I've heard a few albums that featured Boston-based fiddler Nathan Gourley in various configurations in the past, but somehow 2016's Copley Street eluded my attention. If the liner notes are any indication, the residence at the address in question had some meaningful associations for the musicians and their significant others back then, and much has changed in the meantime; those who knew them then can catch up on those developments in the liner notes.

In any case, it's not really clear on the CD, or on their website, or on Bandcamp or Amazon or other services where the music can be found, if "Copley Street" is just an album title or also the name under which the musicians perform. I imagine that they, like so many Irish and Irish-adjacent musicians in the past, have simply become associated with their first album, and henceforth that is the name by which they will forever be known. (I believe bands such as Altan and Patrick Street, among diverse others, can lay claim to such naming accidents.)

Here, Gourley is teamed with Joey Abarta, an uilleann piper of some note, who, judging by the Copley Street website, is definitely part of the band. I'm not sure whether the third person on the album, Owen Marshall, is a member of the band or if he just hangs out in their studio a lot.

On their previous recording, Copley Street, the musicians were credited as Nathan Gourley and Joey Abarta, with Owen Marshall, while on Copley Street 2 they are listed as Nathan Gourley, Joey Abarta, and Owen Marshall. Make of the altered word choice what you will. Perhaps notably, the liner notes don't tell you what Marshall plays, and he is not mentioned on the Copley Street website (beyond seeing his name listed on the album credits). We'll just have to trust the back cover photo that shows him holding a bouzouki, since his solo website indicates he also plays guitar, mandolin and banjo. Perhaps he simply enjoys cultivating an air of mystery.

Enough about that. Let's listen to the music.

It's excellent, by the way.

Copley Street 2 is what happens when you sit three extremely talented musicians down and set them loose on a whole mess of tunes. They blast through 14 tracks filled to the brim with 33 or so jigs, reels, hornpipes, marches, slides and planxties. Their playing is tight and seamless, obviously forged through long familiarity with both the music and each other. It sounds to my ear more like a polished jam session among friends than an over-rehearsed studio recording ... but, of course, it can also be both.

In any case, this is how Irish and Scottish traditional music should be played -- with joy, with friends and, one hopes, with a pint or shot glass on the table close by. I could listen to this kind of playing all day.

[ visit Copley Street online ]