|
|
Header lines from file:
% This file contains the collected compostions of Ed Reavy, VERSION 2.0.
% It is for personal use and the music must not be included in any
% books, performances or recordings without the express premission of
% the Ed Reavy Foundation.
%
% Ed Reavy, Jr., President
% Ed Reavy Non-Profit Foundation
% 2004 Aspen Circle
% Springfield, PA, USA, 19064
% edjr@reavy.us
%
% (c) Copyright Ed Reavy Non-Profit Foundation. This file:
% - May be distributed freely (with restrictions below).
% - May not be used for commercial purposes (such as printing a tune book to sell).
% - This copyright notice must be kept, except when e-mailing individual tunes.
% - May be printed on paper for personal use.
% - Questions? E-mail: bil@mckenty.us
%
% Should you find errors, ommissions or have questions about this file,
% please direct your email to bil@blueskiesink.com.
%
% Credits: Gerry Strong, John Chambers, Naka Ishii, Kathleen Conery,
% Philippe Varlet,Bernard Chenery, Paul g. Mulvaney, Irtrad-l and Fiddle-l and to the Reavy Family.
% Additionally, Thanks to rog@vitanuova.com from the fiddle-l list for a great deal of help in the refinements to Version 2.0!
%
% The Collected Compositions of Ed Reavy
% Introduction by Mick Moloney,
% &qout;Ed Reavy was a tune maker&qout;
%
% No composer of traditional dance tunes in the history of Irish music
% has ever had his music adopted and played as widely as Ed. He devoted
% much of his life to the creation of a vast body of compelling, finely
% crafted tunes leaving an indelible imprint on the beautiful old
% tradition that was always his first love.
%
% Ed Reavy was born in the village of Barnagrove in the County Cavan in
% the year 1897. He came with his parents to
%
% Philadelphia in the year 1912, and with the exception of two visits
% home to Ireland - one of nine months in 1922 and the other of three
% weeks in 1969 - lived the rest of his life in Philadelphia until his
% death in 1988.
%
% By the time he was ten years old he had already developed a great love
% for Irish traditional music. There was music in the community he came
% from and there was also music in the family. His mother had cousins
% by the name of Lennon who lived in County Monaghan. They were seven
% brothers, all stonemasons, and they were great fiddle players. The
% Reavy's own house was a popular location for sessions. They owned a
% big barn where the local musicians used to congregate for sprees -
% music and dancing. He took to America with him vivid recollections of
% these evenings of merrymaking and those memories were always to stay
% with and inspire him.
%
% Ed served complete apprenticeships first to the machinists' and then
% to the plumbing trade. He became a Master plumber and conducted his
% own successful business for the rest of his working life. He married
% and settled in Philadelphia and raised a family of six children. He
% became an excellent fiddler and made a classic recording for the
% Victor company in Camden New Jersey in 1927 of two reels: 'The Boys of
% the Lough' and 'Tom Clark's Fancy' and two hornpipes: 'The Donegal'
% and 'The Cliff'. [Victor 21593B (42483)]
%
% He began composing in the 1930s and continued creating new tunes up to
% the late 1960s. His sons estimate that he might have composed as many
% as five hundred tunes though only about 130 have been saved for
% publication. 'The Hunters' House', Ed's most popular composition, is
% almost certain to be played in any session of Irish music anywhere in
% the world from Sydney, Australia to Miltown Malbay, Co Clare.
%
% Ed's tunes came to him in moments of reflection. He had to be in a
% certain mood before he could even start. These 'moods' could come on
% anytime, day or night, but they were most likely to occur if he was in
% regular contact with other musicians. He would ponder frequently on
% Ireland, his own childhood there and the country's problems: &qout;The
% trials and tribulations that the Irish people went through in the past
% 750 years, all that enters into music . . . naturally it shows up
% in places. That's why in so many of the slow airs there's so much
% sadness and even in jigs and reels there's so much there that reminds
% you of the trials and tribulations we've been through.&qout;
%
% Unlike most composers of the past, Ed's music achieved widespread
% recognition and popularity in his own lifetime; a process facilitated
% by increased travel communication between America and Ireland and the
% expanding technology of sound reproduction. The recognition began as
% soon as he started to compose when other musicians became captivated
% instantly by his tunes.
%
% Over the years Ed played his compositions for hundreds of other Irish
% musicians in Philadelphia and New York. In addition he was President
% of the Irish Musicians' Association of America, an Organization
% founded in 1956. The Association had annual conventions in cities
% such as St. Louis, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York,
% which enabled Ed to become acquainted with a wide range of Irish
% musicians who lived elsewhere in America. Many players liked his
% tunes, learned them and subsequently brought them back to their home
% cities and to Ireland, where they caught on as well.
%
% A prime figure in the dissemination of his tunes was Armaghman Louis
% Quinn from New York. Louis was a noted fiddle player, a prominent
% figure in Irish music organizations and a close friend of Ed's. Louis
% would travel to Ireland regularly bringing with him tapes of tunes
% popular among the Irish musicians in America, which he copied for many
% prominent musicians in Ireland and also performed, on Radio Eireann.
%
% This material included many of Ed's compositions. Over the years
% several of these tunes were recorded by musicians in Ireland and went
% into aural circulation in traditional music circles. Many of the
% tunes at that time were unnamed and known by musicians simply as
% &qout;Reavy's tunes.&qout; Frequently they circulated without any given title
% at all. As one would expect, Ed was extremely pleased to see his
% tunes being played so widely. &qout;The transmission of tunes&qout; he said,
% &qout;is like telling a story&qout;, as far as change and variation from one
% musician to another is concerned. &qout;Fortunately enough, most of the
% tunes were played much as I would like them played.&qout;
%
% Ed's son Joe was the single biggest force in the popularization of his
% father's music. Beginning in the 1960s, Joe began painstakingly to
% notate his father's compositions. Many of them had been stored on
% homemade 78-rpm recordings, which Ed had recorded in his home or in
% the home of his good friend, Roscommon fiddler Tommy Caulfield.
% Others were simply in his head. Joe transcribed and helped his father
% name many of the tunes, which to that point had remained untitled.
% The first collection of Ed's music &qout;Where the Shannon Rises&qout; was
% printed in a limited edition and became a collector's item in
% double-quick time. It brought Ed's music to a wide audience and
% facilitated the learning of his tunes.
%
% Certain stylistic features are characteristic of much of Ed's work,
% for example, his liberal use of &qout;accidentals&qout;, his use of the full
% range of the fiddle, and his occasional utilization of keys, such as
% 'G' minor, 'D' minor and 'F' major - keys used comparatively rarely in
% Irish dance music.
%
% Many of the compositions are what the great Washington fiddler Brendan
% Mulvihill calls &qout;paradise tunes&qout; for fiddlers. Of course the fact
% that Ed was a fiddler himself made his tunes particularly suited to
% that instrument.
%
% Ultimately, the success of a composer in Irish traditional music, as
% in other musical idioms, is measured by the extent to which the tune
% maker's compositions are adopted by other traditional musicians. In
% the final analysis it is musicians who decide what deserves to be
% accommodated and what should be set aside. And by playing and
% recreating Ed's music they have spoken eloquently of the value
% compositions. It is the ultimate peer affirmation.
%
% The great Chicago fiddler Liz Carroll, who selected hornpipe &qout;The Lone
% Bush&qout; for one of her tune selections when she won the Junior All
% Ireland fiddle competition feels that each of Ed's compositions
% represents a complete artistic statement. &qout;You wouldn't want to add
% anything to the tunes and you wouldn't want to take anything from
% them&qout; she says. &qout;They are simply perfect.&qout;
%
% The great Baltimore accordion player Billy McComisky feels that all of
% Ed's tunes are quite unique, suggesting his genius didn't follow any
% fixed formula. &qout;I often heard a tune that I liked and wanted to learn
% and was amazed to find out later that Ed had composed it. It seemed
% so unlike other tunes of his that I already had heard.&qout;
%
% When winning the Senior All Ireland fiddling title, New York fiddler
% Eileen Ivers choose &qout;Maudabawn Chapel&qout; the tune best suited to
% showcasing her brilliant tech skills and extraordinary inventive
% flair.
%
% Ed passed away in 1989 at the great age of 90 but his music is still a
% vital part of the lives of those who know and Ioved him. His funeral
% took place on a bitterly cold January day in Drexel Hill, just west of
% Philadelphia. Derry fiddler Eugene O'Donnell and myself played for
% the services in the church and the great young musician Seamus Egan,
% who grew nearby Lansdowne was to play the Uilleann pipes at graveside.
% The pipe reeds wouldn't work in the cold so Seamus played the tin
% whistle instead; his hands cover by black gloves with the fingertips
% cut off to enable him to play. He played a lament for Ed at the
% graveside - one of Ed's own slow airs. With the steam rising from the
% cold steel of the whistle and the haunting lonesome sound rising into
% the cold grey Pennsylvania sky, the scene embodied in one
% unforgettable moment the continuity of Irish music in America. Poet
% Michael Doyle captured the spirit of it a poem he wrote dramatizing
% the symbolism of the event.
%
% HOW COULD REAVY DIE!
% The plumber of the hornpipes is dead.
% The old diviner with the hazel bow,
% That found the Shannon's source
% And made its magic waters flow across the world.
% &qout;NO&qout; she said &qout;he's not dead,
% How could Reavy die!&qout;
% And who are you to say!
% &qout;I am the Wind: The Wind
% That drove the clouds in herds
% Above the Cavan hills and Drexel too
% And whispered to the oats in Barnagrove.
% I am the breeze that kissed O'Carolan's face
% With moisture on my lips
% 'Til notes danced within his mind
% Like flames behind a blind.
% I am the breadth in Reavy's body
% I used to whistle in his mouth
% Merely oxygen upon arrival
% But virgin music coming out.
% He would hold me in the evenings
% And we'd play within his soul
% He tamed me with his reverence
% But I always had to go . . .
% So I bore him sounds of sweetness
% Some were sad and some were glad
% And he composed half a thousand tunes
% About the happy time we had.&qout;
% Hush! I whispered. Did you see his fiddle
% On the altar - silent as a stone
% And his body on the grave in Drexel Hill?
% Clamped on the hole in a final salute
% Like an old finger frozen on a flute.
% Did you see the people in a circle
% Standing sadly in the snow,
% When the pipes refused to play in the cold?
% &qout;I was there&qout; she said
% I am the Breath of the earth.
% Every mouth is a wisp of my prayer
% Breathing blessings of incense on the bites of the air
% Because life has the edge on the ice.
% Listen my friend, to the lad with the whistle
% With his finger tips timid and cold.
% See the life that he brings to the old man's tune
% And the leaks that he brings to the eyes.
% See Reavy arise from the holes in the tin . .
% And announce on his grave &qout;I'm alive!&qout;
|