I seem to have developed this “quirky” or esoteric tune list, including the likes of “The Templehouse Jig,” many of which come via my longtime and beloved teacher who is also admittedly quirky or in his words an Irish music nerd. I asked why this tune which I love so much and is a bit different from the usual is not heard or noted by others here, e.g. It is a tune by the great Michael Coleman. The answer I got was that the Chieftains haven’t chosen to place the tune so it passed from popularity since the 1950s or so. His slightly facetious example aside, this seems to make sense, although there are probably other reasons such as ease of learning/playing, recognizability, etc.
Seems a shame that some great older tunes may pass from common playing venues because newer popular groups don’t play them. Then again, they may be played in many venues regularly that I admittedly haven’t partaken of. (Seeing as how my main venue is my den.)
Any thoughts? Anybody else play this tune?
Let us resolve to play esoteric, albeit not popular tunes!
Philo
Just walk into a different session in a different town/city, confident in your repertoire of hundreds or thousands of tunes popularly played and learned in your local sessions. Then sit there as your new session mates launch into set after set and tune after tune that you’ve never, ever heard before. And you may end up re-thinking the concepts of “popular” and “esoteric”.
TJ is norteño country, Peter. More salsa influence around Veracruz and the Gulf, I think. Unless you mean the kind you put on your taco chips. But I’m partial to mole anyway. So maybe I’d have better luck with a Holy Mole Rounders session.
Meant it more as a light-hearted Latin-Celtic crossover reposte than a location-specific suggestion (you were joking about the Celtic Cucarachas, right?), but it might amuse you to know that my US-based brother’s Mexican friend fell about laughing at our UK school songbooks’ sanitised version of La Cucaracha… and so did I when she told us how it really goes!
Also “Mas Que Nada”. Sergio Mendes and Brazil xx do a very nice arrangement, but I heard a Verve Collection once (More than Mambo) and Mas Que Nada doesn’t have to sound like that at all. Pretty nice, actually, in Em almost all in the second octave. Never spent so much time up there before.
