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The Tailor’s Choice reel

Also known as The Tailor’s Fancy.

There is 1 recording of this tune.

The Tailor's Choice has been added to 5 tunebooks.

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Two settings

1
X: 1
T: The Tailor's Choice
R: reel
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Gmaj
d4 BAGE|DGBG AGEG|d2 dB BAGB|A/B/A BG AGEG|
d2 dB BAGE|DGBG AGEG|d2 dA BAGB|A2 BG AGEG||
d2 BG dG ~G2|d2 BG AGEG|dG ~G2 dGBG|AGBG AGEB|
dG ~G2 d2 BG|dGBG AGED|~G2 B/c/d edge|d2 BG AEGE||
2
X: 2
T: The Tailor's Choice
R: reel
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Gmaj
D3 B/B/ BABG|D2 BG AGEG|GEDB BAGB|A/B/cBG AGE/F/G|
D3 B/B/ BAGE|D2 BG AGEG|GEDB BAGB|A/B/cBG AGE/F/G||
d2 B/A/G dG B/A/G|d2 B/A/G AGE/F/G|d2 B/A/G dGB/A/G|A/B/cBG AGE/F/G|
d2 B/A/G d2 B/A/G|d2 B/A/G AGE/F/G|cBcd efge|d2 B/A/G AGE/F/G||

Three comments

Re: The Tailor’s Choice

The Tailor’s Choice was a reel the late Joe Burke learned when he was very young. In the sleeve notes of his flute album of the same title, he recollects when he first heard the tune at a tailor’s shop in the area. According to Joe Burke, the tailor measured him for his first long trousers, then took a flute out of the drawer and played this reel for him. The tailor and flute player was Stephen Moloney, one of the founding members of the Ballinakill Traditional Dance Players, or the Old Ballinakill Ceili Band. https://www.mustrad.org.uk/graphics/farr02.jpg

Incidentally, Fintan Vallely informs us that Stephen Moloney’s father James was also a tailor and emigrated from East Limerick to West Yorkshire to make a living. Stephen’s grandson Sean writes that James learned to play the flute in the 1870’s in a working men’s club in Northowram in Calderdale, which is near Halifax and not so far from Bradford and Leeds. James returned to Ireland before the turn of the century and settled in the parish of Ballinakill, Co. Galway.

I’m not 100% sure, but this reel sounds like the tune on the first track of Eddie Moloney: Master Musician CD1: https://thesession.org/recordings/5050 / https://www.irishtune.info/album/EMlny/

Eddie was a son of Stephen Moloney.

The Tailor’s Choice, X:2

This is the version of this reel, listed as‘The Tailor’s Fancy’ as recorded by The Bunclody Ceili Band on the 1967 Comhaltas LP, ‘The Rambles of Kitty’. The similarities to the Foxhunter’s reel are noticable in this version too although the Bunclody version has the 2 parts in a different order. I’ve asked the son of one of the members of the band (who is himself a fine musician - Nick Sheridan ) whether he knew where this setting had come from. He wasn’t sure but reckoned that the leader of the Bunclody band, Garda Sergeant Brian Doherty, may have been the source. Brian Doherty was the flute player on the band and was a Connaught man I think, so may connect up with the Joe Burke story. Brian Doherty can be heard on the Comhaltas archive, playing some rare tunes.
You can listen to the Bunclody 1967 recording on the Comhaltas website:

https://comhaltas.ie/music/detail/rakish_paddy_the_tailors_fancy_the_high_reel/

Hopefully that link works!