This just in! --

New England Dancing Masters, a collaboration of folks who teach traditional music and dance in New England, have produced a cd called "Any Jig or Reel", designed for dancing to. The musicians are fiddler Becky Tracy (of Wild Asparagus and Nightingale), Andy Davis on accordion (one of the New England Dance Masters, as well as the seasonal music group Nowell Sing We Clear), and Keith Murphy of Nightingale and Assembly/Popcorn Behavior on piano, guitar, and foot percussion. I've not heard it, but it's sure to be just the thing, if you have to do contras to recorded music.

The NEDM Chimes of Dunkirk and Listen to the Mockingbird recordings were also made for classroom use, including a nice mix of 32-bar jigs and reels, as well as some other more specific tunes. These I've used many times.

Highly recommended for actually dancing to. I'm ordering the new one today; style-wise, the new one with Becky and Keith may be slightly more interesting than the first two, which are pretty straight (not that that's a problem, just different).

You can probably order directly, or talk to Dick of CAMSCO.

~ Becky in Tucson