we
would all learn English and they were protective of their own cultural
backgrounds. My father, however, did
not come from an Irish-speaking background - he taught himself Irish at 12 and
changed his surname from "Walsh" to "Breatnach".
I could
go on, but to conclude this question, the Walshes have gone all over the world,
changing their names to "Vallois”, (Frances, Austria) and
"Wallis" (in England). My
relations ended-up in a place called, "Point-Coupée" near the
Mississippi River where they shipped cotton to Liverpool, England, and I am
embarrassed to admit, owned slaves.
Their cousins, the Cottens, still survive to this day there, I believe.
You were involved with Donal Lunny’s
Celtic Orchestra in 1985. You were a
mere boy! I wonder what that was like
for you.
A
boy? I was 22, my dear…I was young
enough, I suppose, but when you consider Mr. Lunny himself was probably that
age in the Bothy Band…It is a pity that listeners have not heard recordings of
the C.O. and that it did not continue as it had potential. There were problems in that there were over
33 musicians but only half of which managed to turn-up for rehearsals. I loved every minute of it, as I got
friendly with and close to one of my musical heroes. I suppose Donal's idea was realized when he put his much smaller
band together for the Ó Riada Retrospective in April, 1987, a three-day musical
event in Dublin which was televised live and recorded for a series of
albums. I was lucky to have been the
flute player in that short-lived band.
I ask only half in jest: What is Elvis Costello really like? And what IS so funny about peace, love and
understanding?
I can't
answer that other than to say that he was a gentleman to work with for the 3
days we rehearsed together before we recorded a TV show (together with Donal’s
Band). I really enjoyed playing on his
songs with Sean Óg Potts, Nollaig Casey and Arty McGlynn. On the same programme, Matt Molloy appeared
and that really got me going. I'll
always remember a lovely gesture he made when he finished playing his spot, he
stretched-out his hand to shake mine in font of the audience. That really made me feel welcomed to the
tradition!
Now, you played in Deiseal (pronounced as in special) and that
band is now no more....why is that and were you happy with the direction it was
taking ? There is a marked difference between your first album "The
Long Long Note" and the last, "Sunshine Dance"?
Deiseal grew out of a duo idea I and Niall had about concentrating on the
sound of the Overton F and other whistles, that was in 1992, then Paul
O'Driscoll came on the scene, he was then living in Dublin; he originally
only played on the last track but as we liked the sound we decided to invite
him to joing the band - Deiseal is an old Irish word (I'm told you'll find
it in James Joyce's Ulysses) which means "sunwise, or following in the
direction of the Sun.."; we liked to think we
were "progressive" and "doing
the right thing" playing trad. music but with other musical influences, so
"The Long Long Note" was released in 1993; getting itchy feet and
wanting to
move-on I suppose is part of the creative process, thus, Deiseal mark 2 -
we met jazz saxophonist Richie Buckley over in Germany at a musical festival
in 1994 and renewed contact with him when we returned to Ireland; my wife,
Adele, recommended jazz drummer Conor Guilfoyle (she was taught drumming by
him) and to complete the picture we asked jazz singer Mirabelle De Nuit from
Lyons, France, to join us on the album; our only gig together was for a
benefit and when Mirabelle returned to France the rest of us completed the
album and toured England and Wales in May, 1996; after the sudden death of
our benefactor in Starc Records while on tour we decided to split-up...there
were musical and personality differences to contend with (aren't there
always ?)....and I got married in August (Deiseal's last gig together) and I
then planned my own "solo" album. What I would have liked to have
achieved
in the "new" Deiseal would have been a more organic cross between my
style
and Richie's style to the stage where we would have both been composing
"new" melodies together; I'm still proud of the two different sounds
from
album no.1 to album no. 2 - it would be wrong to compare them but I think
there are more special moments for me in the first album...
Let’s move on to your wonderful
CD. You play a Susato C, an Overton Low
F, and a Low D by Cillian Ó Briain.
First, what is the appeal of the Susato to you? And have you played the
new Susato Low whistles?
I don't
have the opportunity of playing or knowing about many whistles and in fact,
before this interview is out, I'd really appreciate it if you could give me a
list of the names of such instrument makers, their addresses, etc., with whom I
could make contact to discover new delights!
The Susato high whistles are powerful and very sweet. Compared to the tine-whistle, one is better
armed in a session particularly with box players, pipes, etc., to hear oneself
with a Susato. I am still trying out
the low-Susatos but I think I prefer the high ones, especially the Bb and the C. The
sound reminds me of a cross between a recorded sound and a whistle sound. One has to adapt one style to the instrument
- it cannot play it exactly like a tin-whistle.
Michael
Kelischek at Susato kindly gave me some of the low whistles to try out. I am having difficulty with the high
register. The low register is beautiful
and the instruments are very easy to play.
Who made your Overton F?
Well, it
is an Overton, or "new" Overton whistle which I got cut by Cillian Ó
Briain to fit a "tuner" - an aluminum slide on it. It is a very temperamental instrument which
would drive any Sound Engineer mad as the tone changes so often in studio!
We don’t have many
recordings of Low F whistles on CD.
Colin Goldie recently told me it is among his favorite keys. Did you pick the key first, or did you
particularly favor that whistle and worked around the key?
Yeah, I
loved the key; at the time, when becoming familiar with it, I found it a bit
hard…my limited dexterity could not be realized playing a low-D, for example,
so these attributes coupled, I went for the low-F making my first recording in
1989 with a group called "Méristem", then Deiseal (pronounced as in
"special") in 1993.
I recognize Cillian Ó Briain’s
name for his modified Feadog whistle. But
he is not a particularly well-known maker.
Tell us about his Low D.
He is a
Dublin-born Uilleann Pipe player and maker and plays whistles, including
low-whistles. He now resides in Dingle,
Co. Kerry where his Workshop is based.
He is considered a great reed-maker judging by his clientele of years
ago, i.e., Paddy Moloney of the Chieftains and is in great demand for
uilleann-pipes. I have been "at
him" to make low-Fs but for him it is a problem of time, etc.
Many have complemented your
singing on your CD. Were you reluctant
to sing?
For years
I have been too shy to sing in public.
Caught between self-doubt and a knowledge that my singing is not on par
with my playing, I was reluctant to be seen to be pandering to myself. Anyway, I decided I to sing two songs on my
album and because of my background I chose my two native languages. I also decided I wasn't going to get my
knickers in a twist about whether I should, or should not, have gone to singing
lessons before going into the recording process. As it happened, I was fortunate time-wise; most of, if not all,
of the whistle tracks were only recorded once and I did not take more than two
days with the singing. I was heartened
to learn from both my Engineer and my Producer that some well-known singers
take weeks to put down once verse alone!!!
Having said that, I know my limitations (even on the whistle) and I hope
I can become relaxed enough and get more practice to sing in public. My first gig with Martin Dunlea, guitar
player, as a duo, is on the 9th., March next in Kildare, Co. Kildare
before we travel to France for a few gigs mid-March.
I’m curious—A lot of Irish
musicians are moving toward independently producing their own CDs. What has this been like for you?
Hell at
first because one is used to leaving that side of the business to the
"professionals". There is not
much work in the recording process; I was fortunate enough, of course, to have
had my own finance but the real difficulty is in "selling" your
product. At the moment, I do not have a
distribution deal or network outside this country. I have two US labels interested in licensing and buying my
Master, respectively; I am not full-time in the business and I am not
interested in touring 90 days, even in the States, alone, but I will travel as
a duo, so on some levels it is hard to carry on my work as an Accountant and
have my "foot in the door" re: the music. I do believe and recommend that musicians should own their own
product, where possible; one never knows down the road when one might achieve a
"hit", even on a small level and the royalties, without the huge cuts
that Record Companies take, will all accrue to you!
Finally, you mentioned Martin
with whom you perform - obviously as a duo you are limited to what you can do
musically.
If Martin
and I can achieve some of the magic Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill have, or
like Karen Tweed & Ian Carr who are based in England, then we will be
happy. I think myself and that some of
our arrangements are quite good and that we will appeal to a cross-community
given the chance. We want to perform
for audiences who are prepared to listen - pub gigs and the like are out! I pray that our music can be heard and
appreciated over the coming years and I hope to perform, formally, in the States
soon.
Before I
sign off, I'd like to take this opportunity of thanking you for your interest
in interviewing me, in having reviewed my Album and for having taken the
initiative of setting-up a Website and Information "Experience" on
whistles - you are doing an invaluable service to all those sane and insane
players out there! Thanks again.
Cormac Breatnach’s CD is
called “musical journey”. It is
currently available as an import in the USA.
Tunes: Sporting Paddy,
Adele, Tommy Whelan’s, Oiche Nollag, Na Ceannabhain Bhana, A Perpignan, Fasten the Legging in Her, The
Legacy, Port Na bPucai, The Humours of Tullycreen, The Princess Royal, Mujeres
(women), The Britches Full of Stitches, TheToda Klop, The Step Ahead Polka, La
Molinera, The Tailor Small’s Jig, The Battering Ram, Maidin Luan Chincise,
Sadhbh, Song for Sadhbh, The Belles of Tipperary, Connie Connell’s, Cooley’s,
Jennie Tie the Bonnet
Dale Wisely is the Undisputed King of Internet Tinwhistle
Journalism. His tinwhistle website, Chiff
& Fipple, is a monstrous thing that alternately delights and frightens
readers, like some playful but demented Uncle that only visits you on rare
holidays. It is available on your web
browser at http://www.chiffandfipple.com