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September 2009

Music

How New York Got Its Pride

Paul Keating can’t take credit for the amassed talent of the super ceili group, “Pride of New York,” but maybe he can take credit for the name.

It happened that in 2005, all four of what Keating now calls “the PONY people”—flute and whistle whiz Joanie Madden, fiddler Brian Conway, button box player Billy McComiskey, and pianist Brendan Dolan—were at the Catskills Irish Arts Week, where Keating is the artistic director.

“When I knew all four of them were there together, I wanted to put them on the stage for the Thursday night concert,” he recalls. “I’d had a lot of experience with them, and I knew they had a style of music that was spot on for dancing, with rhythms and comfort levels and a certain spirit and lift that was natural. I introduced them as the Pride of New York Ceili Band. I figured it was an appropriate name.”

The PONY people wowed the Catskills crowd, of course—how could they not?—but that concert marked the beginning of something bigger.

They came back and played again the next year, Keating said, and soon began looking for more opportunities to perform together. It wasn’t that they were strangers to the idea, after all. Keating recalls Joanie, Billy and Brian playing together with Brendan’s father Felix at the Eagle Tavern in Greenwich Village about 1989. Even then, he says, they had a “special sound.”

But this was something else. It was a concept that soon took on a life of its own. Not long after their 2006 Catskills performance, they landed a gig at the Irish American Community Center in East Haven, Connecticut. They played again at Lewisburg in County Mayo, and again at Lincoln Center’s outdoor dance series.

“It became clear that they really liked playing together,” says Keating. “I thought they should be documented—they should be recorded.”

With some grant proposal-writing help from Peter Brice, one of Billy’s students, funding for the project started to come together. Soon, the four were taking time out of their separately quite busy schedules to occasionally meet and record at Joanie’s home studio. The goal was to have a CD ready to go in time for launch at the 2009 Catskills festival.

“I encouraged them,” Keating says. I said that if you would do this, this would easily be the centerpiece of Catskills Irish Arts Week. We all agreed it was the right thing to do.

“They plodded ahead. They knew the end game would be to have it ready in time. They met the deadline.

“It was really an ambitious poject, but then again it wasn’t. This style of music and their respect for it is just second nature for them. they had exposure to the best players who came from Ireland to New York. They all mentored with people who came deeply from the well of traditional music. They had a heart and soul that went into the music, they developed a great respect for where the music came from. It stayed with them.

“They were also coming along at a time when there was a lot more comfidence and pride associated with the music. The music scene was evolving in part because of them, and around them. They kind of had this brash attitude toward it, and their music came across that way.”

Keating, naturally enough, is hugely proud of the band and the recording. “You have expectations,” he says, “but when they go beyond that, it’s especially satisfying.”

September 3, 2009 by
Music

Review: Pride of New York

It’s just a brace of reels, a smattering of hornpipes, a few jigs, a set of marches, and an air. But that’s like saying the Empire State Building is just a steel skeleton and a stack of bricks.

Like the famous Fifth Avenue landmark, the new CD, “Pride of New York,” is a towering achievement in its own right.

Just consider the musicians who make up this killer ceili band: Joanie Madden on flute and whistle, Brian Conway on fiddle, Billy McComiskey on button accordion, and Brendan Dolan on piano. Toss in essays by Catskills Irish Arts Week artistic director Paul Keating, journalist Earle Hitchner and Baltimore Singers Club director Peter Brice, with tune notes by the percusssionist Myron Bretholtz. It all adds up to a memorable, very nearly flawless Irish traditional recording that is not only one of the best of the year, but probably one of the best of any year.

“Pride of New York” is pure dance music. Yes, I know it’s supposed to be dance music. But not all modern American Irish music invites people to put down their beers, get up out of their chairs and dance. But with Brendan Dolan laying down the delicate rhythms, it’s all too easy to envision folks whirling about the hardwood floor, feet stamping, whoops of unbridled joy.

Each of the artists is well-known individually, but here they come together as a solid, perfectly harmonious group. There’s a cohesiveness that is possible only when individual motivations are set aside and the music moves to the fore. Again, it all sounds blindingly obvious, but there’s a world of difference between a mere assemblage of prodigies and a band. Make no mistake: this is a band.

Which is not to say that there are not standout individual performances. Not to emphasize one contribution over all the others, but Dolan’s sure and confident hand is what makes “Pride of New York” a ceili band. His entry on one set of jigs, Happy Days/Boys of the Lough Gowna/The Knights of St. Patrick, and again on the introduction to a set of slip jigs, Redican’s Mother (The Barony)/The Bridal/Humours of Whiskey, shows him at his best, setting not a merely metronomic cadence but playing with great expression—light, airy and musical.

Joanie, who plays flute on most of the tunes, offers up a memorable tin whistle performance of the haunting air Slán le Máigh. She makes a dime store instrument sound symphonic. You’ll tap your feet to McComiskey’s accordion on a brisk set of reels, Mulhaire’s #9/Grandpa Tommy’s Ceili Band. Conway sets a masterful pace on a set of hornpipes, The Stage/The Fiddler’s Contest/The High Level.

I’m not a fan of waltzes generally—to me, they have too much of a “man on the flying trapeze” quality to them—but the band’s performance of Sean McGlynn’s Waltz shows “Pride of New York” at its most impressive. There’s a gentle lift to this tune, contrasted with some seriously complex but deftly played melody. I promise I didn’t think about the circus, even once.

Though it seems unfair that the Big Apple should play host to so many monuments, you can add this recording to New York’s trove of treasures.

September 3, 2009 by
Columns, How to Be Irish in Philly

How to Be Irish in Philly This Week

What could be better to bring summer to a close than an Irish festival? We can’t think of anything.

 Well, there’s one this Sunday at Brittingham’s Irish Pub in Lafayette Hill. Headlining is a great local group, Paddy’s Well, with the Bogside Rogues, Olive McElhone and Jamison on hand, along with bagpipers, dancers, vendors and pipes and drums. It being Brittingham’s there’s also great food (burgers, dogs and barbecue chicken—andyou don’t even have to fire up the grill!) and beer. It’s cheap too—only $10 for all day.

 The plays “The Bros.Flanagan” and “Trad” are on stage at Fergie’s Irish Pub and the Amaryllis at the Adrienne in Center City respectively. They’re part of the Philly LiveArts and Fringe Festivals.

 On Tuesday, have a beer with Dr. Lew Losoncy, a motivational psychologist and author of “Early Poppers: The Secrets of Self-Starters”—and no, it’s not about hot pepper appetizers—at McGillins Old Ale House in Center City. It’s all part of McGillin’s 150th birthday celebration. Losoncy cites a longtime McGillins’ employee, John Doyle, as a superstar of customer service in his book.

 Also on Tuesday night, spend “An Evening with Sean Tyrell” at Villanova University’s Connolly Center. This award-winning Irish folk singer will share both his music and his poetry with the audience.

 Starting on Thursday night, the Philadelphia Ceili Group Irish Music Festival will showcase dozens of musicians and provide workshops for everyone who wants to hone their skills (or learn a little about genealogy) through Saturday night (very, very late). There will be dancing, vendors, food and drink, and lots of great music.

 On Friday, the annual Green Lane Scottish Irish Festival kicks off a weekend of all things Celtic (even some Gaelic football!) at Green Lane Park in Green Lane.

So you can begin and end your week with festivals. But don’t get fesitvaled out. There’s more to come: Mt. Holly, Bethlehem, and North Wildwood in the next few weeks.

September 3, 2009 by
Music

It’s Ceili Group Festival Time!

Although the Philadelphia Ceili Group Irish Music Festival lost its long-time director, Frank Malley, this year to cancer, the show that must go on is going on in his honor.

 And, says his daughter Courtney Malley, his spirit will be all over it. Singer’s Circle, for example, will be moving from Thursday  to Friday night, a prime spot. “Dad and I are singers, that’s our big passion, so it’s going to be a fun night,” says Malley, who is a co-chair of this year’s festival.

 On Saturday, the emphasis will be on education. “My Dad was a natural-born teacher. He taught us the tradition, how to run festivals, do it on a shoe-string, find the manpower, and to be nice to the volunteers so they come back year after year,” she says.

 There will be workshops on genealogy, sean nos singing, dancing, and instruction and showcases on a variety of instruments, from the whistle to the harp.

 “In past years, we’ve really focused on more local musicians and we’re doing that this year too,” she says.

 Piper and flutist Tim Britton, who grew up in the Philadelphia area, will be back from his new home in Iowa for a concert on Thursday night and will be playing the whole weekend. (If you’re hankering for some new uillean pipes, you might want to talk to him. He’s one of the leading makers of these smaller, sweeter-sounding pipes.)

 On Friday, the singers will include locals Rosaleen McGill, Terry Kane, and Matt Ward, along with County Armagh singer Len Graham and all-Ireland ballad champ Brian Hart of St. Louis,who was the first American to win the title—and the youngest person ever. Graham, who was Ireland’s Traditional Singer of the Year in 2002, has been singing and recording for more than 30 years. He was one of the Irish singers featured in the Smithsonian’s 2007 Folklife Festival tribute to Northern Ireland. (He actually gave a concert at the Library of Congress. No one said, “Shhhhh!”) There will be a session afterwards, so bring your instrument and lilting voice.

 The ever-popular McGillian Family—some combination of patriarch Kevin, sons Jimmy and John, and perhaps Mary–will provide the music for the Friday night ceili dance.

 Saturday’s workshops will certainly be punctuated with music and there will be vendors and food. That evening, our out-of-town visitors Len Graham, Brian Hart, and Hart’s group, BUA, will share the stage with a new local trad group, Cruinn, featuring singer Rosaleen McGill. Also on hand—two remarkable fiddlers: Pairac Keane, who hails from Dublin and is the son of Chieftans’ fiddler Sean Keane, and six-year-old Haley Richardson from New Jersey, who won first place at the Mid-Atlantic Fleadh Choil (Music Contest) in Pearl River, NY.

 And at 10 PM, all the chairs will be shoved aside in the Fireside Room for an old-fashioned Irish house party—music, dancing, and whatever else happens—all in honor of the late Frank Malley, who sang and danced and enjoyed whatever else happened.

You’ll want to be there. 

Buy tickets here.  

Here’s the way it looked in past years. 

 

Here are the workshops:

From noon until 2PM onSeptember 12th, attend workshops with

Brian O’hAairt (Sean Nos Singing/InIrish)

Sean Gavin (Uillean Pipes)

Chris Bain (Beginning Fiddle)

Len Graham(History of Ulster)

Brian Miller (DADGAD Guitar)

Josh Dukes (Flute)

TerryKane (Irish Language)

John Shields & Cass Tinney (Ceili/Set Dancing).

From3 until 5PM, attend workshops with:

Len Graham (Singing in English)

Sean Gavin(Tin Whistle)

Chris Bain (Intermediate Fiddle)

Will Hill (Genealogy)

BrianMiller (Accompanying Irish Music)

Josh Dukes (Bodhran)

Ellen Tepper (IrishHarp)

Brian O’hAirt (Sean Nos Dancing).

September 3, 2009 by