You wait for ages for a new album featuring Armagh-born, New York-resident, uilleann piper Cillian Vallely, and then two come along at once.
The first album is a duet with fiddler David Doocey, originally from Co Mayo, and the second is - drumroll please - a new Lúnasa album recorded live in the Taku Taku club in Kyoto, on the Japanese island of Honshu.
Belfast audiences will be able to hear Cillian, David and David’s brother, Patrick, playing in the Deer’s Head on June 6 while Lúnasa will be playing in the Empire Music Hall as part of Belfast Tradfest on July 25.
But, as this author is going to New York next month, he decided to find out about what the trad scene was like in the Big Apple from someone who is at the heart of it.
“The scene is really good here, although it is always changing,” Cillian tells me.
“There are probably more local players here than anywhere else in America.
“There are a lot of fiddle players and there’s an interesting line of players that goes right back to Michael Coleman and then all those great players like Martin Wynne and Martin Mulvihill who would have taught people like Eileen Ivers, Brian Conway and Tony DeMarco so there’s always a lot of local players.
“And then there’s always been people from Ireland that have moved here.
“Some stay longer than others but it can be a bit funny, because the city is so big and a lot of people are starting to move further and further out but there’s still fantastic sessions and plenty of Irish bars that support it.”
I could see the Japanese audience were trying to be really quiet when we were playing because they knew we were recording and it’s in their nature to not be roaring and shouting and talking over the music whereas in Ireland, it’s a great vibe with the gigs, but people wouldn’t be shy about chatting away while you’re playin
— Cillian Vallely
As for the music itself, there is a huge number of people composing in the traditional style. Is the same true in the States?
“I don’t know if it is so much,” says Cillian. “It’s interesting. In New York, there’s a tradition of fiddle playing and teaching. And it would be sort of older, traditional music that they’re playing. You wouldn’t get many modern tunes played here at all.
“Of course, you have people like Liz Carroll in Chicago, and then there was Ed Peavey in Philadelphia and a few other individuals, but compared to Ireland, I feel they would play an older style here,” he says.
The Armagh man even says he wouldn’t play a tune that he himself had composed while playing in one of his regular sessions in New York!
However, someone else who composes tunes is David Doocey. He and Cillian got together last year to record an album entitled The Yew and the Orchard, a title which reflects the respective symbols of Mayo and Armagh.
Cillian must have played with a Cecil B DeMille cast of Irish musicians over the years so why was a collaboration with David such a good idea, I asked.
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“Well, for a start, he’s a great traditional player, as good as anybody really,” is the reply.
“But apart from him being a great player, it just works very well. It’s very easy. I’ve played with a lot of great fiddlers over the years, but with David it’s very natural. We don’t have to overthink it when we’re playing tunes. And he writes great tunes, and I write tunes, and there’s a bit of that on the record and the concerts as well as a lot of traditional tunes too.”
The duo are big into rhythm as are trad doyens of Lúnasa, a band formed 27 years ago but who are still cutting the mustard today.
Their latest release is Live in Kyoto and I wondered why a live album was considered given the fact that Japanese audiences are renowned for their reserve; while an Irish audience might react with a primal roar to a set of tunes, the Japanese are more inclined to offer some polite applause.
That wasn’t a problem for Lúnasa however.
“The Japanese are an amazing people, they’re so respectful,” says Cillian.
“I could see they were trying to be really quiet when we were playing because they knew we were recording and it’s in their nature to not be roaring and shouting and talking over the music whereas in Ireland, it’s a great vibe with the gigs, but people wouldn’t be shy about chatting away while you’re playing,” he laughs.
Live in Kyoto came about, basically, as a gift to Yoko Nozaki, owner of the record label The Music Plant.
Yoko was an early Lúnasa fan and championed the band in her native country.
“We would do great concerts there and sell a lot of records. So Japan has always been good to us.
“Yoko was thinking of retiring and she suggested that Lúnasa do a live album,” explains Cillian.
“We’ve done a couple of live albums before, and we probably would not have done this, if anybody else had asked, but this woman has been so great and we love Japan so we did it as a bit of a ‘thank you’ to her and to the Japanese fans who were so good to us over the years.”
It would have been easy enough to do a greatest hits-type album but Live in Kyoto features “10 never before heard” tracks from the band including tunes composed by Cillian, Lúnasa’s flute player Kevin Crawford, as well as celebrated concertina player/composer Niall Vallely and composer/musicians Paul Cranford, Steve Cooney and Alan Stivell.
Cillian says the band always wanted to do something a bit different.
“We thought what we should do is make the effort and come up with a new set of tunes and when you have a live gig coming up, there’s no bluffing, you have to get the tunes and the arrangements ready and it’s great now because we have all these new tunes lined up for our gigs, so we’re really looking forward to the Irish concerts.”
