Ok, I’m officially a fan now that I’ve heard some tunes from Music at Matt Molloy’s. Wow! Great flute playing. I wish I could do that!
Which tunes? There are a few other great flute players on that CD as well.
It’s definitely a classic CD, for me it was a “gateway drug” to the rawer recordings like Paddy in the Smoke.
I think I have the whole album. My boyfriend told me it was in his music library on the network so I went and put it in my library. Any of them with flute playing basically.
I don’t see any of it being particularly flashy or overly ornamented or anything like that. I have other Matt Molloy stuff like that. Where after 10 minutes of listening I say to myself, “Oh, is that the Jig of Slurs? I guess it is.”
The playing on this album isn’t like that. It’s good, happy, the way I think flute should sound.
I think what monkey is saying is, have a good look at the liner notes to be sure that what you’re listening to is really the man himself. There are solo and ensemble tracks on that CD from other players besides Matt. They’re all brilliant, no doubt, but Matt only appears on a few tracks. Cheers,
Rob
Really, a lot of the time you hear the flute it’s not Molloy. It’s Paul McGrattan on the set that starts with Rolling in the Ryegrass, and my guess is it is him on Dr. Gilbert’s as well, with Molloy joining in for the second tune in that set. It’s Frank Jordan on the set with Garrett Barry’s. I’m pretty sure it’s Peter Horan playing the one flute you can hear on Larry Redigan’s, and the others join in for the High Reel. It’s Jimmy Murray playing the only flute on the two tracks after that (Boys of Ballinahinch set and Scotsman Over the Border set).
It really is a great album – a great gateway, yes, but for my money it’s got real staying power, too. Almost every tune on it is a classic, and most not of the “I’ve heard this so many times I never want to hear it again” variety.
Rats. I didn’t realize “Boys of Ballinahinch” was on that album… And listening back to it, it’s not the tune I associated with that name.
For my money, it’s the finest record to have come out of the whole Chieftains stable. He was motivated to record it by frustration at the meticulousness of the chieftains’ recording process, in which they each play along to a clicktrack alone in a booth, and recording engineers assemble Paddy Moloney’s arrangements later.
So he set up some engineers in an upstairs bedroom at his pub, and they dangled microphones from the ceiling down into the bar. The aim was to capture sessions exactly as they occurred, with the minimum possible intrusion from the engineers. It worked, beautifully well.
Well, no liner notes on these mp3. But I didn’t hear any flute playing I didn’t like among any of the tracks. Unlike some pure Matt Molloy stuff I have somewhere else.
And yes, that rolling in the ryegrass is wonderful even if it isn’t Matt.
Matt’s (or should I say Mr. Molloy’s) big track on the album for me is his playing of Miss Monaghan/ Maggie on the Shore, track #9. His timing/rhythm and setting of Miss Monaghan blows my mind, it’s so on top of the beat with incredible momentum and energy, his tone pushed to the edge (not to mention his use of ornamentation as well as octave jumps). Seems he played that way in response to McGrattan’s super reedy/edgy playing on Rygrass/Killavel which I completely love as well. And what about the whistle playing on the 2nd track and the solo guitar track…
Huh. Is this the “Boys of Ballinahinch” you know? This is the one I know, the one on Music at Matt Molloy’s (and Music of Sligo and The Coleman Archives Volume 2). It looks like this might be a mistake in irishtune.info…
Nope. The one I was thinking of is what Fintan Vallelly calls by that name on his tape. It’s the third tune in this set, after Humours of Ballyconnell.
Update: Case closed… A friend identified my tune as Mary MacMahon (of Ballinahinch).
You should have your boyfriend take you to see Matt Molloy and the Chieftains, when they come to the Disney Center Febuary 21, I think the nice seats go for $88, the nose bleed section is $35…