I recently heard that Michael Coleman's final recording session was a somewhat laid-back, slowish couple of sets - maybe up to ten tunes or so - and that these NY discs have never been released to the public. Does anybody have any information further? Maybe tune listings, clips, or info on how to learn/hear more? Any help would be much appreciated.
I don't actually think the Decca sides were ever found. A series of broadcast discs from 1942 were found though in a collection of jazz recordings from a radio station.
He shows his age in those, I wouldn't call the mas laid back and lovely as for example his playing of Lord Gordon though. In a few tunes (Dairy Maid for example) he erronously inserts an extra beat into a bar which in turn gets the piano player out of sync.
I'll give it another listen and check the notes for a recording date. Although it is a different tune, I don't recall hearing an extra beat. And maybe it's my memory playing tricks on me, but I think I recall the piano and fiddle beginning in time and later falling out of time. It'd be an interesting thing to note, if it happens on more than a few of Coleman's sides.
Yes indeed, these sides are more introspective than most of his earlier recordings. It's the music of a matured person who has lost the exuberance he had when recording for example Lord McDonald. Someone carrying life's experiences and a bad health with him.
Kilfarboy.... was the erroneous extra bit placed each time through? There are quite a few old tunes with an extra beat, maybe he meant to do it, maybe it was sometimes played that way on purpose? I know those tunes, never heard that though in them.
I wrote (not wrote, I can't! but "made up" as they say) a tune with an extra beat just for the fun of it. Or was it because of all the melody players who try to through the guitar players, LOL... turn the tables a bit for a bit of mischief when I play melody and they like to try to keep along with it!
A real old style box player, Alan Morrisroe, who is coming over from Ireland to US next month (If anyone would like to have him in for any small gigs or session hosting etc. in the NY/NJ /CT area please contact me, he will be here mid November.) ... he often plays tunes with an extra beat. Here is a sample of something his granny played: http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/448/audio.php?p=5
it's the set #2 so you don't have to sift through, first tune in the set. He says the old folks at least where he grew up, Sligo/Mayo area played them fairly often. I'll have to ask if sometimes people just threw an extra beat in for fun. He says his grandmother did that often enough. Maybe Morrison was regressing to the old days a bit.
I'd hardly call Coleman old in his 50s, but 50 then is not like it is now. Used to be that 40 was over the hill not that long ago. 50 is much younger now than it was then. least I'd like to think so being up there myself!
WOW.... really not with it, I meant Coleman not Morrison... we had lots of insane storms and thunder last night.... couldn't sleep...my excuse! At least I said Coleman at the end.... need some coffee!!!
sorry!
Iris, I'd love to learn more about Alan Morrisroe.... we'd even be interested in hosting him, I think, if he ever made it out to Michigan. That set #2 sounds very much like some of the older Newfoundland accordion players I've got recordings of.
Hi Sol... he won't be going that far this trip. I am trying to get him a little known and out and about over here this trip. We may even do some recording... actually he is hosting the IAANJ session 11/17 in NJ, and we will record that with him leading. The session CDs from there BTW are available to the public, we have 20 or so thus far. It's how we support the party, pay our guest host, buy the food etc. They are pretty good actually, with crowd excitement... if some noise... the fun of hearing the dance sets, feet clomping. It's totally unorchestrated and in many ways I like them better than studio produced albums.
Anyway we will have one with Alan, and we encourage the guests to do some new tunes to give us each time. He says he has tunes from Katty Nell, his granny, that she made up and no one knows. He also, after her death long ago, went and collected as many tunes from old people, and her friends that he could.
I really want to have him record a proper CD too, he is so much a missing link to the past and a truly disappearing way of playing. We'll see what timing will allow, and it may be a project over several visits. He's a delightful and eccentric character too. He really needs to be recorded. He also is doing a major history project, a bio and recordings of 78s of the box player who lived in Brooklyn NY from the 1920s-1960s, Peter J. Conlon. So he will be doing more research on this upcoming trip.
There are four sets by Alan at that same site, all on page five of the "songs" link. It doesn't allow a direct link to each one, but they take up all of that page. I like the set#1 best, such dynamic playing.
@Kilfarboy: Never found? Odd. I had read somewheresabouts that the discs merely had yet to be released to the public, insinuating that they were stocked up and archived - wherever.
Harry Bradshaw in his bio/discography of Coleman wrote:
'At the beginning of 1944, the Decca controlled World Broadcasting Company made what were to be Coleman's final studio recordings. Ten Sides were made but copies of these transcription records have disappeared and to date have not been found'
Now that was written in 1991 and I am not aware these particular takes were discovered since. I am aware of the glass broadcast discs that came out of the radio station archive where they were hidden between jazz recordings. As far as I know these were dated 1942 and are not the same batch as 'the final recordings'.
I don't believe inserting beats was a deliberate practice although there are plenty examples of it occurring, Tommy Reck (Langstern Pony), Johnny Doran (Blackbird) and others spring to mind. I also have a recording of Martin Rochford putting an extra beat into the final bars of the Home Ruler and there was the reel Planxty used for 'Timedance' (Dublin Lasses, if I recall correctly) that did the rounds for years with an irregularity in it. Now that last one was supposedly to have come from Junior Crehan and I have Junior heard play this particular tune on occasion. Now, I won't go as far as saying that Junior never played it the way Planxty used it. He certainly made no habit of it though, sometimes reverence for a player leads to copying mistakes which subsequently become set in stone. A bit of common sense should be used when dealing with these things.
I know several 78 collectors with major collections.... can you write the particulars about what to exactly ask for? I get that it's Decca, World Broadcasting, 1944. Is there anything else that needs mention? Were these 10 sides actually pressed and just set aside somewhere?
Iris: hell, the Decca World Broadcasting bit was more than I knew. I think the key bit is Coleman, pressed in '44, which clearly sets it apart from any other of his recordings. Beyond that...I'm loster than the rest of you all -_-
I am afraid I wasn't as thorough as I should have been yesterday, I went back to the CD of the glass disc recordings (broadcast recordings, never pressed) and found it was indeed marked World Broadcasting Corp 1944. So we were actually talking about the same sides. Mea Culpa (I had a migraine yesterday but that isn't really a good excuse), I honestly thought the batch was a different one from 1942.
Now that confusion is cleared up I maintain these sides are more reflective than most of Coleman's earlier work, the age thing again, but overall not as laid back as the Lord Gordon recording, which I think is absolutely lovely. Some of the discs suffer fro ma piano player going badly out of sync.
I am listening to the tracks now (hadn't for maybe a year or two), the sound is unmistakably Coleman, the pace is moderate and as I said there's a sense of introspection/reflection I associate with a man who lived life, feels his health failing and brings that feeling into his music.
There's a good crosssection of the types of tunes we already know of Coleman, jigs, reels, strathpeys, hornpipes and polkas (everybody's favourite Denis Murphy's polka pops up) there's a Scottish flavour to a lot of the selections, the Grand Spey turns up twice. There are tunes that are mainstream ones today like Lost and Found jig (whihc gets a nice treatment and leave you wondering is it here it got it's name?), The Galway Rambler, Roaring Mary, Dairy Maid etc.
Overall the sound and choice of repertoire is very much like that was carried further by Reevey, Lad O Beirne, Louis Quinn, Andy McGann and all those US based fiddlers.
My beef with the Dairy Maid is that he goes
AFFE ~F2 AFBF
instead of the usual
AF ~F2 AFBF (or DFBF)
which in itself is manageable if the piano player would follow it, be he doesn't and carries on along the track set out and is completely out of sync throughout the rest of the track. Which spoils the whole thing pretty much.
Aha, well done kilfar! Good catch on the Dairymaid variation as well. I know what you mean about the piano players - I have on recording of Denis Murphy playing the Munster Jig and the piano player is just atrociously off. You'd think they were recording at different times!
So I guess we come to the obvious juncture of the discussion. How do I go about listening to them? Can I buy them someplace, have you digitized them into an easily sendable format, or should I buy a record player and drive out to a wee house in god knows where : P
Coleman's 1944 recordings?
Coleman's 1944 recordings?
I recently heard that Michael Coleman's final recording session was a somewhat laid-back, slowish couple of sets - maybe up to ten tunes or so - and that these NY discs have never been released to the public. Does anybody have any information further? Maybe tune listings, clips, or info on how to learn/hear more? Any help would be much appreciated.
--DtM
# Posted on October 10th 2007 by Dan the Man
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
I don't actually think the Decca sides were ever found. A series of broadcast discs from 1942 were found though in a collection of jazz recordings from a radio station.
He shows his age in those, I wouldn't call the mas laid back and lovely as for example his playing of Lord Gordon though. In a few tunes (Dairy Maid for example) he erronously inserts an extra beat into a bar which in turn gets the piano player out of sync.
# Posted on October 10th 2007 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
Shows his age? He would have been in his early 50s. It was something else. I'll leave it others to speculate on what that might have been.
# Posted on October 10th 2007 by Hup
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
Something similar happens during the Monghan jig compiled on this recording: http://www.thesession.org/recordings/display/975
I'll give it another listen and check the notes for a recording date. Although it is a different tune, I don't recall hearing an extra beat. And maybe it's my memory playing tricks on me, but I think I recall the piano and fiddle beginning in time and later falling out of time. It'd be an interesting thing to note, if it happens on more than a few of Coleman's sides.
# Posted on October 10th 2007 by gravelwalks
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
'Shows his age?'
Yes indeed, these sides are more introspective than most of his earlier recordings. It's the music of a matured person who has lost the exuberance he had when recording for example Lord McDonald. Someone carrying life's experiences and a bad health with him.
# Posted on October 10th 2007 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
Kilfarboy.... was the erroneous extra bit placed each time through? There are quite a few old tunes with an extra beat, maybe he meant to do it, maybe it was sometimes played that way on purpose? I know those tunes, never heard that though in them.
I wrote (not wrote, I can't! but "made up" as they say) a tune with an extra beat just for the fun of it. Or was it because of all the melody players who try to through the guitar players, LOL... turn the tables a bit for a bit of mischief when I play melody and they like to try to keep along with it!
A real old style box player, Alan Morrisroe, who is coming over from Ireland to US next month (If anyone would like to have him in for any small gigs or session hosting etc. in the NY/NJ /CT area please contact me, he will be here mid November.) ... he often plays tunes with an extra beat. Here is a sample of something his granny played:
http://ezfolk.com/audio/bands/448/audio.php?p=5
it's the set #2 so you don't have to sift through, first tune in the set. He says the old folks at least where he grew up, Sligo/Mayo area played them fairly often. I'll have to ask if sometimes people just threw an extra beat in for fun. He says his grandmother did that often enough. Maybe Morrison was regressing to the old days a bit.
I'd hardly call Coleman old in his 50s, but 50 then is not like it is now. Used to be that 40 was over the hill not that long ago. 50 is much younger now than it was then. least I'd like to think so being up there myself!
# Posted on October 10th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
sorry...typo... THROW the guitar players! Not quite with it yet this morning!
# Posted on October 10th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
WOW.... really not with it, I meant Coleman not Morrison... we had lots of insane storms and thunder last night.... couldn't sleep...my excuse! At least I said Coleman at the end.... need some coffee!!!
sorry!
# Posted on October 10th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
Iris, I'd love to learn more about Alan Morrisroe.... we'd even be interested in hosting him, I think, if he ever made it out to Michigan. That set #2 sounds very much like some of the older Newfoundland accordion players I've got recordings of.
# Posted on October 10th 2007 by Sol Foster
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
Hi Sol... he won't be going that far this trip. I am trying to get him a little known and out and about over here this trip. We may even do some recording... actually he is hosting the IAANJ session 11/17 in NJ, and we will record that with him leading. The session CDs from there BTW are available to the public, we have 20 or so thus far. It's how we support the party, pay our guest host, buy the food etc. They are pretty good actually, with crowd excitement... if some noise... the fun of hearing the dance sets, feet clomping. It's totally unorchestrated and in many ways I like them better than studio produced albums.
Anyway we will have one with Alan, and we encourage the guests to do some new tunes to give us each time. He says he has tunes from Katty Nell, his granny, that she made up and no one knows. He also, after her death long ago, went and collected as many tunes from old people, and her friends that he could.
I really want to have him record a proper CD too, he is so much a missing link to the past and a truly disappearing way of playing. We'll see what timing will allow, and it may be a project over several visits. He's a delightful and eccentric character too. He really needs to be recorded. He also is doing a major history project, a bio and recordings of 78s of the box player who lived in Brooklyn NY from the 1920s-1960s, Peter J. Conlon. So he will be doing more research on this upcoming trip.
There are four sets by Alan at that same site, all on page five of the "songs" link. It doesn't allow a direct link to each one, but they take up all of that page. I like the set#1 best, such dynamic playing.
# Posted on October 10th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
@Kilfarboy: Never found? Odd. I had read somewheresabouts that the discs merely had yet to be released to the public, insinuating that they were stocked up and archived - wherever.
--DtM
# Posted on October 10th 2007 by Dan the Man
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
Harry Bradshaw in his bio/discography of Coleman wrote:
'At the beginning of 1944, the Decca controlled World Broadcasting Company made what were to be Coleman's final studio recordings. Ten Sides were made but copies of these transcription records have disappeared and to date have not been found'
Now that was written in 1991 and I am not aware these particular takes were discovered since. I am aware of the glass broadcast discs that came out of the radio station archive where they were hidden between jazz recordings. As far as I know these were dated 1942 and are not the same batch as 'the final recordings'.
I don't believe inserting beats was a deliberate practice although there are plenty examples of it occurring, Tommy Reck (Langstern Pony), Johnny Doran (Blackbird) and others spring to mind. I also have a recording of Martin Rochford putting an extra beat into the final bars of the Home Ruler and there was the reel Planxty used for 'Timedance' (Dublin Lasses, if I recall correctly) that did the rounds for years with an irregularity in it. Now that last one was supposedly to have come from Junior Crehan and I have Junior heard play this particular tune on occasion. Now, I won't go as far as saying that Junior never played it the way Planxty used it. He certainly made no habit of it though, sometimes reverence for a player leads to copying mistakes which subsequently become set in stone. A bit of common sense should be used when dealing with these things.
# Posted on October 10th 2007 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
I know several 78 collectors with major collections.... can you write the particulars about what to exactly ask for? I get that it's Decca, World Broadcasting, 1944. Is there anything else that needs mention? Were these 10 sides actually pressed and just set aside somewhere?
# Posted on October 10th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
Iris: hell, the Decca World Broadcasting bit was more than I knew. I think the key bit is Coleman, pressed in '44, which clearly sets it apart from any other of his recordings. Beyond that...I'm loster than the rest of you all -_-
--DtM
# Posted on October 11th 2007 by Dan the Man
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
I'll try and see if someone has it...
# Posted on October 11th 2007 by irisnevins
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
I am afraid I wasn't as thorough as I should have been yesterday, I went back to the CD of the glass disc recordings (broadcast recordings, never pressed) and found it was indeed marked World Broadcasting Corp 1944. So we were actually talking about the same sides. Mea Culpa (I had a migraine yesterday but that isn't really a good excuse), I honestly thought the batch was a different one from 1942.
Now that confusion is cleared up I maintain these sides are more reflective than most of Coleman's earlier work, the age thing again, but overall not as laid back as the Lord Gordon recording, which I think is absolutely lovely. Some of the discs suffer fro ma piano player going badly out of sync.
# Posted on October 11th 2007 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
I am listening to the tracks now (hadn't for maybe a year or two), the sound is unmistakably Coleman, the pace is moderate and as I said there's a sense of introspection/reflection I associate with a man who lived life, feels his health failing and brings that feeling into his music.
There's a good crosssection of the types of tunes we already know of Coleman, jigs, reels, strathpeys, hornpipes and polkas (everybody's favourite Denis Murphy's polka pops up) there's a Scottish flavour to a lot of the selections, the Grand Spey turns up twice. There are tunes that are mainstream ones today like Lost and Found jig (whihc gets a nice treatment and leave you wondering is it here it got it's name?), The Galway Rambler, Roaring Mary, Dairy Maid etc.
Overall the sound and choice of repertoire is very much like that was carried further by Reevey, Lad O Beirne, Louis Quinn, Andy McGann and all those US based fiddlers.
My beef with the Dairy Maid is that he goes
AFFE ~F2 AFBF
instead of the usual
AF ~F2 AFBF (or DFBF)
which in itself is manageable if the piano player would follow it, be he doesn't and carries on along the track set out and is completely out of sync throughout the rest of the track. Which spoils the whole thing pretty much.
# Posted on October 11th 2007 by Prof. Prlwytzkofski
Re: Coleman's 1944 recordings?
Aha, well done kilfar! Good catch on the Dairymaid variation as well. I know what you mean about the piano players - I have on recording of Denis Murphy playing the Munster Jig and the piano player is just atrociously off. You'd think they were recording at different times!
So I guess we come to the obvious juncture of the discussion. How do I go about listening to them? Can I buy them someplace, have you digitized them into an easily sendable format, or should I buy a record player and drive out to a wee house in god knows where : P
--DtM
# Posted on October 11th 2007 by Dan the Man