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Email:booking@minnesotamandolinorchestra.org

Greenhouse Village

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jonathanb

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The residents of Greenhouse Village invited us for a performance as the Twin Cities began to poke its head out from the COVID restrictions.

The photo above of the handmade card Marlene, our host coordinator, sent us in thanks of the performance.

Here are the setlist and Jonathan’s announcing notes, if you’re interested in the tune background.

  • Hornpipes #1
    • Kitty’s Wedding: From 1840’s Boston printed version. Arriving Ireland, the parts were reversed.
    • Tom Juenemann’s: Our friend Sherry Ladig wrote this for a local accordion-playing friend’s significant birthday ending in zero.
  • Polkas #1
    • Ten Pound Snowflake
    • Mari’s Wedding: 1909 printing, from Hebrides Islands
  • Inisheer: 2014, Thomas Walsh, accordion player. Inisheer is the smallest of the Aran Islands in Galway Bay, off the West Coast. Travelers come to learn Irish, which is still used by the 300 residents.
  • Reels #1
    • Silver Spear: Perhaps named after a mountain , there are lots of variations of this reel with different titles.
    • Gravel Walks: County Donegal, played in octaves.
    • Boyne Hunt: Originally Scottish commissioned for the Perthshire Hunt Ball circa 1788. Composed by Magdalene Stirling, a friend of Niel Gow.
  • Marion MacLean of Eoligarry: Colin Melville named this tune for a resident of Barra, an island in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, around 2006.
  • Jigs #1
    • Banish Misfortune: Evidence that sometimes the more a tune is played, the less known of its provenance.
    • Blarney Pilgrim: In reference to travelers coming to kiss the Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle, County Cork seeking the gift of eloquent speech.
    • Tripping Upstairs: There are several claims to authorship, with the title referencing perhaps a late-running party moving upstairs of the pub.
  • Hornpipes #2
    • Belfast Hornpipe: The earliest printed sources are from Boston, but probably played widely by then.
    • Home Ruler: Frank McCollum, 1960’s of Balleycastle, dedicated to his wife, but politically named for James Brown Armour, a 19th-century protestant, or Daniel O’Connell of the IRA.
  • Reels #2
    • Cup of Tea: Previously called the “Unfortunate” or “Sweet”, with the latter referring to code for fortified with whiskey or poitin
    • Cooley’s Reel: Joe Cooley from Peterswell, County Galway, was an accordion teacher to Jerry Garcia and member of the Tulla Céilí Band.
    • The Glory Reel: Title is Anglicized corruption of Ril na Gloar (the drone-sounding reel) from County Donegal. Sherry wrote the final part containing the key change.
  • Madeline Island: Sherry composed this for a wedding in 1985 for a still-married couple.
  • Jigs #2
    • Coleraine: A town in Northern Ireland (and the Iron Range).
    • Connaughtman’s Rambles: To ramble is to visit with the neighbors to talk, play music, or cards. Connachta was one of the five old tribes and provinces. A poor territory in the 17th century, many poor Catholic landowners were relocated there with the slogan, “To Hell or to Connaught.”
    • Carmody’s Jig: Also known as “Morrison’s Jig” for James Morrison (The Professor), who taught step dancing in Ireland in the teens and later Irish music in New York in the 30’s and 40’s. He learned the jig the night before a performance and popularized the tune taught to him by Tom Carmody as “The Stick across the Hob” taught to him by his father….
  • Eileen Collins: Sherry wrote this air to honor her friend and host, Eileen Collins, who ran a bed and breakfast in Dingle that Sherry visited for almost 20 years.
  • Reels #2
    • Dowd’s #9: There are no tunes 1-8 from John O’Dowd who immigrated to New York. The title might refer to a brand of whiskey.
    • Lad O’Bierne‘s: Named for the Irish immigrant and NYC fiddler, 1911-80.
    • The Scholar: Popular at sessions prior to written sources from the 19th century.
  • Jigs #3
    • Swallowtail: a coat worn by early 19th-century dancing masters?
    • Mouse in the Cupboard: Jonathan learned this tune from Jim Wells at his first session experience through The Dallas Slow Sessions.
    • Sliabh Russell: pronounced “sleeve” meaning mountain, in this case in County Cavan. The tune is perhaps the basis of “The Congress Reel” with a time conversion.
  • The South Wind: This song, from at least 1792, depicts a ghost ship blown by the South wind up the West coast bringing back the souls of the Wild Geese who had been killed in battle. The Wild Geese were Irish soldiers serving as mercenaries for continental armys, many fighting the English, during the 16-18th centuries. Jonathan first heard this tune used by Bill Schustik as a shanty or cadence to coordinate end-of-day sailing tasks.
  • Jigs #3
    • The Woodcock: Hammy Hamilton’s first tune, composed in the mid 1980s.
    • The Montana Jig/The Whoop-Bom: Composed by Carl MacKenzie for Rex Blazer, you’ll hear the whoop-bom beginning phrases in the A-section.
    • Hills of Glenurchie: A pre 19th-century tune that made its way into Irish and Cape Breton sessions.
  • Polkas
    • Dingle Wren: Polkas are Czech dances whose popularity swept Europe and became a staple of Irish dance music in the late 1800’s generating hundreds of Irish tunes.
    • P&O Polka: Named of the P&O Ferries operating between Ireland and the U.K. since 1837.
    • I Have a Bonnet Trimmed in Blue: The song has lyrics from at least the early 20th or late 19th, from Scotland, perhaps as a strathspey or schottische.
  • Far Away in Australia: about Irish emigration, of a woman waiting endlessly for word she can follow.
  • Reels #3
    • Maid Behind the Bar: Ellen O’Byrne sold the recording door-to-door in NYC, eventually convincing Columbia Records to print the record in 1922, their first Irish success.
    • Star of Munster: star is a euphemism for beautiful woman.
    • The Congress Reel: written by Joe Mills in 1932 to commemorate the Eucharistic Dublin Congress, the 1500th anniversary of St. Patrick’s arrival to Ireland.
  • Down by the Sally Gardens: Sallow garden is willow garden, but may refer to willows at river bank at Ballysadare. Tune made popular by a William Yeats poem reconstructed from conversation with an old peasant woman in county Sligo.
  • Hornpipe Encore/Filler
    • Off to California
    • Boys of Bluehill
    • Harvest Home
  • The Butterfly: Tommy Potts wrote this, inspired while gardening and observing the rhythm of a butterfly. Tommy is the uncle of The Chieftains Sean Potts.
  • Hornpipes
    • Plane of the Plank
    • First Light of Day

Sources

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