i can’t anything on reck on the internet - i’d like to know who taught him and how many recordings he made (i’ve only heard his contribution to ‘the drones and the chanters’) - he sounds like he was a remarkable piper, is it possible he is slightly overlooked?
It is a fact if you ask me.. I don’t know much about him but i have “The stone in the field” on cassette (which i can’t play anymore) and that record was made when he was really past his prime. I’d love to hear more of and about him!
There is an album put on by the Dutch Piper’s - It’s called The Humours of Holland. Tommy Reck plays 4 tracks on the album, and that alone makes it worth purchasing. Of course, there’s oodles of other great pipers on there, too! You can get it from NPU!
Kathleen
Try contacting Pat Sky who visits here now and again,as far as I know he knew him quite well.
RORY
The stone in the field is aviable for download via Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_srch_drd_B000RZA3F0?ie=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=digital-music&field-keywords=Tommy%20Reck
Thomas
You could also contact Emmett Gill, had a piping workshop with him two weeks ago, and he was very knowledgeable regarding Tommy’s tunes and recordings.
Thank you for the tip, tried that but it wasn’t available to Sweden.. Too bad.
Biographical material from Kevin Rowsome’s Website.
From an article by Liam Rowsome, undated, I do not know the source beyond the url:
http://www.esatclear.ie/~rowsome/TommyReck.JPG
Enjoy!
Nick
Read Pat Sky’s memoir of recording Tommy:
There’s à discography on my website “johnsons uilleann pipes site”
www.steampacket.ownit.nu/uilleann.HTML
Tommy played à Coyne and à Kenna on Stone in The Field, à great LP of piping music
steampacket
I read
not found
thanks
mr blackwood
try this one
http://www.emusic.com/album/Tommy-Reck-The-Stone-in-the-Field-MP3-Download/11013195.html
for free (first 25 tunes)
Thanks for the tip! Much appreciated.
There are 2 of Tommy Reck’s early recordings for Gael-Linn on this compilation:
http://claddaghrecords.com/WWW/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=19&products_id=1738
also 3 piping tracks from Willie Clancy as well fiddling from Dennis Murphy, Paddy Canny,
and sean-nos singing from Joe Heaney, Sean ac Dhonncha, and others.
All recorded for Gael-Linn in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
donpiper.
There’s some other article from Treoir profiling Tommy, haven’t found that one yet. A side from a 78 is on the compilation album “From Galway to Dublin” and Phillipe Varlet says in the liner notes that Tommy called the regulator pattern he uses here in Alexander’s Hornpipe “cross-beat.” Phillipe told me this was from that old article in Treoir - late 80s? I wrote an entire article on this cross-beat playing; it’s where you play a note on the bass and then a chord on the smaller regs, kind of an oom-pah sound. Ennis used it all over the place, especially in his younger days; Ronan Browne probably uses it the most amongst modern pipers.
That other Treoir article linked to earlier will tell you about everything else there is to know about Tommy. I think in that link to the discussion here with Pat talking about recording him Pat explains that the other set of pipes on the Stone in the Field record is actually Pat’s Willie Rowsome C set; but Breandan Breathnach wrote in the liner notes that it was a Coyne for some reason.
I also uploaded the other side of the above mentioned 78 to archive.org: The Scholar, The Salamanca, Tom Steele : Tommy Reck. Site offline at the time of posting.
Don’t miss Tommy Reck & Peadar O’Loughlin - Maid in the Cherry Tree & Jenny’s Wedding - YouTube. Looks like a Falcon pipe. 
After all this posting of Tommy Reck, it made me break out the CD of Drones and Chanters and re-listen to his version of The Scholar, Top it Off, and The Salamanca Reel.
Great stuff with lots of expression and stacatto to add to the rythem.
Pat Sky, weren’t you one time going to make a CD form his Album at one time???