Musicians from the Irish-American and London-Irish communities are bringing an extraordinary level of creativity and a distinct understanding of the roots of the music to Irish trad, writes Siobhán Long.
If there's even a grain of truth in the biblical suggestion that the prophet is often not recognised in his own land, then what of the soothsayer who brings pearls of wisdom from afar? Irish traditional music has never been short of local champions to defend its honour. From Sliabh Luachra fiddle legend Pádraig O'Keeffe to Naul piper Seamus Ennis, to Liam O'Flynn, Seamus Begley and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, the tradition has been borne high by musicians who've lived, breathed and slept with the music from the cradle.
Lately, though, the signs are that the tradition is in the gift not just of musicians whose roots are firmly planted on home turf, but of those whose formative years have been spent at a distance from the source. Slowly and stealthily, musicians from Irish-American and London-Irish communities in particular have pulled their chairs up to the hearth, bringing with them an extraordinary level of creativity and often, a distinct understanding of the roots of the music.
At a time when Ireland grapples with the challenges of multiculturalism, its traditional musicians are drawn from far and near, and some of those who've travelled furthest are bringing it all back home with an incisiveness born of years spent listening to the music from afar.
Eliot Grasso - piper Baltimore, Maryland
Eliot Grasso is that rare breed: born and bred in Baltimore, Maryland, he's recently recorded a CD of solo piping at the invitation of Na Píobairí Uilleann (the Pipers Club). A 24-year-old virtuoso player who talks of Irish piping with the enthusiasm that most of his peers might reserve for Big Brother or Chelsea, Grasso brings an exceptional commitment to traditional Irish music, yet his family ties to Ireland are relaxed, stretching as far back as his maternal great great grandmother.
"Music goes back in my family throughout the generations," Grasso offers, on the phone from his home in Oregon where he's awaiting enrolment on a PhD programme at the University of Oregon. He's recently graduated from the University of Limerick's Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, where he completed a master's degree in ethnomusicology, focusing on the history of piping teaching methods from the 18th century to today.
He has little difficulty putting his finger on what it was that lured him to Irish music in particular.
"I'd say it was the gorgeous melodies," he offers laconically, "and the driving rhythms. I was never attracted to listening to any other music, apart from western classical music - Bach, Mozart, and so on. I guess I never really listened to any kind of music that I didn't intend to try to play. It was really my first musical language."
The Irish-American musical milieu of his childhood is undoubtedly conservative, Grasso suggests, yet he finds this reassuring. "I don't know if it's due to the immigrant mentality, but Irish music in the US is probably more like what it was when it was played in Ireland back in the 1950s and 60s. I think I'm a conservatively minded musician, and I don't consider adding to an already very rich and outstanding repertoire by writing tunes as breaking the mould. I would rather write music that people would mistake for being really old than for them to say: 'Oh Eliot Grasso wrote that - how new and interesting.' "
Grasso's personal heroes are two pipers who taught him when he first visited Ireland during the summer of 1995. "That was when I met Robbie Hannon and Seán Óg Potts for the very first time," he recalls. "That revolutionised my understanding of the pipes and music in general. I got two daily lessons with these masters, and to have a relationship with them that was friendly and amiable was like a dream come true. It was so wonderful to find out that these brilliant musicians were down to earth - that made me love the music all the more."
Emmett Gill - piper, London
Emmett Gill, a Londoner now resident in Dublin, has also recently released a solo piping CD, The Mountain Groves. Born of first-generation London-Irish parents, he acknowledges that growing up in a multicultural city such as
London meant that he was exposed to a wide range of vibrant music, though mostly he chose to seek out Irish traditional music wherever he could.
"With all the immigration [from Ireland] that was going on around 1983 and 1984, I was able to listen to an awful lot of good musicians first hand," Gill says. "My mum plays concertina and she bought everything that came out commercially, and as well as listening to those, it was natural for pipers to pass on home recordings among each other.
"That's how a lot of tunes came my way. I have a lot of older friends who are musicians too, who guided me towards the good stuff," he says. "I love sharing tunes with my friends too, because it's all part of the experience of playing. If I sit down with Harry Bradley [Belfast flute player] or Jesse Smith [Baltimore fiddler], we spend as much time talking about tunes and players as we do playing tunes, to be honest."
John Blake - Flute player and guitarist, London
Flute player and guitarist John Blake shares Emmet Gill's London-Irish background. "There was no getting away from music in a place as culturally diverse as London," Blake says. "I started playing Irish music around the age of seven or eight and a lot of my friends played too, so I wasn't the odd one out. It certainly wasn't 'cool' at the time - Riverdance hadn't happened yet - but we were by no means outcasts."
Like Eliot Grasso, Blake believes that his expatriate roots probably informed his essentially conservative attitude to traditional music.
"In London, our experience of traditional music was purely organic, in that there was no commercial interest. We happened to meet players like Brian Rooney and Roger Sherlock in pubs, and we were influenced by their playing, but there was no wash of commercialism there. What we relied upon for our traditional music upbringing was the immediate people in our locality, and the odd album or sneaky tape that we managed to get our hands on.
"Because we were brought up in this way - which I hate to call 'purist', I think it's just an organic exposure to the music - we weren't exposed to the likes of Micheál Ó Suilleabháin and other progressive musicians who were playing here in Ireland. The difference between London and Ireland at that time was very stark, and to be honest, I was disappointed by these developments because I saw them as an aside to what I was interested in. That's not to say they're not very interesting musically, but under the umbrella of Irish traditional music, I just didn't think it was the right context for it. Now, living in Ireland, I enjoy that music by times, when it's done for sincere reasons, but too often it's commercially driven, and devoid of soul. It's purely to make a buck. I certainly wouldn't want musicians who are starting out to use it as a jumping off point."
Audience reaction is tangibly different in London to what it can be here in Ireland, Blake suggests. Whether that's due to the jaded palates of the Irish audiences, spoilt by the ready availability of sessions, or whether it might have something to do with the more discerning ear of the London Irish is a moot point, Blake suggests.
"In Ireland, there are folk clubs with select audiences who are very discerning listeners," he offers, "and then you have the festivals where people often go purely to be entertained. That's not to say traditional music can't be entertaining, but in London, traditional music audiences come to the gig expecting to be impressed, and until they are impressed, they don't pay a lot of heed, to be quite honest. If John Carty (widely revered London-Irish fiddle and banjo player, now living in Roscommon) was playing in London tomorrow to a room of 200 people, there would be 100 people down the back talking and having a pint, and when John would play a nice variation on a tune, all of a sudden they'd turn around and listen. They're very picky. I've experienced the same thing in America, where they're incredibly informed, and that's starting to translate into American-born musicians not necessarily of Irish origin playing Irish traditional music today."
Jesse Smith - fiddler, Baltimore, Maryland
Jesse Smith, like Eliot Grasso, was also born in Baltimore. Resident in Ireland for the past 10 years, Smith has built himself a cast-iron reputation as a fiddle player, initially through playing with Danú.
These days he favours solo or small ensemble playing, choosing, for the most part, tunes from the lesser-known masters (such as Chicago-born fiddler Johnny McGreevy and Leitrim flute player John McKenna), gleaned from old cylinder recordings and home tapes. His mother, Los Angeles-born Donna Long, plays piano and fiddle with Cherish The Ladies.
Pub sessions, a linchpin of the tradition here, were an alien experience for Smith while growing up in Baltimore.
"There wasn't a pub session culture where I was growing up," he recounts, "but there was always music sessions and parties in our house. That's my big memory: musicians passing through our house all the time."
As for the thorny question of whether he can make a living from the music that's lured him across the Atlantic, Smith is nothing if not sanguine.
"You can get stale when you're gigging and playing the same tunes all the time - when you have to do it," he suggests. "I think the music's definitely more enjoyable when you can just pick it up when you want, or play a session once or twice a week. It would be nice to make some money out of it as well of course, but I can't figure out any way to do that. The little bit I tried, it didn't seem like it worked very well!"