On a recent visit across the Irish sea to Wexford, I bought a CD by the great man- ‘‘The Given Note’’ produced in 1995. I was a fan of his during
his Planxty days and of his collaborations with Shaun Davey but I had forgotten his sheer brilliance at getting the best out of a tune and the clarity of his playing is second to none.
Ireland is full of brilliant traditional musicians but I doubt there are many
to surpass Mr O’ Flynn
I haven’t heard any recent Liam O’Flynn but I like his playing. But without actually telling us, in comparative terms, why you think he is better than Matt Molloy, Noel Hill, Tommy Peoples, Paddy Keenan, Tony Mac Mahon amongst dozens of others, I honestly wouldn’t have any idea how to argue the case or what it is you think that he has that they lack.
For myself, and this is a very personal attitude perhaps, I am inclined to think that there is a great depth of talent and that it is a perverse tendency of modern culture to look for a small number of idols to share all the kudos and then invent and exaggerate a gulf between them and the rest.
Funny, when people ask who’s best or give a top ten, I sometimes can’t resist joining in, but I can’t take it very seriously either. But I’m resisting now.
I agree, it is silly to try to determine who the greatest Irish Musician is. In most cases it is impossible to really determine who is the greatest living musician of a given instrument (I think Mary Bergin on the Whistle might be the one exception… though there are quite a few other very fine whistle players.. and then again, if i don’t get at least a few people disagreeing with me on this I will be disappointed 
). Music like art is mostly a matter of taste. No matter who the critics like.. or indeed who everyone likes, you may like someone else entirely.
all above mentioned are superior examples, but none of them can surpass ding dong denny o’ reilly. http://indigo.ie/~lwp/dingdong/
Well this is fine. My subversive intent was to get people to list more names, not fewer. 
I only mentioned some very obvious candidates but I meant it when I said there were dozens of others.
I am a fan of all the people you mention, they are all brilliant, every single one of them. It’s a trait of mine to want to compare the qualities
of musicians it’s what happens in the company of musicians who are not at
all precious about such discussion.
I think Mary Bergin is an exceptional musician especially playing the faster stuff but for the ballads it’s O Flynn for me, he squeezes every last drop of emotion out of a tune. I recommend a listen to his rendition of
‘Farewell to Govan’ on the ‘Given Note’ CD.
I cannot comment on the qualities of Ding Dong, sure he must be among the best in his field.
This scares me a bit. While O’Flynn is one of my all-time favourite pipers, the album cited as a basis for this comment, The Given Note, is one of his worst, being given over to muzak more than piping. Also, this is a fairly old album.
If you prefer this form of pablumizing ITM, you will also like his album Out to Another Side. If you want to go to the other extreme and hear pure piping, get his album The Fine Art of Piping. His album The Piper’s Call is a happy medium, lots of great piping, but blended with orchestral stuff enough for those who don’t really like ITM.
Another form of blend would be his excellent work with Planxty, which is mostly modern folk with a vaguely Irish theme, but then Liam steps in with excellent piping to pull the balance back to ITM.
djm
Muzak??? What on earth are you talking about ???
Why should the fact that the record is old (1995) matter?
What does ITM mean, pardon my ignorance?
Oh, ITM I get it. :roll:
Glad you figured it out in time. Especially since this is the ITM forum. What I meant about it being an older album was simply that he has done several more albums after it.
djm
It’s not like you would take it as personal insult if someone were to disagree with you about Liam Og, right?
Not at all, I was shocked to hear someone liken the music of Liam O Flynn
to the music heard in supermarkets and motorway service stations.
It seemed to indicate a monumental philistinism on the part of the author.
ITM is an ‘‘old’’ music so I was equally surprised when the word was used in what seemed to me a derogatory sense.
Well, I don’t think ITM was used in a derogatory sense. I also don’t think that all that I’ve heard from Liam O’Flynn is properly called ITM. Muzak may be a bit harsh, but if the point is to express that Liam is not exactly playing pure-drop traditional music, it sounds about right. Great musician, no doubt, but the greatest living traditional musician? I am not so sure.
No, you misunderstand, it was the term ‘old’ which the poster seemed to
intend in a derogatory sense not ITM. The words ‘old’ and ‘traditional’
are almost interchangeable in the current context, it’s rather like criticising traditional music for being, well, traditional.
I think UPipers would give you a real debate on the assertion. I like Liam OFlynn’s playing (I have a copy of Pipers Call) but when I listen to other UPers, their style is SO different that it bespeaks a very different approach to the instrument. That causes me to suspect that some of them might not like his playing as much as others.
I went to the Tionol in SF last year or so, and really got an upclose appreciation of the instrument in its full glory. OFlynn plays very cleanly, maybe too cleanly, compared to what I heard there and on that historic Rowsome Tradition disc. I don’t even know the terminology of UP pipes, but I personally prefer a more staccato style with all those levers and gizmos making incredible rhythmic/harmonic additions to the pure melody. I hear little of that kind of thing on the Pipers Call, which is a very smooth and streamlined collection. But that is ONLY one record so for all I know, he chose a certain style for that particular record and can move to other styles with ease. Its nearly new-agey, ala Joanie Madden’s AITW discs.
Let more experienced voices add or correct me on this one…I would be interested to hear them.
Just to correct you, the proper terminology is “thingies and doohickeys.”
I like Liam O’Flynn but I vote for Paddy Keenan.
Justine
edited for correct spelling of terminology 
MMM…Im afraid what I have heard of his more recent stuff bores me to tears, although I do not dispute his technical prowess. Its just too produced…or too ‘good’?
Mat
When you say ‘produced’, are you saying that the sound of the pipes is in
some way changed in the process of recording?
Like mat I do think some of his later recordings a little too “produced”. to me the word means there’s too much accompaniment, too much synthesizer, too much orchestration. Liam doesn’t hide behind that stuff, you can hear him just fine, but it’s distracting and somewhat annoying after a while. My favorite Planxty recordings are those tracks where it’s just Liam playing solo for the majority of the arrangement, or with Matt Molloy, Noel Hill, and Tony Linnane and very sparse accompaniment. You should hear some of the private recordings of him that people have collected at tionoil and recitals where he just played unaccompanied by anything other than his drones and regs. That’s some impressive musicianship, technically flawless and yet thoughtful and expressive playing, not just a stream of melodic diarrhea.
The whole best musician thing is a silly idea, though. How can you objectively compare two or more individuals who have different styles and more likely than not play different instruments?
Pat, you’re right on. That is what I meant earlier by the term “muzak”. O’Flynn produced two albums previous to The Given Note which were pure piping, the first was simply called Liam O’Flynn, and the second called The Fine Art of Piping, both worth getting a hold of.
I agree that he did some of his finest piping with Planxty. His two albums The Given Note and Out to Another Side seem to have been shanghaied by others with a totally non-ITM bent. They are largely without any sense of rhythm, and are totally washed out in synths and orchestral arrangements. Some tracks have almost no O’Flynn at all on them. That is why I objected. If they aren’t muzak, they are the next nearest thing. Perhaps you prefer the term “new age”. Its all boring drivel to me.
As far as “greatest musician”, how can you pick any single musician out and ignore his teachers? In O’Flynn’s case, they were Rowsome, Ennis and Clancy, any one of whom could play rings around O’Flynn. O’Flynn’s talent is in choosing good tunes and laying out well-considered piping arrangements for them. This results in a very smooth sound that is his own style.
djm