Angelina Carberry & Martin Quinn
Reeltrad Records RTR
001; 44 minutes; 2003
This self-titled album has been available
for a while in Ireland, but has only just acquired UK distribution, hence the
delay in writing this review. In many ways the album represents both the very
best and the very worst of Irish traditional music. Musically, it comes from
the very top drawer, but the accompanying liner notes count amongst the most
appalling ever published. 
Both musicians should be familiar names to readers. Born in Manchester,
Angelina Carberry is a member of the renowned musical family from County
Longford and recorded the splendid Memories from the Holla with her
father (accordionist Peter) and guitarist John Blake (who also provides guitar
backing for this new album). Martin Quinn is an accordionist from County Armagh
and a member of Dórsa (formerly Na Dórsa, whose only album to date is The Wild Music of the Gael). Together, and with the
assistance of John and another guitarist, Alan McCartney, they create a most
pleasant sound indeed. As Memories from the Holla fully demonstrated,
there is something inherently captivating about the combined sound of the banjo
and the accordion and there is a sublime synchronicity evident in the
combination of Angelina and Martin’s playing (not, on reflection, unsurprising
since the pair are actually married to each other, a situation which always
offers plenty of opportunity for musical rehearsal).
There is also a wonderfully economical sway to their playing which is
certainly not to say that either Angelina or Martin is parsimonious when it
comes to ornamentation (indeed the former is very fond of a crisp triplet).
Rather, the case is that the pair fall firmly into that modern grouping of
players (of whom Harry Bradley and Mícheál Ó Raghallaigh spring immediately to
mind) who progress their music by reference to the past. Indeed, that past
includes sources such as the O’Neill collection, Breandán Breathnach’s Ceol
Rince na hÉireann, Séamus Ennis, Paddy Fahy, Paddy Carty and Finbarr Dwyer.
That synchronicity referred to earlier is no better exemplified than by
a superb set of hornpipes, Murphy’s and The Fair Haired Girl, the
latter giving the constant impression of acceleration, but one in which the
musicians clearly have control of the wheel. Angelina’s playing is solid as a
rock throughout this album, though by no means as stolid, but, while matching
her adroitness, Martin shines on an atmospheric solo reading of the air to Aililiú
na Gamhna. Contrastingly, the couple’s rendition of Finbarr Dwyer’s
Reels is sprightliness incarnate. All told, in fact, the music here is some
of the most joyful to meet these jaundiced ears for some time.
However, there is a caveat. As earlier mentioned, the liner notes are
exceptionally poor. There is evidence that they have been proofread in the form
of the handwritten insertion of the fada at various points, though not
all essential ones, but nobody appears to have checked either the spelling or
the grammar. Thus we are presented with such delights as a tune apparently
called Con Curtain’s Big Baloon (that should be Curtin, for anyone not familiar
with the former London publican’s name), the belief that James Goodman was a
‘Cannon’ and that Neillidh Boyle came from ‘Glentie’s’ (actually, Dungloe). Sporting
Nell becomes Sporting Nellie and there is supposedly a tune in the
Mulvihill collection called Burnes Reel. Then there’s the somewhat
bizarre alteration of Colonel McBain to ‘Col Mc Bain’.
No doubt some might find these comments pedantically punctilious but I
firmly believe they would be wrong to think so. Liner notes enter the historical
vernacular on publication and it does future students of the music no favour to
be told that Maloney’s Wife ‘is a tune that pops up in various guises’
(why not provide examples?) or by extending the seemingly lifelong misprinting
of Finbarr Dwyer’s name. That last point might seem petty, but if Finbarr’s
parents chose to give him an extra ‘r’, then so should the rest of us!
Geoff Wallis
12th October, 2004
The
Carberry/Quinn website is www.reeltrad.com
and the album is distributed in the UK by Copperplate.