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If you would like to order a copy for yourself or your friends, our CD is available through CD Baby. If you prefer to avoid using on line credit cards and such, just email us and we'll arrange to send you however many you would like. The price is $15.00 ea. + $2.00 (handling and shipping.) Click on selected tracks below for an mp3. Track List
1. The Rainy Day / Limestone Rock reels |
CD Review - Sets in the City
Sets in the City: Irish Set Dancing at the Plough and Stars with Tipsy House www.tipsyhouse.com, San Francisco, CA Although flute, concertina player, and producer Jack Gilder says of this music,"...Tipsy House isn't really a set dance band in the purest sense...", what he's created here is a pure joy! Guitarist Richard Mandel provides the solid rhythmic groove for fiddler Kevin Bernhagen's lyrical playing that is often so intertwined with Jack's flute or concertina that it's hard to tell their voices apart. Their instrumental arrangements are spare, clean and concise with marvelous intonation throughout. The concept of "Sets in the City" was to record an actual danceable rendition of tunes that correspond to sets of figures that are being danced today; "The Corofin Set" (reels and jigs, ending with polkas), The West Kerry Set (polkas and slides ending with hornpipes), and "The Clare Plain Set" (reels and jigs). Most of the tunes are traditional with only 3 of the 45 named tunes being credited to recent composers. My own current favorite is the waltz set that includes "The Parting" by Cyril O'Donoghue, a lovely haunting |
tune that travels from major to minor and back again and is a great showcase for Jack's flying fingers that facilitate the grace notes on the concertina.
Jim Belcher, in the liner notes, says, "The basic ingredients required for set dancing are eight dancers, traditional musicians and a regular place to dance... the quintessential experience is to find great musicians who love to play for dancers." Tipsy House is comprised of those great musicians and is the "house" band out at the "Plough and Stars" on Clement in San Francisco. They've dedicated this recording to the memory of two great friends of traditional music and dance, Mary O'Connell and Tom Savage, and their memories are well honored by this effort. A very highly recommended CD for both listeners and dancers. Kerry Parker - SF Folk Music Club newsletter |