Concert Review—

Fortune Smiles Again For Those Who Love Traditional Irish Music

By Andrew Carey

Tuned to the same notes as a fiddle, but an octave lower, the plucked tenor banjo is far from unknown as a doubling instrument for Irish fiddlers. Nor is it uncommon for banjoists to have a knowledge of the fiddle. That said, there are few musicians whose commands of fiddle and banjo is equally strong and at an equally high level.

John Carty, a London-born All Ireland Champion who now resides in his ancestral County Roscommon, is a prime specimen of this rare breed. The Fairfield-based Shamrock Irish Traditional Music Society (STIMS) brought him to Newtown Meeting House for a concert on July 25 that also, by good fortune, proved to be the loveliest and breeziest Friday evening of the month of July.

John Blake, another product of London’s strong Irish scene and now living in Galway, is one of the most sought after guitarists in traditional music today and the only accompanist to have ever been a runner-up for The Irish Echo’s “Young Musician of the Year.” He is also a fine flute player, as those of us know who attended his concert with former Danú fiddler Jesse Smith this spring in Stamford. Unfortunately he had a cold last Friday and was unable to blow a note. Fortunately, his strong and subtle guitar playing was unaffected.

After a brief introduction from STIMS’ Gregg Burnett, Mr Carty, on fiddle, and Mr Blake kicked off the evening at the Newtown Meeting House with a pair of jigs, “Road to Clonmel” and “Johnny goes to the Fair.” A pair of nameless reels followed, one learnt from Matt Molloy, flutist with the legendary Chieftains and perhaps the best-known Irish pub-keeper on the planet, and the other from an old record made by the Castle Céilí Band, one of the first ensembles to bring together musicians from different musical regions of Ireland.

Polkas are usually associated in Irish music with County Kerry and nearby locales in the southwest of the country, within the borders of the ancient province of Munster, but John Carty has recently taken to playing the lesser known polkas from his home region of North Connaught. If the set played at the meeting house is typical, these polkas are more wayward than Kerry’s, the solid one-two polka rhythm taken a little sideways with the swinging Sligo-style lilt and joined to a melodic wildness more often found in slipjigs or slides.

Although Mr Carty’s region produced noted fiddlers during the first half of the 20th Century, it is, he said, today better supplied with strong fluters. From one of these, Patsy Hanley, came the reel “Major Moran’s,” which has “nothing to do with the military and everything to do with a man named Moran who smoked Major cigarettes,” it was explained.

Hornpipes were next on the agenda, and “Bellharbour” was paired with “Harp and Shamrock,” the latter named for composer Pat Crowley’s parents’ pub in Kinsale, County Cork. Always tasteful, fluid and complex without overshadowing the melodic line, Mr Blake’s guitar work in the DADGAD tuning was particularly nice on this set.

Mr Carty and Mr Blake showed their ability to respectfully place their own stamp on the tradition with renditions of classic tunes like “Navvy on the Line,” “Maudabawn Chapel,” and the archetypal Sligo fiddler Michael Coleman’s “Munster Buttermilk” and “Kitty’s Rambles.” The first half ended with a set of tunes composed by or associated with Paddy Killoran, also a Sligo man and a younger contemporary of Coleman’s on the thriving New York Irish scene of the 1920s and 30s.

Mr Carty’s tenor banjo came out of the corner after the break, much to the delight of the banjoists and mandolinists in the audience. A long set of mixed tunes popularized by the Kilfenora Céilí Band, a County Clare institution since the Forties, included the session favorite “Morrison’s Jig” and the reel “The Sailor on the Rock.”

Mr Blake’s accompaniment fit as well to the plangent tone of the banjo as to the bowed notes of the fiddle, while Mr Carty’s firm picking and balanced ornamentation never degenerated into the slather of tune-obscuring overdecoration which the banjo, with its swiftly decaying sound and need for constant movement, all too easily invites.

“Hayes’ Favourite” opened a set of barndances, played in the style of the Twenties when the banjo first crossed over from jazz and ragtime into Irish music. Barndances are often forgotten amid the plethora of jigs and reels and hornpipes and slides, and it was nice to hear them given a whole set.

John Blake’s sturdy backing, trading off between alternating bass notes and short runs under steady chording, gave the impression of the era’s foursquare piano accompaniment without sacrificing any of the guitar’s natural fluidity or the melodic sensibility of contemporary Irish accompaniment.

The banjo’s turn in the spotlight finished with “The Moving Cloud” and “Richard Campbell’s,” a pair of tunes Mr Carty described as “showpiece reels.” Returning to the fiddle, he launched into “John McHugh’s Jig,” from County Mayo, then headed southward to County Clare for “Dinny Delaney’s,” a tune learnt off a tape of the whistle-player Micho Russell.

Paddy Killoran, Mr Carty said, is one of his heroes, and, while he never heard Mr Killoran play “The Sailor’s Bonnet,” he always approaches this gem of the Sligo repertory with the Killoran style in mind.

If I were forced to pick a single finest tune of the evening, this reel would be the one. I’m sure I’m not the only musician in the audience who from now on will be trying to approach “The Sailor’s Bonnet” with John Carty and John Blake in mind.

“Seanamhac Tube Station” is one of Mr Carty’s own compositions, and the name, he said, is a joke, imagining a remote place near where his parents were born as a stop on the London Underground.

“I’ll never write a tune with such a daft name again,” he declared, but one hopes he’ll write a few more with such a lovely sound to them.

Introducing the reel “Jim Donoghue’s,” as the last tune of the official schedule, Mr Carty thanked Mr Burnett and STIMS for their hospitality and complimented volunteer Tim Quinn’s work on the sound. The audience demanded an encore, and a lovely evening closed with “Jackie Coleman’s” and the classic “Dowd’s Favourite.”