Carle's Rant

from Best Sets by Mike Katz & Alasdair White

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The Carle’s Rant – Traditional
The Garron Trotting – Traditional
An Tè bha ris’na caorich (The Sheep Wife) – Traditional
Donald in the Pig Pen – Traditional

​The Carle’s Rant appears in “A new collection of Marches, Quicksteps, Strathspeys, Reels and Jigs, consisting of 120 Tunes edited by John McLachlan, Late Piper to Neill Malcolm esqr. Of Poltalloch.” (1854). Allan MacDonald has a copy of this fascinating, out of print collection and it is from him we get this version. Thankfully, it is also available online from the National Library of Scotland if you search about for it. This strathspey provides a glimpse into the plurality of strathspey styles in the past. Given the notation, it would be nonsensical to crow-bar this tune into the modern style. The Malcolms of Poltalloch were formally Macallums and made their money in Jamaica in the new world through sugar and slaves.

​This version of The Garron Trotting comes from a cassette tape Allan MacDonald gave to Mike nearly thirty years ago of himself playing all these tunes from old, out of print piping collections. This was before the internet. As such, it has no doubt mutated slightly in Mike’s memory, but there is a very similar version in Thomas Glen’s A new and Complete Tutor for the Great Highland Bagpipe c. 1840. The titles here are A’n Cambealach Dudh (Black Campbell’s) and in English, Roy’s wife of Aidivalloch. This kind of Strathspey links The Carle’s Rant to more modern style of strathspey playing, and the cut style of jig playing you sometimes hear from melodeon players and some pipers.

​This third tune is the Gunn version of the well-known classic pipe reel The Sheepwife. Several reels appear in the old collections with this name: some recognisable as portions of the six-part version we play now.

​Donald in the Pig Pen is a tune possibly from Prince Edward Island but common in Cape Breton definitely.

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from Best Sets, released April 23, 2020

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Mike Katz & Alasdair White New York, New York

Mike Katz and Alasdair White have been playing together for almost 20 years, most notably as part of Scotland’s seminal Battlefield Band. In this time, as a matter of habit, they explored some of the more obscure, exciting and challenging corners of the Highland piping repertoire. Though both prolific composers in their own right, here they present traditional and collected music in its raw state. ... more

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