James posted this thread partly in response to what he perceived as not so positive experiences of sessions expressed by some people, including myself in the thread:
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=21523
Unfortunately he left that thread well before, after venting frustrations with some session experiences, the thread took a positive turn.
In the other thread I said something like ‘sessions are a by-product of music making but to me playing in sessions not the aim of playing music’. I enjoy playing with other people, I prefer to play in duet settings or threes or fours, over that too much nuance gets lost to make playing in such a setting satisfying in the long term. Piping as well as most other playing is at it’s best done solo. On the short term it can be fun though. A good night of music can leave you walking on air for days. And someone walking in ruining it by sheer ignorance or incompetence can leave you grumpy for days too. But that’s the way.
I live in a place where there is great music all around. For example on last Saturday night the usual session in Friel’s was on with Brid Donoghue and Bernadette McCarthy playing, Young Tommy McCarthy dropped in, over from Boston, to play with his sister and Brid. Sean McNamara, fiddler and long time leader of the Liverpool ceiliband was there as well as some other local musicians. A pretty common session for around here. During the night though Sharon Shannon walked in to play and soon after her Matt Molloy and Sean Keane crammed into the (tiny) kitchen and there was wild music into the early hours. It is an environment where you get a slightly different outlook on sessions than your average US player who frequents this forum. Sorry James, but that’s the way it is.
As for myself, there’s one session I play in regularly (and a few I go to when the mood takes me and there are people I sit down wit hat home or other occasions). It is in Gleeson’s of Coore and I have been there every Sunday night (bar nights given to travel abroad, bereavement and hospitlisation etc ). This is a session that has been in place from 1978. While the history of the house goes back 124 years. It was a session started by Junior Crehan and local musicians. A country pub, the music catered for dancers as much as for listeners. The fort was held for a long time by Junior and his compatriots, Josie Hayes on flute, Michael Downes, Paddy Galvin, Pat Kelly, and Mickie Cleary. Affectionately known as ‘dad’s Army’ and sometimes with less reverence ‘the stiff six’.
(photo: Barry Taylor)
Over the years just about ‘everybody’ darkened the door of the pub t oplay a few tunes, there were no ‘stars’ inside, the session was always an open one with a place for every decent player.
Old age and death diminished the original group and several musicians took seats in the core group of the session. I was invited in by junior in 1997, after Tommy Munnelly let the word out I was a piper (after moving to Clare I went to listen to Junior play every week, keeping to myself, absorbing the music). playing just the C pipes I took to the tinwhsitle as my instrument for playing out.
After Junior died in 1998 the session was reshaped, Jackie Daly had just moved into the area and he became the session’s new anchor, while other accordeonplayers like Conor Keane and more recently Josephine Marsh have filled the seat while Jackie was away on tour. During the same time, playing the pipes, I developed a duet and great friendship with local concertinaplayer Kitty Hayes, who went back to concertinaplaying during the early 90’s after being away from playing for 45 years. We thoroughly enjoy playing together, complementing eachothers playing . Jackie asked us to do an appearances on most nights for the past five years or so, the two of us playing in C. We’ve become a feature of the session I suppose.
The session is an open session but it’s not a free for all, Jackie has his own inimitable way of setting the program, on busy nights the core of the session is playing on a small stage joined by guests with more room for guests around the stage. Instruments vary, the accordeon aside there’s usually at least one flute, a fiddle and one or two concertinas, I play the whistle in this group. On occasion the session grows to around ten, rarely over though especially during the summer large groups occasionally have been known to play (one time Catherine McEvoy arrived with some twenty or thirty pupils, that was a big night with musicians in every corner). The core group aside, you never know who might walk through the door.
During the night usually a few sets are danced, the musicians ofcourse providing the music, occasionally visiting step dancers do a step or two. After playing music singers are usually called upon for a few lines of a song.
Dancing a set to the music of Eamon McGivney, Michael Downes, Conor Keane Angela Crehan and PJ Crotty, Christmas eve 1997(photo Peter Laban)
That’s the way of the session in Gleeson’s. Unfortunately all is coming to an end. The licence of the pub has been sold and the pub is to close in a few weeks time. It has rightfully been called the end of an era, the end of one of the truly great houses of traditional music.
Last night the house was full, people trying to get a few nights out of it while it’s there. On stage were, myself aside, Ado Morris playing guitar, Sean McNamara of the Liverpool ceiliband playing fiddle, Jackie Daly playing accordeon and Susie Cox playing concertina, our usual and brilliant fluteplayer Mike Dyer arrived late and had to find a spot in the back row. Around the stage was a group of maybe another eight players, Josephine Marsh played accordeon and fiddle, she brought two friend who played lovely on fiddles, there were visitors from France and Japan and a guitar player from the US. We played , Kitty and myself did our duo spot, joined by Joe Mccaw from Ennistymon on the concertina, and Ado helping on guitar and whistle. Joe played a few tunes with Jackie, Josephine played a few tunes and played them beautifully with her two friends.
Susie sang after as did others.
It was a great night but, as the whole thing is about to fold, one with a palpable sadness in the air.
[edited to tweak a few sentences]
