Today let us revisit The Chieftains in China album. You might be wondering why I am posting this. I noticed that there is a consistent increase in my traffic from China. And this not strange. Irish music shares a close kinship with Chinese music for several reasons:
Pentatonic scale- the five-note scale makes everything singable and eliminates harsh dissonance.
Embellishments- The rolls, cuts, and crans on Irish instruments also find similarities with Chinese instrumental playing style.
Parallel instrumental families- There is relative style of playing and sounds such as found on the Irish harp and the Chinese zither (guzheng), or traditional wooden/bamboo Irish flutes and whistles compared to the Chinese transverse bamboo flute (dizi).
The Chieftains in China was released in 1985. Here’s a little trivia: The Chieftains were the first Irish musicians to visit China and the first ever Western musical group to play on the Great Wall of China. So I tried to look for more info about this album and here’s what I gathered and I will quote their Wiki page:
“In 1980, diplomats from the Chinese Embassy in Londonattended Royal Albert Hall for “The Sense of Ireland” festival, where the Chieftains were performing. The diplomats had enjoyed the performance so much that they invited the band to visit China on a musical tour. As China had no embassy in Ireland at the time this was problematic.[4]
When full diplomatic relations between Ireland and China were established in 1981, Moloney planned the trip with Chinese ambassadors and sent copies of Irish music to various Chinese orchestras. The Chieftains were one of the first groups from the West to visit China and became the first ever Western group to play on the Great Wall of China. While in China the group performed with various Chinese folk orchestras, as well as more impromptu performances with local musicians.[4]”
The album has 10 songs and runs for 51 minutes. There is an alternating tempo in each tracks from slow airs to fast tunes. One of their memorable tracks is “The Chieftains in China” the title track played in clàrsach by Derek Bell.
The Chieftains in China is also available for streaming.
Here are the list of personnels:
- Paddy Moloney – Uilleann pipes, tin whistle
- Seán Keane – fiddle
- Martin Fay – fiddle, bones
- Derek Bell – neo Irish harp, tiompán
- Kevin Conneff – bodhrán, Chinese gong, vocals
- Matt Molloy – flute
- Pearse Dunne – Mixing
- Pat Liddy – Photography
- Brian Masterson – Engineer
- Mick O’Gorman – Assistant Engineer
- Bill Somerville – Large Mixing
