Remembering Jaimidi on Midsummer's Day

Jaimidi - 2001

13 years ago today , we were involved in a concert for the Summer Solstice.  

Tom and myself, Maria Flynn, Peter Benson and Dermot McQuaid created a band called Jaimidi from an idea of Dermot's to do a concert about the sun. 

The name came from a carving in the old graveyard of a sun god, Jaimidi, and the local legend was that when St Patrick came through this part of Ireland he made a deal with the locals that they could continue worshipping Jaimidi, providing they cut a cross into the stone, which they did.   In this area people would use the mild expletive 'jaimidi junkers   -like jeeny mac.. that sort of thing.

The image from the burial stone was used on the cover of the CD.

Anyway, Maria, Peter, Dermot, Tom and myself got together 8 days earlier and wrote, arranged and rehearsed a concert  - it included pieces to honour the sun - from Sunrise - through the day, Newgrange, Guinevere, Rosebuds in June, Dulaman, Lonely Sky, Burning Times, and through the evening, Evening Falls, Legend, In the Gloaming, to the next morning and an arrangement of Morning from the Peer Gynt Suite which we called Maidin (meaning morning in Irish) and finishing with Here Comes the Sun.  Each piece was prefaced by a piece of poetry or writing.

Here's a few songs from the show:

Maria and I singing In the Gloaming

Maria singing Newgrange - our arrangement of a Clannad song.

Me singing Dulaman - a traditional song from this area about gathering seaweed.

Dermot, aided by Peter and Tom, singing Guinevere, a Crosby Stills and Nash song

Every year we talk about getting together again but it was something that was a beautiful one off - on an evening when the heavens were with us - after part one of our concert, we had a long break, the sun went down and the moon came up right on cue - now that's good organising for you:) 

We recorded the show in one live session a few weeks later (4th July 2001) for a CD which we called The Turning of the Day - I think one or two copies still exist.  

Maria has recently recorded a beautiful album of jazz standards - you'll find her on Facebook.  Peter is part of a wonderful soul band call Cold Porter, also on Facebook and Dermot is a soloist - a brilliant guitarist, fiddler, singer and arranger.

Blessings of the solstice to you all today.  

Do you celebrate mid summer's day? I'd love to hear what you're up to.