A Mel Bay Publications, Inc. Webzine
October 2007 · Bimonthly
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In this issue: Building a Traditional Tune Repertoire: Turkey in the Straw | Jazz Mandology: Alternate Fingerings Part 1 | Beginning Irish Mandolin | Three Generations of Mandolin Players | Interview: Andrew Mowry | Java
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Javaby Paul Oorts A Java is a type of tune that was popular in the middle of the last century and has no relationship to any brand of coffee. It's a type of mazurka with a very heavy beat one, and since it was danced in closed body contact (with the man's hands firmly on the woman's derričre), it was generally considered rather vulgaire. Javas usually didn't have any of the chordal refinement of the musette style, but a very infectious "primal" beat. This is still a popular tune among diatonic accordion players in France. Click to hear Java 
About the Author Paul Oorts started his musical career in his native Belgium playing the flügelhorn in the village band of the small town in which he grew up. During the late seventies he learned to play guitar, bass, and 5-string banjo in the vibrant folk scene of Antwerp, then a magnet for buskers of all feathers. He first picked up a mandolin while living in Italy and got his first decent instrument just before he moved to the US in 86 and traded in his upright (which was rather hard to take on the plane…). During graduate school in PA he started playing for contradances, and got interested in the hammered dulcimer, which would lead him to a lifetime friendship and collaboration with Steve Schneider (with whom he recorded an album called "Momentum") and to a marriage and musical partnership with Karen Ashbrook. Their "Celtic Café" is an exploration of the connections between Celtic and Continental music, and they perform at festivals across the country. Moving to the DC area allowed him to explore the world of the mandolin orchestras and to become a semi-professional musician, playing in a variety of dance bands and teaching mandolin, cittern, and guitar privately. He has been on faculty at the Augusta Heritage Center (WV) the Swannanoa Gathering (NC), Common Ground on the Hill (MD), Pinewoods (MA), Hill County Acoustic Music Camp (TX), and the Volksmuziekstage in Gooik (Belgium). His most regular gig is teaching French and Italian at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore. [ top ]
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