f44 Fiddle Travels
His new Quartet, The Gloaming, duo and solo work are just a few things keeping East Clare fiddle master Martin Hayes more than busy. But, he tells Colin Irwin, ‘I’ve never been more excited.’
A
nd for his latest trick… Martin Hayes’ role in Irish music has rightly long been held in a level of esteem that borders on reverence. He grew up
steeped in the rich traditional music her- itage of East Clare, learning his fiddle art from the age of seven in the strict tempo environment of the Tulla Céilí Band, the legendary dance band founded by his father PJ Hayes along with his uncle Paddy Canny, also widely regarded as one of Ireland’s greatest fiddle players and featured on one of the very first commer- cial recordings of Irish music – All Ireland Champions: Violin – in 1959.
The story since has been wide-rang-
ing and far-reaching, incorporating some dodgy Celtic rock and American bar bands along the way before a road-to- Damascus revelation when he questioned his whole approach and, overnight, gave up meat and alcohol and decided to dis- pense with all extraneous artifice, strip the music back to its barest bones and start all over again. “I needed to decipher the deeper musical aspirations of the older musicians I’d known and get to the heart of this music,” he says.
The results since have been extraordi-
nary, as he has developed a mesmerising style that sucks you in to lead you inex- orably with him through the transfixing contours of the emotional journeys he makes, virtually all of them in company with his great friend and fellow traveller, the Chicago guitarist Dennis Cahill, with whom he once played in the electric band Midnight Court in the late eighties.
All this and – along the way – collab- orations with the likes of Paul Simon and Sting, chamber orchestras, a perfor- mance at the White House for President Obama and more awards than he knows what to do with.
Hayes and Cahill are both now mem- bers of The Gloaming, the groundbreak- ing band formed in 2014 with the great sean-nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, Dublin fiddle and Hardanger fiddle player Caoimhin Ó Raghallaigh and American pianist Thomas Bartlett (aka Doveman), blending the Irish tradition with jazz, rock,
contemporary classical music and many points beyond to great acclaim. Based in Ireland, America and Spain, the logistics of getting that little lot together on a regular basis must alone be the catalyst for a thou- sand headaches, but, happy to complicate things even further, Hayes has now launched a brand new project – the Martin Hayes Quartet.
Typically, this finds him exploring ever new fields, alongside Dennis Cahill, New York violinist and viola player Liz Knowles and bass clarinettist Doug Wieselman in a fluid assortment of tunes rooted in the Irish tradition, yet invested with such playfulness, intrigue and unlikely tributaries that the music defies categorisation. Recorded in front of a log fire in the idyllic environment of Bantry House in Co. Cork in the extreme south- west of Ireland, their debut album The Blue Room is a beautiful thing – there was a track on fRoots 67 – which further enhances Martin’s reputation as a natural and inspirational innovator.
“I wouldn’t say I’ve been spending all these years yearning to play with a bass clarinet,” he says when you ask him about this latest leap of faith. “It wasn’t like, ‘Hey, let’s get bass clarinet involved in Irish music.’ But it just so happened that I ran into Doug [who was playing in the house band in New York for Philip King’s Other Voices series in 2011]. I walked past him to my chair at the centre of the stage without even noticing what instrument he was playing but, as I started to play, I heard the sound of the bass clarinet coming over my right shoulder and it felt like the powerful rhythm of those set dancers I knew so long ago. I enjoyed playing with him, while he and Dennis really seemed to groove well together, so it all made sense to me.
“It’s not the fact that he plays bass clar-
inet that’s important, it’s more to do with how he grooves and plays with me and Dennis, improvising and outlining the lines Dennis plays on guitar. It’s not a huge bass instrument – it’s fast-moving and nifty, much faster than a double bass or cello.”
He’s known Liz Knowles since his days in Chicago and long admired her viola and violin playing. She’s well-known as an early
music and baroque classical musician and composer, but has extensive knowledge and experience of traditional music also. “I like working with musicians who have an expanded knowledge of music and when they also know Irish traditional music, that is a big advantage. I knew that Liz would bring a whole other range of textures and colours and ideas to the table.”
She also brought with her the Hardan- ger fiddle, an instrument that also fea- tures prominently in The Gloaming in the hands of Caoimhin Ó Raghallaigh. “I can’t get away from it!” he laughs. “Not that I’d want to… she very timidly sent me an email and asked if it would be alright to bring it and I said, ‘why not?’”
Blue Room album was the result. He describes it as “an act of trust that the musical knowledge and background of each individual would eventually coalesce into a coherent sound.”
S Indeed it did…
“We just had some rough sketches and ideas and thought we would see what would happen and figure out if we could create something interesting. It was a learning process for us. We just sat in a cir- cle and played – there was no over-dub- bing at all and a good part of the record- ing is almost free-form. The rhythms are an important part of it, but we’re still in the beginnings of something. I think the sound keeps traditional Irish music at its centre with elements of chamber and jazz music; it doesn’t fall easily into any one category, but is more the confluence of four different musical backgrounds.”
The tunes – Tommy People’s Reel and
Paddy Fahy’s Reel in particular – honour a couple of his heroes. “I’m not sure if I’ve ever made a recording where I didn’t play one of Paddy Fahy’s tunes – I’ve always loved his music, it’s so elegant.”
So what pulls you to a certain tune?
“It has to emotionally speak to me on some level. Irish tunes have melodic struc-
o they gathered in the blue room at Bantry, got cosy around the fire and, with very little pre- preparation, just sat together and played for two days. The
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148
