Companion CD for Book 2

This recording is a companion CD for the tune book, The Portland Collection: Contra Dance Music in the Pacific Northwest, Volume 2. Musicians George Penk, Clyde Curley, and Sue Songer, have played for contra dances in Portland and throughout the Northwest for decades. On this recording, they bring the music from the pages of The Portland Collection, Volume 2 to life with rhythms and stylings that pop out while playing for dances’ nuances of music that are difficult to convey in the pages of a tune book. The tunes on the recording are a cross section of the tunes in the book and represent the different genres and sources of contra dance music. There is a mix of both traditional and recently composed tunes as well as popular standards and tunes that have not been recorded before. Most of the music on the recording is arranged in dance-type medleys and played at dance speed. However, some of the tracks are played slowly with broader variation than is possible at dances and may suggest ways of approaching the music outside a contra dance setting.