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Product Identifiers

Record LabelCdb, CD Baby

UPC0669853001420

eBay Product ID (ePID)22046071535

Product Key Features

Release Year2004

FormatCD

GenreWorld Music

ArtistJerry O'sullivan

Release TitleOsullivan Meets Ofarrell

Dimensions

Item Height0.40 in

Item Weight0.25 lb

Item Length5.60 in

Item Width4.90 in

Additional Product Features

Number of Tracks15

Number of Discs1

TracksJerry O'Sullivan Welcome/ the Shepherds Hornpipe, Lady Harriot Hope/ the Humours of Castlecomber, The Humour of Ballinamult/ the Old Hagg in the Corner, Adieu Adieu Thou Faithless World, Cusabue Ord/ the Pipers Maggott, Quick-Step/ Willy Winky, Sir Charles Douglas's Strathspey/Braes of Busbie, Stad Erro Rogura Stad Stad/ Wild Oats, Your Welcome Home/ Sall's Delight, Mill Mill O, Doubaling/ the Bucks of Tipperary, O'Farrells Hornpipe/ Mr. Walkers Hornpipe, Miss Walkers Favorite/ Dunkeld Hermitage, Humours of Glen/ the Youghall Waltz, The Gobbyo/ a Trip to Killarney

NotesJerry O'Sullivan by Earle Hitchner The danger with any archival retrieval in music is either too reverential or too roiling a treatment. Jerry O'Sullivan's uilleann piping smartly avoids those extremes here. It is respectful without being rigid, exciting without being eccentric. The title of this CD points to a meeting of minds, and that it is. Not much is known for certain about the 18th-century Irish piper and tune compiler O'Farrell, not even his first name. What is known for certain is the breadth and depth of his musical legacy, a collection of over 400 tunes that have been largely unrecorded. The majority of those tunes were Irish, with perhaps another quarter of them Scottish. Jerry O'Sullivan's mastery on uilleann pipes, warpipes (the first instrument he learned), and Scottish smallpipes makes him an ideal musical match for the O'Farrell canon. Though this is strictly a solo recording on D-pitched uilleann pipes, Jerry's comfort with the technical demands of non-Irish tunes and the finesse he brings to their performance stamp this album as both rare and refreshing. His uilleann piping on 'Sir Charles Douglas's Strathspey/Braes of Busbie' offers a sterling example of how literally in tune Jerry is with the challenge of playing Scottish strathspeys. Sometimes described as slow reels, strathspeys are dance tunes in quadruple time with a distinct, dotted rhythm. They are difficult to execute properly because of their elusive mid-tempo, which sometimes causes Irish players to speed up almost reflexively. (Think of the slightly faster highlands, adapted from strathspeys, that are played in Donegal.) Jerry's tempo never wavers, and his piquant accents on the regulators in the second strathspey expertly enhance it's flavor. Like strathspeys, hornpipes can be the undoing of less than confident and competent players in Irish music. The steady 4/4 time required in a hornpipe can lapse into metronomic roteness if played too slowly or sedately. In 'O'Farrells Hornpipe/Mr. Walkers Hornpipe,' Jerry maintains tempo while using his extensive piping palette to draw out all the colors contained in the melodies. It is an achievement all the more laudable for it's subtlety. There's a crisp, lively touch and joyful lift to the reels, slip and double jigs, and single set of polkas played by Jerry on the album. He invests the slow air 'Adieu Adieu Thou Faithless World' with just the right amount of sentiment, contemplative rather than brooding. His approach to the set piece/waltz pairing of 'Humours of Glen/The Youghall Waltz' has just the right amount of swing to it. And by overdubbing his chanter to create the air/march duet on 'Mill Mill O,' he gives this perennially popular Scottish tune a lithe, baroque texture that dissolves the hard casing of familiarity. O'Farrell's penchant for musical variety and piping virtuosity in the tunes he published two centuries ago has clearly found sympathetic expression in Jerry O'Sullivan's selections and skill here. This discriminating yet expansive taste in music can also be heard to stunning effect on Jerry's previous solo recording, The Gift (Shanachie, 1998). The melodies on that album range from Irish, Scottish, and Cape Breton to American old-time, gospel, and Bach. Two of them, 'An Féirín' and 'Noel McCarthy's Jig,' were penned by Jerry himself. Widely recognized as America's most accomplished uilleann piper, Jerry O'Sullivan drew much of his musical inspiration from Ireland itself, whether through recordings made there or through direct personal contact with musicians who lived there. Born in Manhattan on June 19, 1959, to a Dublin father, Peter, and an Irish-American mother, Frances, Jerry spent many Sunday afternoons as a child listening to LPs of Irish traditional music with his maternal grandfather, Andrew Duffy, who came from Killasser, Co. Mayo. As an adolescent, Jerry frequently visited relatives during summers and extended holidays in Ireland, where his fascination with traditi