The smell of burning wood from the fireplace blends with that sweet Guinness scent as the small but growing crowd starts to move towards the traditional session that is forming in the front corner of the pub. The lead musician for the session, Wexford-born John Redmond sets the tone with his button accordion and it's the beginning of another night in Manhattan.

John Redmond

Martin Reilly, Jarlath McTiernan, James Riley   Photo-Northway

All over the city, sessions such as this are delighting audiences of Irish, Irish-Americans, Irish music fans, tourists and people who wandered in for a pint but find themselves drawn to the tunes. Popular stereotype says that music in the Bronx tends towards ballads, Queens leans towards rock and Manhattan is where you'll find traditional sessions. "There are a lot of Irish in Queens and there's loads of gigs," explains accordion player Martin Reilly, "but in the past a lot would be Irish rock bands playing and a lot of people wouldn't be into traditional music. They'd kind of like to have it in a pub but they'd be more into listening to Nirvana than tunes. In the past few years though, a good few people have brought more of the traditional vibe back in and are more into listening to traditional music." Martin Reilly, the son of Longford-born flute player Martin Reilly (Sr.) and sister of fiddle player Marie Reilly, the newest member of New York based Cherish the Ladies should know. He was born and raised in Queens and, when breaks in his tour schedule with Riverdance allow, he can be found playing sessions throughout the city.

Basically, tripping into a traditional set in Manhattan is about as easy as walking into a pub. Sessions can be found six nights a week with Fridays reserved for a concert series at The Blarney Star in the Financial District. This series began at the Eagle Tavern on 14th Street which hosted Irish, bluegrass and folk music nights between 1976 and the end of 1994. After fire inspectors forced the owner to make the room smaller (less space means less people means less of a fire hazard) the bluegrass and folk concerts gave up. The Eagle closed and the Monday night Irish session moved to Flannery's, where it continues monthly. The Friday night concerts, organized by musician and writer Don Meade, moved to Co. Louth native Tony Brady's Blarney Star which has seen the likes of Kevin Burke, Natalie MacMaster, Mike & Mary Rafferty, Liz Carroll and on and on�.

The current popularity of traditional music is part of the on-going ebb and flow in New York City. The period between the Wars is considered the "Golden Age" of American Irish Music and New York, with its radio stations and record companies, was at its center. But interest in trad died out until Tommy Makem and the Clancy Brothers gained large audiences as part of the 1960's folk revival in Greenwich Village. The 1970's saw a huge increase in the City's second- generation Irish but subsequent changes in immigration laws put a stop to that, causing another lull in both music and musicians.

The current diversity and strength of the music community in New York is astounding. On a Sunday night, you can wander around and hear: Kilkenny-born singer and banjo player Joe "Banjo" Burke; Dublin native Eamon O'Leary, guitar/tenor banjo player and singer who has performed with Susan McKeown and Chanting House; Wexford button accordionist/fiddler Tom Dunne; and Brooklyn-born fiddler Tony DeMarco all for the price of a pint. Throw in flutist Jack Coen, fiddler Andy McGann and a host of others and you've got your week planned. This isn't even touching on the trad rock groups such as Black 47, The Prodigals and Seanchaí which form another article altogether.

If you follow the listings long enough you'll see these musicians in about every combination imaginable. But part of what makes a good session is the unpredictability of it all and Martin Reilly is usually in the midst of it. "Just last week," he says, "there was a session and a friend of mine decided he wanted to have a huge session on top of that one. About 20 musicians showed up and about 60 people were there who were really into the music. The people playing the session went home and around 1am we went to another bar where there was no session going on at all and started playing and they let us go until about 7 in the morning. It was totally spontaneous."

And who is keeping track of all of this musical mayhem? James Higgins publishes the quarterly Irish Pub Guide which has a print-run of 30,000 and fools no one when he jokes that one copy goes to his mum and the rest just disappear as this is one of the most oft-requested publications in the hotels of New York. Three years into his publishing stint, Higgins is still surprised by the lack of self-interest in the Irish music world. "It's ironic," he says, "that we needed the Pogues, who were English and the Riverdance founders, who are Irish-American, to embrace Irish music and culture and bring it to the masses. It's now 'cool' but dance and music was something that was laughed at before."

"It's a different country, but the quality of the music and the styles of the music are the same everywhere. Music is always good as long as it's from the heart." - James Riley

Plus "we Irish tend to be individually motivated," Higgins sighs. "There isn't any kind of a marketing coalition." And while the debate over the commercialization of traditional music rages on, it's still all about the music.

But more and more it's also becoming about personal careers. "It's not really practical to think that you're going to grow up and play the accordion and Irish music for the rest of your life," says Martin Reilly who has a degree in European Studies from New York University. "It wasn't really an option before and now," he pauses with a grin "it's a fairly attractive option."

Guitarist and vocalist James Riley, fresh into New York from Dublin at the age of 22 exemplifies the changes in the scene since the days when greats such as Paddy O'Brien and Larry Redican couldn't even find a venue in which to play. He chanced into a session with Redmond, became a regular and was introduced to fiddler Eileen Ivers who appreciated his playing so much that he now fills in with her band when guitar ace John Doyle is unavailable.

Otherwise, Riley has been playing gigs along with Redmond and Sligo's Jarlath McTiernan on pipes and whistles. Although he misses the daytime sessions of Dublin, this one-time student of Jon Hicks, of the now-defunct Lia Luachra, says that he finds the quality of musicians in the two cities to be similar. Riley is particularly impressed with his current line-up as "we're all aiming for a contemporary feel while keeping the original formation of the tunes. Plus it's great to find musicians who are able to vary their own playing enough to allow for creativity in the guitar part."

It's the preservation of this "original formation" that captivates Jarlath, fresh off of 3 years on tour with Lord of the Dance among other projects, who made a smooth transition to the City this spring. Playing virtually every night, he views the scene with a fresh and critical eye.

"The Irish music scene is great here but it's going to be lost when Andy McGann and these boys are gone," he warns, "unless someone else can take that over and show people the basics. There's a lot of people skipping over the notes now. They don't know about the rhythm. They're not sitting back and listening to it. If they sat down and listened to McGann for two minutes, a lot of people would throw away their instruments."

In both countries, McTiernan feels that a change is due to insure the integrity of the music. "Seamus Tansey wants to bring music out of the pubs and back into houses and he's dead right. That's where my father and those guys learned and they're the ones that can play the tunes properly. A lot of musicians learn to play Irish music off guys in pubs, guys with 7 or 8 pints in them. They're giving the wrong names of tunes, playing wrong tunes and getting messy."

Although Martin Reilly also admits to missing the house sessions of his youth, he sees a thriving future for traditional music in New York. "You're getting the music to groups of people who have never heard it before and people will come up and ask about the music and ask for recommendations," he says. "It doesn't have to be that they're Irish at all, just that it hits them in some way where it means something more than just turning on the radio and going 'nice lyrics.'"

"It's a different country," says James Riley, "but the quality of the music and the styles of the music are the same everywhere. Music is always good as long as it's from the heart."

Article by Helene Northway

Read an interview with John Redmond

More Celtic and Irish music on RootsWorld