At Our Leisure

John Carty on banjo and Michael McGoldrick on pipes.

The album is released on Sunday, October 23rd and is available for pre-order now:

https://racketrecords.bandcamp.com/album/at-our-leisure

Interesting - both playing “ second instruments”. An unusual combination. Worthy of further investigation, methinks. Thanks for the “heads-up”.

This was supposed to be released yesterday but is still unavailable for me to listen to on Bandcamp. Has anyone been able to listen to it?

Only the first track seems to be available for listening at the moment.

Calling Carty’s banjo a “second instrument” isn’t quite accurate, is it? I always thought he was a banjo player first and a fiddler second, wonderful at both though he is.

Listened to the album twice through and loved it. Great tunes and great playing. Does anyone know of any other banjo and pipes albums as I’m unaware of any myself?

Re. banjo/pipes albums: see https://thesession.org/discussions/14731.

I saw and heard John Carty in 1980 at the “Sense Of London” festival, when he was in his mid teens. He played both instruments exceedingly well even at that young age. It is certainly true that his first solo recording was on banjo, but over the years the his fiddle playing undoubtedly took precedence. He was a guest at one of the North Atlantic Fiddle Festivals held in Aberdeen, not for his banjo playing.
Certainly, from his output of recordings, he has recorded significantly more on fiddle than banjo. I’m not going through them all, but 3 of his solo albums listed here have him holding a fiddle on the cover.

Thanks Kenny. I suppose I’ve been influenced in my thinking partly by a thread here on The Session which complained about the recent lack of banjo output from him and also criticized his fiddling. Not that I agree about the fiddling, but I made an assumption that the premise that he had mostly switched to fiddle later was correct. Just goes to show you can’t trust everything you hear. 🙂

For the record, I love his playing on both instruments, especially his fiddling on Last Night’s Fun and Out of the Ashes. He’s also done some wonderful fiddle/banjo duets with himself on some tracks.

No disagreement there, Daniel. We’re good. Not to undermine my case, but here’s a short clip I preserved and posted on “Youtube” :
https://youtu.be/qzuamiiukJw

play video

PS - I haven’t heard more than a few examples, but he’s a handy enough flute-player as well.

Does anyone have any information on the first tune on the first track, called ‘Waverly’? It sounds American to my ears.

On this youtube video, they say it’s a “Fiddle tune by Misssouri fiddler Art Galbraith”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j4oYP_NZa4

play video

Thanks coppers and brass. It’s lovely on the banjo and pipes.