Standing Room Only
Liner Notes and Album Description
Standing Room Only (illen odyssey records, 2004) is Eliot Grasso’s first solo recording project. The album is comprised of 11 tracks of originally arranged traditional Irish instrumentals and calls upon the talents of Jim Eagan, Patrick Mangan, Zan McLeod, and Andy Thurston. Recorded in 2002 at age 18, Standing Room Only was launched in February 2004 at J. Patrick’s Pub at Locust Point in downtown Baltimore, MD. Since that time, Standing Room Only has been reviewed and broadcast in North America, Ireland, England, Germany, and France. There are 30 tunes on the album three of which are compositions of fiddler Jerry Holland and four of which are Eliot’s own works.
Album Dedication
This recording and its title are respectfully dedicated to the memory of Paul Levin, my first teacher of the uilleann pipes. Paul’s warmth, kindness, and love of the music drew so many people to him that there was standing room only at his funeral. May he rest in peace.
Remarks from Robbie Hannan
“I first met Eliot Grasso in Achill Island, Co. Mayo in the west of Ireland in August 1999 at the island's annual summer school, Scoil Acla. After hearing him play the pipes for just a short while I was immediately aware that I was in the presence of a master musician, despite the fact that he was still in his mid-teens. Although he had only been playing the pipes for a few years at that stage, his technique and tone had developed to astonishing levels of excellence and richness and his repertoire was seemingly endless. This, combined with his intuitive sense of melodic and technical variation, makes him one of the most creative and dynamic musicians in the contemporary world of Irish traditional music.”
“One of the most striking facets of Eliot’s music is that he displays an intimate knowledge and understanding of every tune he plays. Careful examination of his playing reveals an emphasis on melodic fluidity which he largely achieves by viewing tunes as harmonic structures. This, in turn, enables him to develop original and attractive melodic variations which are among the most distinctive hallmarks of his piping. Another prodigious aspect of his playing is that he has succeeded in taking tunes not normally associated with the pipes and making them accessible to pipers in a manner which both complements the pieces themselves and the idiosyncrasies of the instrument. He revels in playing tunes in keys such as G and D minor and A major, keys where many pipers fear to tread, despite the fact that many nineteenth-century chanters were designed to facilitate playing in these keys. To his great credit, Eliot has spent many hours absorbing the finer points of the music of a range of virtuoso performers, both pipers and non-pipers, and this experience in itself has given his music a very solid and authentic basis. His appreciation and performance of the standard piping repertoire leaves nothing to be desired and, furthermore, he has composed many fine tunes himself which show great understanding of both the pipes and traditional music itself.”
“I feel that this debut album from Eliot does him great justice and I have no doubt that it is only to be the first of many recordings in what is sure to be an illustrious musical odyssey.”
~ Robbie Hannan
Notes About the Tunes
1. Reels: Miss Susan Cooper/The Sandpiper/Boys of the Lough
The first reel is a composition of Ronnie Cooper, and has become a staple of the Shetland Fiddle tradition. My version is adapted from a setting played by Robbie Hannan. I learned the second tune from Billy McComiskey, who taught it to me at the monthly Baltimore ceili, held for years in the basement hall of St. Pius X Church. The Sandpiper is also known as the Sandymount or Mick Hand’s Reel. The final reel is a classic piping tune that I learned from Sean Óg Potts during Scoil Acla.
2. Jigs: My Darling Asleep/Hag at the Churn/Darby Gallagher’s
The first tune got a lot of play around Baltimore five to ten years ago; I learned by osmosis. Hag at the Churn was recorded over thirty years ago by the Castle Ceili Band, under the title The Killina Jig; the tune gained a burst of popularity after the Bothy Band paired it with The Pipe on the Hob on their 1977 recording, “Out of the Wind, Into the Sun”. I learned Darby Gallagher’s from Kieran O’Hare. This tune is actually a 6/8 march from Donegal, which spread quickly after the great fiddler Johnny Doherty recorded a version on his album “Bundle and Go”.
3. Reels: Farewell to Kilroe/The Girl that Broke My Heart
Farewell to Kilroe was composed by box-player Finbar Dwyer. Sean McComiskey taught it to me in the key of A, as Dwyer originally wrote it, but I transposed it to D so it would be more amenable to the range of the pipes. The second reel found an early advocate in the great Donegal fiddler Hugh Gillespie, who, after emigrating to New York in the 1930s, included this reel on one of his many recordings. I first heard this tune played by the group De Dannan on their album “Hibernian Rhapsody”.
4. Jigs: O'Hare’s Tilt/The Chiaroscuro Jig/The Jig of Quills
I composed the first tune as a wedding gift to Kieran O’Hare and Liz Knowles. The title was inspired by some wedding pictures shown to me several months after the ceremony. Chiaroscuro is an art term referring to contrasting light and dark shading in oil paintings. I named this jig after giving a concert with Liz Carroll and Billy McComiskey in Indiana during which the lighting above the audience was less than stable (to say the least!). My mind often wanders while watching television, so The Jig of Quills was named after the movie I was viewing when the first few bars came into my head.
5. Hornpipes: The Tailor's Twist/The Cuckoo's Nest
The Tailor’s Twist is one of the most intricate tunes in the Irish traditional repertoire and is considered something of a test piece for pipers especially. I learned this tune from the playing of Dublin piper, Gay McKeon. The Cuckoo’s Nest is a fairly slippery hornpipe that originally caught my attention when I heard Mick O’Brien play it at the second Baltimore Tionóls organized by Paul Levin.
6. Reels: The Quill and the Ivory/The Grandmaster/Belles of Tipperary
The first reel is one that I learned from the playing of fiddler Jesse Smith and piper Kieran O’Hare while they were both still living in Baltimore. I wrote The Grandmaster with Patrick Carroll in mind after his mother, Liz, told me about her son’s interest in chess. The third tune is another one of those reels that found its way into my subconscious by means of a lot of session playing. It also goes by the title The New Policeman.
7. Jigs: The Blarney Pilgrim/Palm Sunday/Gan Ainm
I first heard The Blarney Pilgrim on a recording of a concert given by Gay McKeon at the Blarney Star in New York. The first part of the tune is not in the key of G, but D. Palm Sunday is an old jig that Kieran O’Hare taught to me in my first year of lessons with him. I collected the final tune on a tape of Kieran and guitarist Andy Thurston playing on a Sunday night at J. Patrick’s Pub in Baltimore.
8. Air: The Satin Slipper
I learned this air from the playing of Kieran O’Hare and Jesse Smith. Unlike many airs, this particular piece does not come from song. It appears that most of its constituent notes and harmonies are derived from a reel called The Satin Slipper, a dance tune which Kieran and Jesse were playing a great deal in Baltimore in the 1990s.
9. Reels: Barry’s Trip to Paris/Hilda’s Choice/Tommy Peoples’
The first two reels are compositions of the great Cape Breton fiddler Jerry Holland and are well-suited to the pipes as are many other of his ingenious compositions. Tommy Peoples’s is a fiddle tune from Donegal named of course for the great fiddler bearing that name. I learned this particular version from Robbie Hannan, a master translator of fiddle music to pipes.
10. Jigs: Garrett Barry’s/An Rogaire Dubh/Frainc an Phoill
Garrett Barry was a blind itinerant piper in Clare who life ended in the poorhouse in Ennistymon at the close of the nineteenth century. he passed his music to Gilbert Clancy, who in turn passed it to his son, Willie Clancy. The version played here is one that I learned from Baltimore piper Paul Levin. The second jig I learned from Kieran O’Hare and translates from Gaelic to English as The Black Rogue. The final tune, Frainc an Phoill, translates to English as “Frank of/from the Hollow”. I learned the slip jig from the fiddle playing of Paddy Glackin in his album “In Full Spate”.
11. Reels: Dave Normaway MacDonald’s Wedding/Toss the Feathers/The Monaghan Twig
The first reel is another composition of Jerry Holland's. I transposed it up a set to the key of A minor. Toss the Feathers has many versions and variants: this setting is associated particularly with Donegal. The Monaghan Twig has been passed down from the repertoire of Sean McGuire’s father, John, who played the whistle and fife. It is related to an older reel called The Monaghan Switch.
