a few notes on the Northeast Squeeze-In
Craig Hollingsworth
participant in
organizing the event, I may be a little biased, but I had a GREAT TIME.
Sq@#$%^&b9x list servers attending included Randy Kirchenbaum (sorry
about the
spelling), Moshe Braner (chromatic accordion!), Rich Morse (of course),
and
Alan Watsky (this guy really knows what he is doing -great playing on
fiddle, Eng. concertina and jazz guitar). Bob Alexander was on his way,
but became ill and spent
the weekend in the Albany Hospital - major bummer!
The weather was grand. The usual workshops, like:
what else to do with an English concertina; Anglo Concertina (Jody
Kruskal is a genius with an amazing style on Anglo); French Canadian
tunes; Irish tunes; Contra
tunes; accordion band; concertina band.......Then, eating, drinking and
jamming. I only stayed up until 2 o'clock on Fri and Saturday, so I
missed the 4 o'clock rock and roll. Apparently, not all of the people
sleeping in the Manor missed that session.
A really fine concert on Saturday night: 24 acts of one tune each. It
led off with 5
different concertina players, beautifully performing American, Irish,
Scotish, Swedish
and original tunes. Great singers, including David Cornell with his
McCann duet concertina. Isabel and Francheska played a Brazillian forro
duet on 2 accordions. The classical accordionist brought down the house
with the William Tell
Overture complete with sets of tight bellow shakes. There was a gospel
accordion
quartet. Then the accordion band played "Swing Gitan" and the
concertina closed the concert with something that sounded like Gilbert
and Sullivan (D Cornell on vocals). THEN the contra dance - as usual,
fueled with Wild Turkey, I got to lead the band which, as the bottle got
emptier, got a little wilder. About 20 musicians in the band. A high
point as Jody Kruskal took a break on "Dancing Bear" on alto sax.
Oh - Bob McQuillen (he wrote Dancing Bear) was not with us this year -
his "other gig," as he had described it on the phone, was a black tie
dinner in Washington DC where he was honored as a "national treasure"
for his contribution to New England tradional music. Then we played a
little swing, a little polka, and I headed back tot he manor where a
more jamming and singing (see above ensued). My favorite song was Tony
and Lynn Hughes version of "Never Use the F-Word with Your Mother" (It
starts something like... There are pirates, pierced and tattooed .....).
Then, Sunday... I had to leave in the morning to play a wedding, but got
about 10 miles down the road when I discovered that I forgot my
accordion, so back I went.
The best quote of the weekend was when Steff's partner was explaining
why they had had to come to the Sq-In. Steff, the accordionist, had
pleaded, " I have to be with my people." And that is how many of us
felt.
Craig Hollingsworth
Steffan O'Sullivan
>Here's a few notes on the Northeast Squeeze-In. Disclaimer: as a
>participant in
>organizing the event, I may be a little biased, but I had a GREAT TIME.
As a first-timer with no input into organizing at all, I also had
a GREAT TIME! I'll be back for certain.
> The weather was grand. The usual workshops, like:
>what else to do with an English concertina;
This was the workshop by Rachel Hall: chording and accompaniment on
the English. As a dilettante player, I had mostly been doing
melody-line playing and have been wanting more. Her workshop was
very inspiring. Obviously you can't teach a whole lot in a single
hour to twenty people at once, but I came home with plenty of things
to work on and implement.
I also attended Matt H.'s Scottish style workshop: some nice tips on
how to make a tune sound more Scottish. Useful for me as I've just
started playing a large number of Scottish tunes, and coming from an
Irish background, wasn't differentiating the two styles enough. The
proof is in the pudding: an hour after the workshop I was practicing
a Scottish piece and someone (who wasn't in the workshop) walked
over and said, "That sounds very Scottish!"
>.......Then, eating, drinking and
>jamming. I only stayed up until 2 o'clock on Fri and Saturday, so I
>missed the 4 o'clock rock and roll. Apparently, not all of the people
>sleeping in the Manor missed that session.
I was just recovering from an illness, so went to bed fairly early,
but the early evening jamming was amazing to listen to!
>A really fine concert on Saturday night: 24 acts of one tune each.
This was enormously entertaining and I really appreciated the
support I got simply for the courage in performing. My fumbles and
slips didn't seem to bother the audience (though they bothered me,
until everyone said such nice things to me).
What I really loved the most about the concert was the great variety
of music played. I've been to music fests before, but in the past
they've all been one type of music at a time. Hearing different
types of music was a wonderful change.
>The classical accordionist brought down the house
>with the William Tell
>Overture complete with sets of tight bellow shakes.
He was magnificent, and deservedly got a standing ovation.
>Then the accordion band played "Swing Gitan"
This was also wonderful - was that you leading the band? Great job!
>The best quote of the weekend was when Steff's partner was explaining
>why they had had to come to the Sq-In. Steff, the accordionist, had
>pleaded, " I have to be with my people." And that is how many of us
>felt.
It is indeed. (Different Steff, BTW.) What I was most impressed
by was the willingness of the expert musicians to take time with
beginners. David from Maine spent an hour playing "Three Blind
Mice" and "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" with two people who were just
thinking of buying a box, and Frank from Windsor gave lots of tips
to someone with an economy model Anglo on how to hack it to make
it more comfortable to play. Great people, great time - I'll be
back!
--
-Steffan O'Sullivan |
s...@panix.com | "Seek Grailo, Even Better Than the True Grail"
Plymouth, NH, USA |
www.panix.com/~sos | -James Thurber sums up the 20th Century
Bruce Henderson
> Here's a few notes on the Northeast Squeeze-In. Disclaimer: as a
> participant in
> organizing the event, I may be a little biased, but I had a GREAT TIME.
(SNIP)
Yeah, sounds wonderful but are they ever going to have one that's not
right in the middle of prime Morris season on the East Coast? It
would be wonderful to go to the S-In, but not if I have to let down
half-a-dozen other people to do it :)
Thanks, Bruce Henderson, Wallace NC
Craig Hollingsworth
You are the guy with the white suit and bells, but.... "prime Morris season"
in the Fall? Well, not on this part of the East Coast. Assuming that you
are dancing Cotswold, Morris is a ritual of the SPRING. It's about
FERTILITY (what do you think those sticks symbolize?), planting and
the end of winter.
Early on, the Squeeze-In took some heat for not taking into account
Rosh Hashanah, and, though it can increase the chance of rain, we carefully
schedule around it, but PLEASE don't give us grief for not paying
reverence to a Southern U.S. transmorgification of an English pagan ritual.
We have a very healthy Morris tradition in New England. One
scene from this past Sq-In that I treasure was Jody Kruskal and
R.D. Eno playing Morris tunes with a 10 year old boy (Anglo Concertina)
and the ensuing discussion of his favorite teams. When they talked about
Toronto, it was not about the Blue Jays.
MORRIS ON!
I crib here from an academic website:
Among the earliest references to Morris dancing are those made by
Shakespeare, who, in All's Well that Ends Well (II.ii.21), makes it
clear that the Morris dance was commonly performed on May Day
(May 1). That Morris dancing was associated with May Day
celebrations in the early17th century is also suggested through
King James I's Book of Sports which permitted among the amusements
to be enjoyed on a Sunday the continuation of "May games, Whitsun ales
and morris dances, and the setting up of May-poles..."
The Whitsun ales referred are a beer produced for Whitsun
(or Whitsunday, celebrated in the Christian calendar as Pentacost) which Shakespeare, in Henry V (II.iv.18), says was
also a time when Morris
dances were performed.
Bruce Henderson wrote:
> Craig Hollingsworth <chollin...@umext.umass.edu> wrote in message , but I had a GREAT TIME.
Lee Thompson-Herbert
Craig Hollingsworth <chollin...@umext.umass.edu> wrote:
>Bruce -
>You are the guy with the white suit and bells, but.... "prime Morris season"
>in the Fall? Well, not on this part of the East Coast. Assuming that you
>are dancing Cotswold, Morris is a ritual of the SPRING. It's about
>FERTILITY (what do you think those sticks symbolize?), planting and
>the end of winter.
Which is why Cecil Sharp came across the Heddington Quarry Morris Men
dancing on _Boxing Day_. The fertility thing is a canard, and I wish
folks would quit spouting it.
>Early on, the Squeeze-In took some heat for not taking into account
>Rosh Hashanah, and, though it can increase the chance of rain, we carefully
>schedule around it, but PLEASE don't give us grief for not paying
>reverence to a Southern U.S. transmorgification of an English pagan ritual.
It's not pagan. Or rather, it wasn't, but a lot of the neopagan community
has decided to co-opt the dance tradition. But the reason a lot of us
are dancing and playing has nothing at all to do with neopaganism.
[...]
>I crib here from an academic website:
>
> Among the earliest references to Morris dancing are those made by
>Shakespeare, who, in All's Well that Ends Well (II.ii.21), makes it
>clear that the Morris dance was commonly performed on May Day
>(May 1). That Morris dancing was associated with May Day
>celebrations in the early17th century is also suggested through
>King James I's Book of Sports which permitted among the amusements
>to be enjoyed on a Sunday the continuation of "May games, Whitsun ales
>and morris dances, and the setting up of May-poles..."
>The Whitsun ales referred are a beer produced for Whitsun
>(or Whitsunday, celebrated in the Christian calendar as Pentacost) which Shakespeare, in Henry V (II.iv.18), says was
>also a time when Morris
>dances were performed.
But those weren't the _only_ times. Border morris and NorthWest (clog)
morris are fall/winter traditions. Along with longsword and rapper, which
get lumped in with the "ritual dances." Plus, a lot of teams do the festival
circuit, which means they often do gigs at least up til the equinox.
And _which_ academic site are you quoting from? Read up on the more
recent stuff that's been published, and you might get a different picture.
Ronald Hutton's books are a good start (_Stations of the Sun_, and _The
Rise and Fall of Merrie England_). The whole bit about "morris is a springtime
fertility ritual" only pops up during the victorian era. Right about the
time Frazier published _The Golden Bough_.
--
Lee M.Thompson-Herbert l...@retro.com KoX 1995, SP4
Head Muso, White Rats Morris, Faultline Morris
Member, Knights of Xenu (1995). Chaos Monger and Jill of All Trades.
"A head-on collision between Morticia Adams and Martha Stewart"
Craig Hollingsworth
squeezeboxdom, then I found the TRUE Story.
The History of Morris Dance
Recently uncovered manuscripts reveal the true origin of morris dancing. Actually, it was originally Maori
dancing. More than a millenium ago it spread throughout the Pacific (the heads on Easter Island are really
hobbies). At some point Chinese merchants were lost in the Pacific. They learned to dance in the Hawaiian
islands and continued on to South America where they taught the morris to the Incas. Of course it quickly
spread throughout the Americas, arriving in the northeast just in time for Lief Ericson to learn to Morris. One
of his crew grew tired of eating corn and returned to Scandinavia, where other Vikings learned the dance and
carried it to Great Britain when they settled there. Really.
http://cs.engr.uky.edu/~klapper/morris.html
Randy Krichbaum
> Here's a few notes on the Northeast Squeeze-In. Disclaimer: as a
> participant in
> organizing the event, I may be a little biased, but I had a GREAT TIME.
My unbiased opinion: I had a GREAT TIME also! Good job Craig and all
the Button Boxers!!
> Sq@#$%^&b9x list servers attending included Randy Kirchenbaum (sorry
> about the
> spelling), Moshe Braner (chromatic accordion!), Rich Morse (of course),
> and
> Alan Watsky (this guy really knows what he is doing -great playing on
> fiddle, Eng. concertina and jazz guitar). Bob Alexander was on his way,
> but became ill and spent
> the weekend in the Albany Hospital - major bummer!
I just spoke with Bob on the phone. He is out of the hospital, back
home, and feeling better.
> The weather was grand. The usual workshops, like:
> what else to do with an English concertina; Anglo Concertina (Jody
> Kruskal is a genius with an amazing style on Anglo); French Canadian
> tunes; Irish tunes; Contra
> tunes; accordion band; concertina band.......Then, eating, drinking and
> jamming. I only stayed up until 2 o'clock on Fri and Saturday, so I
> missed the 4 o'clock rock and roll. Apparently, not all of the people
> sleeping in the Manor missed that session.
Sometime around 3:00am Sunday morning, I recall 4 accordions
accompanying the singing of a medley of TV theme songs...which
included "Flipper" sung in German. Or maybe I'm thinking of a Fellini
film.
Squeeze-On!
Randy Krichbaum
Bruce Henderson
> Bruce -
> You are the guy with the white suit and bells, but.... "prime Morris season"
> in the Fall? Well, not on this part of the East Coast. Assuming that you
> are dancing Cotswold, Morris is a ritual of the SPRING.
Yeah, the spring is the biggest time for us, too. We really don't
do much in the autumn ...
(only Labor Day weekend,
weekend of 21th September,
weekend of 28th September,
weekend of 05 October,
weekend of 11 October (Bluemont Ale!!! Yeah!)
weekend of 27 October)
Shame on me for calling it "prime" season. And, yes, I *should*
learn to say no when some flirty thing with big blue eyes says "we
really need for you to come play for us that weekend.
> Early on, the Squeeze-In took some heat for not taking into account
> Rosh Hashanah, and, though it can increase the chance of rain, we carefully
> schedule around it, but PLEASE don't give us grief for not paying
> reverence to a Southern U.S. transmorgification of an English pagan ritual.
OK. Too bad, it sounds like a fun weekend.
Bruce Henderson, Wallace NC
DavBarnert
>Sometime around 3:00am Sunday morning, I recall 4 accordions
>accompanying the singing of a medley of TV theme songs...which
>included "Flipper" sung in German.
...and a concertina!
And thanks for the news about Bob.
______ /\/\/\/\
<______> | | | | | David Barnert
<______> | | | | | <davba...@aol.com>
<______> | | | | | Albany, N.Y.
<______> \/\/\/\/
Ventilator Concertina
Bellows Bellows
(Vocation) (Avocation)
Randy Krichbaum
> Randy Krichbaum wrote:
>
> >Sometime around 3:00am Sunday morning, I recall 4 accordions
> >accompanying the singing of a medley of TV theme songs...which
> >included "Flipper" sung in German.
>
> ...and a concertina!
Ooops....of course....I neglected to mention the concertina. By the
way, I really gained a new appreciation for the concertina at this
year's Squeeze-In, thanks to the playing of folks like you, Jody, and
Rachel. It finally hit me how versatile the instrument is in such a
small package. After lugging an 8 kilogram PA around Quebec and New
England for three weeks, I had a serious case of 'tina envy. I guess
sometimes size does matter.
Randy
Rodney Wakefield
from Craig Hollingsworth <chollin...@umext.umass.edu> contains these
words:
> Recently uncovered manuscripts reveal the true origin of morris
> dancing. Actually, it was originally Maori
> dancing. More than a millenium ago it spread throughout the Pacific
> (the heads on Easter Island are really
> hobbies). At some point Chinese merchants were lost in the Pacific.
> They learned to dance in the Hawaiian
> islands and continued on to South America where they taught the morris
> to the Incas. Of course it quickly
> spread throughout the Americas, arriving in the northeast just in time
> for Lief Ericson to learn to Morris. One
> of his crew grew tired of eating corn and returned to Scandinavia,
> where other Vikings learned the dance and
> carried it to Great Britain when they settled there. Really.
Verrrryyy interestinggggg! And in what language were the 'recently
uncovered manuscripts' written? ;)
--
Rod
Steffan O'Sullivan
>from Craig Hollingsworth <chollin...@umext.umass.edu> contains these
>words:
>
>> Recently uncovered manuscripts reveal the true origin of morris
>> dancing. Actually, it was originally Maori
>
>Verrrryyy interestinggggg! And in what language were the 'recently
>uncovered manuscripts' written? ;)
Like the Rosetta stone, they were in three languages: Pig-Latin,
Esperanto and Klingon.
Jim Lucas
> >Assuming that you are dancing Cotswold, Morris is a
> >ritual of the SPRING.
Lee Thompson-Herbert responded...
> Which is why Cecil Sharp came across the Heddington
> Quarry Morris Men dancing on _Boxing Day_.
Actually, no. I believe Sharp documented that the Headington team
normally danced out of Whit Sunday, but that year they also danced out on
Boxing Day to get a little extra money for the team expenses. A
fortuitous coincidence, or Sharp might never have known about them and the
history of Cotswold Morris might have been much different, perhaps even
terminal.
> >It's about FERTILITY (what do you think those sticks
> >symbolize?), planting and the end of winter.
>
> The fertility thing is a canard, and I wish folks would quit
> spouting it.
And "waking up the earth"? Hard to tell how many folks believe such
superstitions, or whether they learned them from 19th Century books, 20th
Century TV shows, or superstition (which can be quite independent of
religion, e.g., Friday the 13th, walking under a ladder, etc.) passed down
in a family with no written record (and of course, no record of when or
where it originated).
> It's not pagan. Or rather, it wasn't, but a lot of the neopagan
> community has decided to co-opt the dance tradition.
Or has tried. As far as I know, there aren't many Morris teams composed
of neo-Pagans. I did get a phone call once from someone who asked if we
were dancing on May Day, then started lecturing about insuring that the
Morris was "in the proper religious context". I told him that he and his
friends were welcome to come observe the dancing, but they had better
remember that *we* were the ones with the sticks.
> But the reason a lot of us are dancing and playing has
> nothing at all to do with neopaganism.
It's the beer, right? :-)
> > Among the earliest references to Morris dancing are
> >those made by Shakespeare,...
I believe I remember John Forrest claiming that the earliest references to
Morris -- both literary and pictorial (an engraved chalice, was it?) --
date from the 13th Century.
> But those weren't the _only_ times.
> [...reference to other forms of "ritual dance"...]
I believe that in the period (at least 50 years) before Sharp started his
collecting the main dancing-out time for *Cotswold* Morris was Whitsun.
Northwest Morris, Border Morris, longsword, and rapper get lumped together
with Cotswold Morris these days, but they are essentially independent
traditions, and there should be no surprise that their prime seasons might
be at different times of year.
> The whole bit about "morris is a springtime fertility ritual"
> only pops up during the victorian era.
The "fertility" part, perhaps, but the association between Morris and
Whitsun existed when Sharp was collecting and, according to Craig's
quotes, also in Shakespeare's time. I believe there are other sources to
indicate that this seasonal association existed through at least much of
the intervening period.
/Jim
Joe Kesselman (yclept Keshlam)
> Lee, I was about ready to plead nolo contendre, in part due its diversion from
> squeezeboxdom, then I found the TRUE Story.
Some historiens claim Morris was originally adapted from Moorish (hence
the name) equivalents of martial-arts katas (half dance, half combat drill).
Others call this wishful thinking.
--
Joe Kesselman, http://www.lovesong.com/people/keshlam/
{} ASCII Ribbon Campaign
/\ Stamp out HTML mail!
Joe Kesselman (yclept Keshlam)
> Like the Rosetta stone, they were in three languages: Pig-Latin,
> Esperanto and Klingon.
If you need someone who can verify that these three texts carry the same
meaning, I know one of the few people who can do idiomatic translation
between them... (I don't know whether Mark is up to _simultaneous_
idiomatic translation.)
Helen P.
It just takes them until Spring to finish off their ales
and get around to the dancing. ;-)
-- Helen