Piano accompaniment, however, is its own art with its own demands. “A good accompanist can bring the best out of a musician and, by supplying a supporting rhythm and harmony line, allow the traditional player the liberty to explore other riches within the tune,” explains Charlie Lennon, one of Ireland’s premier piano accompanists, in his book “Musical Memories.” Lennon also states that in piano accompaniment “the subtle internal rhythms of a tune should always be respected and complemented or enhanced where possible. Likewise the internal harmonies of a tune should be recognized, extracted, and used.”
Every so often, keyboardists in Irish traditional music step forward to present their ivory-riding skills at melody perhaps to remind us that they can drive more than meter. To my ears, Eleanor Kane Neary (1915-93) is still the leading innovator on piano in Irish traditional music. Born in Chicago of Irish immigrant parents, she basically rejected the simple vamping techniques of most Irish pianists of her day. She wanted instead to do on the piano what instruments like the flute and fiddle could do, and so she developed her own technique. Her left-hand playing provided rich syncopation and alterations in harmonic structure, while her fluid, embellished right-hand playing was influenced by the Sligo-style fiddling of Johnny McGreevy and Jim Donnelly, her colleagues in Pat Roche’s Harp and Shamrock Orchestra during the 1930s.
Many other talented pianists have put their own mark on the keys, whether as lead or support players. Among them are Josephine Keegan, Anna Rafferty, Bridie Lafferty, Kitty Linnane, Geraldine Cotter, Leo Redmond, Micheal O Suilleabhain, Peadar O Riada, Patsy Broderick, Charlie Lennon, Carl Hession, Padraic O’Reilly, and Caoimhin Vallely. In the U.S., such gifted pianists as Felix Dolan, Brendan Dolan, and Donna Long join Eleanor Kane Neary in the upper tier of Irish traditional music.
Denis Carey also belongs among those names. This Newport, Tipperary, pianist is familiar to American audiences through his membership in the Brock-McGuire Band, featuring button accordionist Paul Brock, fiddler Manus McGuire, and banjoist Enda Scahill. But Carey’s musical accomplishments additionally cover composition, arrangement, and solo work. In 2001 he released “An Turas” (“The Journey”), his solo debut, consisting of his own tunes, and now he has come out with his second solo recording, “Moving On,” again consisting of his own tunes.
This CD is mainly a showcase of his compositional skill, but the piano accompaniment he gives his own tunes, performed with an array of guests, deserves attention as well. He brings an ideal blend of buoyancy and propulsion to the piano rhythm in “Who Cares? / Cully Reel / Bag of Hammers” and “The Cosy Gap / Cat on the Car / The Lively Bunch,” all reels written in the traditional idiom. And Carey’s expertly crafted piano accompaniment of Paul Brock’s springy melodeon playing on the barndance “Gather Up the Keys” may remind listeners of the diverting collaboration between Brock and Carl Hession on “Chinese Polka” from the “Moving Cloud” album in 1995.
Denis Carey’s imagination as a composer and arranger shines especially in the aptly titled “Style,” a slip jig and reel pairing. There’s genuine, intended “slip” in the slip jig, as guest fiddler Zoe Conway plays initial passages in a relative sprint and then gives them an attenuated finish with a longer stroke of her bow. It upends expectation in tempo, so when she moves into a sustained pace that soon shifts into a quick reel, the overall palette of performance seems that much more multi-hued. It is an impressively conceived and structured track.
Carey obviously sprinkles some bayou spice and swing into “Cajun Ceili,” a tune Sharon Shannon could easily scoop up for a future album, but he also injects a Cajun rhythm into “Rag Order,” which he says was first envisioned as a ragtime tune. Whether inspired by Scott Joplin or Iry Lejeune, it works.
Galway button accordionist Mairtin O’Connor lends a sprightly touch to the hornpipes “Meagan’s Delight / Emma’s Fancy,” named by Carey for his daughters. His piano accompaniment on this track fulfills Charlie Lennon’s dictum about allowing “the traditional player the liberty to explore other riches within the tune,” because O’Connor does exactly that. Knowing Carey is his safety net on rhythm lets the Galway box player take a few more trapeze-like chances on melody. Triplets in the indelible mold of Joe Derrane invigorate O’Connor’s rendition, and Carey never wavers in keeping pace on piano.
Only one track on “Moving On” fails to fulfill that same promise of interpretation. Carey’s “Newfoundland Immigrant” air is lovely, and for the first half of the track the pianist plays strictly solo with evocative tenderness. But when Denis Ryan, formerly of the Canadian group Ryan’s Fancy, enters on tin whistle, the gleam dims. Though Carey and Ryan have recorded together before, the collaboration here stumbles.
It falls well short of the exquisitely ruminative mood created by West Ocean String Quartet violinist Kenneth Rice’s collaboration with pianist Carey on another air, “Moving On.” Carey’s one outright piano solo on the album’s third air, “Slan Leis an Uaighneas” (“Goodbye to the Loneliness”), also gently delivers sentiment without sentimentality. It is a mesmerizing, hauntingly shaded performance.
No traditional fiddler in Ireland is a better interpreter of waltzes than Clare’s Manus McGuire. He reasserts his prominence on “Lena’s Waltz,” redolent of the sweet sashay of the dance floor, and Carey’s piano accompaniment and accordion playing delicately reinforce that feeling of freeing movement.
With this fine new solo recording, Denis Carey is moving on and ahead compositionally. His tunes are melodically rich and inventive, and his arrangements of them are equally so. Even though unaccompanied melody playing on piano is limited to one track, it should nevertheless help to boost the rising profile of Carey as one of Ireland’s most versatile, engaging, and rewarding musicians.
To acquire this self-issued album (cat. no. FL08-013), e-mail fivelinemusic@gmail.com or visit www.fivelinemusic.com. For further information about Carey himself, visit www.deniscarey.com.