here's a pot-pourri of tasty tracks I've recorded with other people and bands. Usually I just turn up and blow...all the credit is due to the other musicians, so please visit their pages and support

Promiscuous Sax...I've been getting around

guitar music

Celtic/Folk stuff

Nighty

chill

mc keown

classic

I recorded two contrasting klezmer tunes recently and that was all I planned to do, but my good friend in Chile, Francisco, sent me an intriguing track he had made, mixing my Long Live the Nigun with a drone, a rabbi, and a beautiful Jewish cello melody. This track produced all sorts of gorgeous accidental sounds, but to do full justice to the melody and Francisco's idea I decided to record a brand new clarinet part to fit. 

The clarinet you hear on this track was the very first take, and is completely unedited. Things don't usually come that easily! Listening back I got a strong feeling for Gustav Meyrink's powerful novel, The Golem, a hallucinatory depiction of the Ghetto in Prague, full of flickering shadows and dark alleys. If you ever visit Prague, read it before you go. So I added the bells of St Vitus' Cathedral in Prague…impossible to describe how physical an experience it is to stand in the square and listen to these bells in full swing…almost frightening.

In the meantime, I can thoroughly recommend Francisco's page, https://soundcloud.com/ttaattoo
He is a master of combining samples in meaningful and wonderfully creative ways and his gentle spirit shines through everything he does.

davemckeown.co.uk

The Golem's Lullaby, Dave McKeown, with TTAATTOO (Francisco Casas Errazuriz)

When the late Seamus Heaney passed away in August I was reading some of his earlier poems in Death of a Naturalist and this one in particular seemed ideal for adding a melody. I had half an idea and ran it passed the brilliant Dave McKeown and he agreed to help. This is the result. All of the magical sounds you hear, that fantastic flute and those magical strings, are Dave's. He also mixed the whole track. Hope you enjoy.

Twice Shy by Seamus Heaney

Her scarf a la Bardot,
In suede flats for the walk,
She came with me one evening
For air and friendly talk.
We crossed the quiet river,
Took the embankment walk.

Traffic holding its breath,
Sky a tense diaphragm:
Dusk hung like a backcloth
That shook where a swan swam,
Tremulous as a hawk
Hanging deadly, calm.

A vacuum of need
Collapsed each hunting heart
But tremulously we held
As hawk and prey apart,
Preserved classic decorum,
Deployed our talk with art.

Our Juvenilia
Had taught us both to wait,
Not to publish feeling
And regret it all too late -
Mushroom loves already
Had puffed and burst in hate.

So, chary and excited,
As a thrush linked on a hawk,
We thrilled to the March twilight
With nervous childish talk:
Still waters running deep
Along the embankment walk.

Twice Shy (Seamus Heaney poem with Dave McKeown)

Fort Frances covers Sufjan Stevens' "Chicago."

Chicago

Ciranda do Daime - P. Alfredo ND 2

"moonlight serenade"

Diana live on the Life Changes Show 6/22/15. Listen to the full show at http://lifechangesnetwork.com/advancing-the-cause-of-sustainability-with-guest-walter-schindler-and-musical-guest-diana-carr-on-life-changes-radio-show-325/

Tell It Like It Is

This incident in Baghdad 2007, has become infamous after Wikileaks obtained the Apache helicopter footage and cockpit recordings. That's what you hear on this track, alongside the moving testimony of US soldier Ethan McCord. 12 civilians died including 2 Reuters staff; it's thought their cameras were mistaken for guns. The children were severely wounded when their father tried to evacuate the injured in his van. This isn't anti-American...it just shows how modern war dehumanises by making the whole grisly business of killing a remote operation. I've been looking for a musical way to present this material for some months and when I heard Cyra Morgan's incredibly beautiful lullaby I knew the search was over. I am so incredibly grateful to her for allowing me to use her music in this way. I also play low whistle, a type of Irish flute, and also real Irish bagpipe drones.



New Day, Dave McKeown with Cyra Morgan

* Moonlight Sonata * with Derek Cornett, Dave McKeown and Dr.Viossy

Here is a piece for piano and tenor saxophone. Big thanks to <a href="http://soundcloud.com/dgreening" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">♬ Dave Greening</a> for very kindly allowing me to root around in his extensive back catalogue for another tune suitable for collaboration; with it's wide open spaces at the beginning and end and with the beautifully voiced and intense middle section, this piece fits the bill perfectly.
All the different moods in the piece are created and played with gorgeous sensitivity and a sure-footed sense of structure by Dave. It was a huge pleasure to spend time adding an extra layer on saxophone.

I took the picture in Savernake Forest, Wiltshire

Bliss, Dave McKeown with Dave Greening

This is a song about a song.  Paul Sale wrote the sparkling guitar part as a response to a magical moment, sat in front of a crackling fire with Darcy DaSilva, listening to her performing the song 'Magpie'. You can hear Magpie here...http://soundcloud.com/paul-sale/magpie
Paul sent me the guitar part a couple of months ago but I wasn't sure what to do with it. It was Emma Shanley over in Ireland who added the beautiful words and melody. Emma's voice is exceptional...a rare thing of beauty. She has the delicacy, dynamics and control of the incomparable Sandy Denny...her voice defies gravity.
I've added some melodica as seasoning and spent a lot of time twiddling the knobs. This is a special song to all three of us and I hope so much that you enjoy it.

http://soundcloud.com/emma-shanley

http://soundcloud.com/paul-sale

http://www.myspace.com/darcydasilvasongs

The picture is Paul,s and shows the Rayburn stove where he heard D'arcy's singing




Eyelight by Firesound, Dave McKeown with Emma Shanley and Paul Sale

Here is a sweet collaboration on a minor key blues with the fantastic Swedish guitarist Anders Isberg, aka http://soundcloud.com/single_espresso

This has been bouncing backwards and forwards between Sweden and the UK for a few weeks now but we've finally got the version that we like and you deserve! Anders played guitar (look out for a super cool solo), organ and bass, I played tenor sax and sequenced the drums.

The picture was taken in secret by a Swiss fellow, Guillaume Briquet, showing the deserted city of Prypat next to the Chernobyl Nuclear power station. The weather, radioactivity, natural degradation and looters show how transient mankind's mark on the landscape is. meanwhile, enough radioactive plutonium to kill 100 million people, with a half life of a quarter of a million years, lies behind a concrete sarcophagus that is already in an advanced state of decay.
http://soundcloud.com/single_espresso

Smoky Blues, Dave McKeown with Anders Isberg

Here is a collaboration with a lovely old friend Liz Monument. Liz and I both studied music at Bretton Hall in Yorkshire a few years ago. Those of you who have had the chance to do something like that will know that the friendships you make there go beyond the social...you share creativity with your classmates and for me, I always keep a cozy seat in my heart for anyone with whom I make good music. Back then, Liz was a fantastic classical guitarist, but since then she has widened her range to encompass many more styles and stringed instruments....including the sparkling harp that features here alongside the guitar. A couple of years ago we renewed friendship via facebook and this year we're making music again via soundcloud. Please listen to more of Liz's beautiful playing at http://soundcloud.com/lizmonument

Here I play the Uillean Pipes and Low Whistle. I absolutely adore the pipes, but they also frustrate me as I don't think I'm physically cut out to play them to the standard I'd like to. But now and then I give them a day out. If by any chance you like the sound here, please do me the favour of going to youtube and checking out what REAL pipers can do, like Paddy Keenan, Cillian Vallely and Davy Spillane.

Liz's harp provides a perfect setting here for Louis MacNeice's amazing poem The Strand. The harp's chords lap like waves on the poet's beach. I have a strong identification with this poem; my father was also a Northern Irish clergyman who “kept something in him solitary and wild”. The last quality time I spent with my father was a wordless walk on such an Irish strand. The image attached to the song is a washed out old slide I took that very winter afternoon....'white Tintoretto clouds' behind Slieve Donard, towering above the beach at Newcastle, County Down. All that's missing is the 'square black figure' beyond the viewfinder to the left. 

The Strand

by Louis MacNeice

White Tintoretto clouds beneath my naked feet,
This mirror of wet sand imputes a lasting mood
To island truancies; my steps repeat

Someone’s who now has left such strands for good
Carrying his boots and paddling like a child,
A square black figure whom the horizon understood -

My father. Who for all his responsibly compiled
Account books of a devout, precise routine
Kept something in him solitary and wild,

So loved the Western sea and no tree’s green
Fulfilled him like these contours of Slievemore
Menaun and Croghaun and the bogs between.

Sixty-odd years behind him and twelve before,
Eyeing the flange of steel in the turning belt of brine
It was sixteen years ago he walked this shore

And the mirror caught his shape which catches mine
But then as now the floor-mop of the foam
Blotted the bright reflections - and no sign

Remains of face or feet when visitors have gone home.

The Strand, Dave McKeown with Liz Monument

Here is a simple duet with pianist and composer http://soundcloud.com/michelle-eaton. I really enjoyed listening to her exciting and skilful piano playing and superb orchestrations so I suggested a collaboration. By return of post I received this deliciously delicate miniature...an arrangement of a song I don't know by George Shearing. Michelle's playing here is beautifully feather-light and adding my part on clarinet felt like painting with a one-haired brush. Hope you enjoy it. Please do call by Michelle's page for more delights.

Ramona, Dave McKeown with Michelle Eaton

Read more about D minor: bit.ly/D-minor

The key signatures of music are kind of like the signs of the zodiac. If you take all the music in a given key, you’ll discover certain characteristics —﻿ characteristics that can define your personality.

Visit CBC Music to learn more about the characteristics of all the key signatures covered so far. Which key are you?www.cbcmusic.ca/signatureseries

The Signature Series is produced in Vancouver, Canada for CBC Radio 2's In Concert by @paolopp with Denise Ball.

D minor: The Ice Queen

Here is a song with two of my loveliest friends on the cloud. It's a bit special I think. 

Paul's guitar part on its own is a beautiful filigree of gossamer threads and Emma's stunning voice and lyrics soar and shimmer above. I was nervous about adding anything, so I tiptoed around on the soprano sax and hoped for the best. 

I don't like using the word 'romantic' when it comes to music…but to me, this is romantic music in the best sense; pictorial, true to the heart, a thing of beauty and I'm so pleased to have had a tiny part in it. Please visit Emma and Paul's pages for more wonderful music

http://soundcloud.com/emma-shanley

http://soundcloud.com/paul-sale

Moonlight Shimmers, Dave McKeown with Emma Shanley and Paul Sale

Here is a beautiful song written and performed by http://soundcloud.com/anj-7 from Germany with a few subtle additions by the wonderful Michelle Eaton on piano and myself on clarinet. 

Anjù writes brilliant songs that are simple and direct. There are no pyrotechnics. She manages to imbue them with the deepest of emotions with the pure and intimate tone of her voice and impeccable phrasing and timing. Meanwhile, Michelle just captures the dark melancholy of this song perfectly on the piano. Just such a pleasure for me to be involved with such talent. 

Like the Sea, Dave McKeown with Anjù and Michelle Eaton

Miranda Rondeau ~ the FiveSongs album

Written/performed by Miranda Rondeau 
(w/back up vocals, Tony Moss)
Produced, engineered, mixed, all instruments performed by Joshua Meltzer. 

This Love

Soundcloud Hero Dave McKeown is finally immortalized in a re-imagined Irish Drinking Song.... :)

There once was a lad named Dave McKeown, who lived down by the sea.
Although he was no sailor, down by the sea he be.

He played his pipes for money, he played his pipes for free...
... and after a coupla pints of ale, he’d sing this melody...

Chorus:
Too Rah Loo... Too Rah La....
By the bra of Biddy McGraw...
I am the finest piper-man
this world has ever saw.

One night whilst he was pipin’, he spied a bonny lass.
She stepped down from the bar stool, and handed him a glass.

A brilliant pint of black stuff, but poisoned, doncha’ see?
A piper hatin’ woman... she “kilt” him serially.

Chorus:
Too Rah Loo... Too Rah La....
By the bra of Biddy McGraw...
Murder-ed the best piper...
... the world has ever saw.

No finer wake was given. The whiskey it did flow.
A fight broke out and many a gobshite traded several blows.

Someone threw a noggin’ of whiskey on Dave’s bed....
... it woke him from his slumber, he rose right up and said....

Chorus:
Too Rah Loo... Too Rah La....
By the bra of Biddy McGraw...
What in thunderin’ blazes? Ye thought that I was dead?

Chorus:
Too Rah Loo... Too Rah La....
By the bra of Biddy McGraw...
He is the greatest piper-man..... the world has ever saw!!!!

Dave McKeown: Uilleann Pipes/Whistles
Derek Cornett: Music/Lyrics/Vocals/Guitar
Knickersdown Men's Chorus/Vocals
Special Guest: Father Jack

Note: All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, but not dead in Dave's case is purely coincidental.

McKeownegans Wake (feat. Dave McKeown in a song about Dave McKeown)

The key signatures of music are kind of like the signs of the zodiac. If you take all the music in a given key, you’ll discover certain characteristics —﻿ characteristics that can define your personality.

http://bit.ly/whichkeyareyou

The Signature Series is produced for CBC Radio 2's In Concert by @paolopp with Denise Ball.

E-flat minor: The Eccentric

The key signatures of music are kind of like the signs of the zodiac. If you take all the music in a given key, you’ll discover certain characteristics —﻿ characteristics that can define your personality.

Visit CBC Music to learn more about the characteristics of all the key signatures covered so far. Which key are you? www.cbcmusic.ca/signatureseries

The Signature Series is produced for CBC Radio 2's In Concert by @paolopp with Denise Ball.

B-flat minor: The Wounded Man

I am a working full-time musician, teaching, performing, composing, recording and arranging, and my gigs in the last few years have included jazz combo, big band jazz, folk, Irish traditional, rock, soul, latin, klezmer, funk, orchestral, chamber, minimal techno, musical theatre and more, so, safe to say, I’ll have a go at anything. 

I'm a firm believer in demolishing boundaries between genres, cultures, languages and ultimately people, and Soundcloud is a terrific place where all this can happen.