The Music of Ed Reavy - Video
Drexel University recently completed a video of Ed Reavy's music which we have available for distribution worldwide. We had the first showing if this video at the North American Convention of the Comhaltas Coelteni Eirinn. We had subsequent showings at the Willie Clancy festival in County Claire, and the Joe Mooney festival in West Lietrim. The reviews from these showings surpassed our expectations.
The musicians are the sons of Louis Quinn the great Armagh fiddler and super organizer for traditional music in New York. All were trained first traditionally and then sent for Classical training. This family of five boys and two girls were child prodigies and played as a traditional band throughout the country in the forties and fifties. A11 attended higher education and have launched careers, marriage and families. These four brothers had not played together in years. However when we contracted them in hopes that they would play for this video, they were delighted.
Their education level is listed below. I along with my brothers Joe and George provide the commentary. I have included a video program sheet which outlines the video. We sell this cassette for $25.00 plus $5.00 shipping.
Sean - fiddle. Masters degree in music. Long Island University (with glasses)
Louis - fiddle, banjo. Masters degree in education. Masters degree in administration. (strawberry blond with mustache.)
Brian - accordion, concertina, Medical doctor specializing in Oncology.
Kevin - concert flute. Masters degree. Juliard School of music.
THE TUNES
REELS
I ) Shanvaghera - named for Ed's wife's schoolhouse in the west of Ireland.
2) Johnny McGoohan's - a great lover of Irish music and a personal friend of Ed's.
3) Love at the Endings - from O'Casey's Purple Dust. O'Killigan woos the Irish fiancee of the British Lord with his grand talk he urges her "to spit out what's here" and go out with him to the west where they'll both find "things to say and things to do, and love at the endings."
HORNPIPES
1) Munster Grass - From a Yeats line: full of "Munster Grass and Connemara skies"
2) Quinn of Armagh - one of the great 20th Century talents in the Irish community
(father of the Quinn musicians).
3) The man from Barnagrove - Ed was born in Barnagrove in County Cavan.
Jigs
1) Both the Meat and Drink- a Wexford friend of Ed's praised the merits of porter, "Ah, it's more than drink, Ed, it's both meat and drink."
2) The Castleblarney Piper- Ed loved to hear the great pipers who played in this Country Monoghan.
3) Swans Among The Rushes- Ed loved traditional poems especially Yeats' "Among what rushes will they build, by what lake's edge or pool delight men's eyes when I awake someday to find they have flown away."
Reels
1) Never Was Piping So Gay- in Yeats' Host of the Air O' Driscoll awakes from his dream to the strains of distant pipes: "And never was piping so sad/ and never was piping so gay."
2) Reilly of the White Hill- A wild-looking fellow, one of "the white hill people" Ed knew in Barnagrove.
3) The Hunter's House- Ed's most popular tune; it's played everywhere in the irish communities.
Air/barndance
1) Silence the Lonely Glenn- the tune laments the passing of the old ways and the Ireland he knew as a youth.
2) The Dances at Kinvara- Ed never visited Kinvara, but heard from a friend about these special dances.
Hornpipes
I ) The Street Played- For the McCafferty brothers: Great itinerant fiddlers in Cavan and Monaghan.
2) Lad O'Beirne's- Lad was a Sligo fiddler and a brilliant mind. He had a keen understanding of the Irish tradition.
3) The Blackrock Shore- Ed was particularly fond of Aunt Ann (his mother's sister) and like her rendition of the Maid of the Blackrock Shore.
Reels
I ) The Highest Hill in Sligo- To commemorate Michael Coleman and Lad O'Beirne: also Ben Bulben, immortalized in the verses of the nobel poet William Butler Yeats.
2) The Ceilier- a tune fast becoming a favorite in sessions.
3 ) The Fisherman's Island- Ed felt that Fisherman longed to have their own island, surrounded by the sea they love. This reel has always been one of Ed's personal favorites
