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Ec: Sarah Graves-black Boxes.....


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I was just playing the Black Boxes CD. What an excellent recording this is!

 

Track 13 reminded me of the recent thread about playing Irish Trad on the english concertina. The track starts with the trad. "The Concertina Reel", followed by a Sarah Graves written tune called "Another Concertina Reel". The neat thing is she plays the first one in an "anglo concertina" style and the second one playing her EC as an english concertina. I loved the track and also found it revealing. The two tunes sound very different. For me, it's a clear example of why the EC sounds better when you don't try to force it to sound like something it's not. The first tune is fine, but the second really comes alive and her concertina sings on it. This is a perfect example of how to play a reel powerfully and beautifully on an EC and stay within the tradition.

 

Track 15, Autumn Leaves, is also wonderfull and a perfect example of how to play EC in a band setting. This is my favorite track. Great fiddle and EC interplay!

 

I'd love to hear how people feel about this recording. What do you think of track 13?

 

bruce boysen

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I bought a copy of this CD quite a while ago on ebay, but I only recently listened to it very intently (...tried before but got interrupted).

 

I agree, it's a great one, and it's nice to hear the concertina clearly over the other instruments.

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Hello,

 

The Sarah Graves CD was the second CD of concertina music I ever bought. The first was pub songs by Riggy Rackin. I like all the tunes on the Black Boxes CD, but especially the Waltz, and Oak and Ash and Thorn. I can't find the sheet music for Oak and Ash and Thorn, but I have picked it out, in D minor. I'll be writing it out in dots to help me learn it. I expect that to be an education in notation as well as in that particular tune.

 

I am a poor player, so far, but I find her excellent playing very inspiring, rather than depressingly beyond my reach. Not that her playing doesn't seem beyond my reach! Just, I seem to be handling the disparity pretty well.

 

I hope she makes another CD someday. I would buy it. I'll have to buy a copy of English International, though I had intended to do that already anyway.

 

Russell Hedges

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I can't find the sheet music for Oak and Ash and Thorn, but I have picked it out, in D minor. I'll be writing it out in dots to help me learn it. I expect that to be an education in notation as well as in that particular tune.

Hi Russell,

 

I've just done a quick search on Google. As I expected, the late Peter Bellamy is credited for the tune used to accompany this Kipling poem. Can't find the music, though.

 

Regards,

Peter.

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Before I go off on the Peter Bellamy tangent, my main reason for this note, may I agree with those who are enjoying Sarah's playing. When we find ourselves at the same sessions here in Essex you will see the rare sight of an Anglo and an English player sitting next to each other and enjoying it!! I was deeply flattered that she has entitled a recent tune 'Roger's Retirement' and played it at the celebration!

 

'Oak, Ash and Thorn' was the title track of Peter Bellamy's first L.P. of Kipling arrangements on the Argo Lable in 1970 followed, two years later, by 'Merlin's Isle of Gramarye' also on Argo.

Lest anyone doesn't know the background of Peter's highly intelligent project, let me stress that this was not simply putting poems to music. Kipling knew his traditions, rural and urban, and Peter used to fancy that when living at 'Bateman's' Kipling would have heard the singing of the Coppers. This will never be proven, but the proposal is strong. Peter's first project was, therefore, to take poems where Kipling was clearly writing within the idiom of English Traditional Song and develop tunes for these poems which were developed in the same way from the same sources. In the 2nd L.P. he became more adventurous and speculative. When he followed this with 'Barrack Room Ballads' Peter was recognising the different style of the songs sung in the forces and the influence on Kipling of the Music Hall (Kipling had lived opposite 'Chatti's' Music Hall in the Charing Cross Rd.) and Peter based his song arrangements on this influence.

For me, Peter's song adaptations of Kipling's verse are outstanding in their concept and their realisation. They are much more sensitive and interesting than those which simply seek to set a poem to music because Peter was going far beyond that concept and reuniting words with tunes which shared the same cultural base, whether those tunes were 'trad', 'trad arr. Bellamy' or pure 'Bellamy'.

When Xtra, the record label, deleted Peter's first two solo LPs,' Mainly Norfolk' and 'Fair England's Shore' Peter unashamedly bootlegged himself and sold his own cassette versions at gigs. I know he would want his early Kipling to be available to anyone who wanted it, so.......

All best wishes.

Roger

Edited by Roger Digby
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Hello,

 

The Sarah Graves CD was the second CD of concertina music I ever bought. I hope she makes another CD someday.

Russell Hedges

 

You may find earlier recordings featuring Sarah as a duo with husband Mick and as a member of the Metric Foot Band. These were on cassette not CD. I have a cassette with the title Taped Measures, which they may only have had available for sale at gigs. The insert with the black boxes Cd gives some contact details which you might try to find out if the earlier tapes are still available.

 

 

Regards

 

John

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Hello,

 

The Sarah Graves CD was the second CD of concertina music I ever bought. I hope she makes another CD someday.

Russell Hedges

 

You may find earlier recordings featuring Sarah as a duo with husband Mick and as a member of the Metric Foot Band. These were on cassette not CD. I have a cassette with the title Taped Measures, which they may only have had available for sale at gigs. The insert with the black boxes Cd gives some contact details which you might try to find out if the earlier tapes are still available.

 

 

Regards

 

John

 

I recently purchased a copy of Sarah's 'Black Boxes' CD and also a copy of The Metric Foot Band's most recent CD, 'Devotion to Motion' released in 2004, which features Sarah and Mick and contains 15 toe-tapping tune tracks from this talented Essex folk dance band. I bought my copies via Ebay but you can contact Mick Graves direct at mick.graves@btopenworld.com. I very much enjoy listening to both CDs. Her playing is superlative without question.

 

Chris

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Before I go off on the Peter Bellamy tangent, my main reason for this note, may I agree with those who are enjoying Sarah's playing. When we find ourselves at the same sessions here in Essex you will see the rare sight of an Anglo and an English player sitting next to each other and enjoying it!! I was deeply flattered that she has entitled a recent tune 'Roger's Retirement' and played it at the celebration!

 

'Oak, Ash and Thorn' was the title track of Peter Bellamy's first L.P. of Kipling arrangements on the Argo Lable in 1970 followed, two years later, by 'Merlin's Isle of Gramarye' also on Argo.

Lest anyone doesn't know the background of Peter's highly intelligent project, let me stress that this was not simply putting poems to music. Kipling knew his traditions, rural and urban, and Peter used to fancy that when living at 'Bateman's' Kipling would have heard the singing of the Coppers. This will never be proven, but the proposal is strong. Peter's first project was, therefore, to take poems where Kipling was clearly writing within the idiom of English Traditional Song and develop tunes for these poems which were developed in the same way from the same sources. In the 2nd L.P. he became more adventurous and speculative. When he followed this with 'Barrack Room Ballads' Peter was recognising the different style of the songs sung in the forces and the influence on Kipling of the Music Hall (Kipling had lived opposite 'Chatti's' Music Hall in the Charing Cross Rd.) and Peter based his song arrangements on this influence.

For me, Peter's song adaptations of Kipling's verse are outstanding in their concept and their realisation. They are much more sensitive and interesting than those which simply seek to set a poem to music because Peter was going far beyond that concept and reuniting words with tunes which shared the same cultural base, whether those tunes were 'trad', 'trad arr. Bellamy' or pure 'Bellamy'.

When Xtra, the record label, deleted Peter's first two solo LPs,' Mainly Norfolk' and 'Fair England's Shore' Peter unashamedly bootlegged himself and sold his own cassette versions at gigs. I know he would want his early Kipling to be available to anyone who wanted it, so.......

All best wishes.

Roger

 

I must confess that I have not heard Peter Bellamy's first LP of arrangements of Kipling poems but I do know that Kipling himself wrote some exceedingly good poems!

 

Chris

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The "Black Boxes" CD is one of a couple that I keep on my desk at work all the time for when I get bored. With music that good, you just don't notice how humdrum the work is, and the day flies by!

 

:)

Steven

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