Here are John’s views on the changes in the traditional music scene throughout his life and also his thoughts on its future.
Future of Irish Music
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Credit: Photo of John Kelly Senior. Photo taken by Neil Wayne.
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Details: Part of Tom Munnelly transcription.
Credit: Tom Munnelly’s transcription of John Kelly Juniors interview with his father in 1979.
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Future of Irish Music
“I often think that if they went out on their own … if another change came, if another Jazz Age came in like in 1925 and that and they found themselves stranded they wouldn’t have any traditional music to fall back on worth talkin’ about only the riff-raff they play and callin’ wrong names to tunes. They’ve no respect as far as I know anyway and they seem to be swelled-headed and big-headed and they won’t even talk or they wouldn’t sit down in a session with anybody.
So, on the whole I think Irish music belongs to its own. You must have it in the marrow-bones. But as to the future of it; I’m sure it’ll be always played, le dinamh Dé. I hope it will.”
Below Note from Tom Munnelly:
*NOTE* 12.00 noon, March 6th, 1989. I have just got a phone call to say that John Kelly has died in Dublin a half an hour ago. He will be a great loss to the world of Irish traditional music in which he has been a giant for so many years. May he rest in peace. TM.
Location: John Kelly Senior’s house, Capel Street in Dublin.
Credit: John Kelly Junior interview with his father, 1979.
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Changes in the traditional music scene throughout John's life
“(Some things) have been gained by this upsurge of music, but there is an awful lot lost too. I can go back to the times when we played in Dublin here 30 years ago and more and down along the ten years before the inauguration of Comhaltas Ceoltóiri Éireann we played music for the sheer love of it. And we’d have a little room here in somebody’s house here and there among ourselves, there’d be maybe half a dozen of us and some nights you might have nine or ten. ‘Twas a beautiful thing but we had no listeners except our very own. That’s nearly all gone today, it’s a different kettle of fish altogether. The music is played now in the pubs which is not good, I’d say, if we could get out of ’em but there’s no atmosphere at home or any place else (?) The musicians don’t talk to each other (nowadays). They don’t weigh up the pros and cons. That time the player was set on by his contemporaries and they decided what was the right way to play the tune, and different settings. You had beautiful ideas about how the tune should be played and they took notice of the good players of the time, of that period.
But of course the present day players are great. Wonderful players, we can’t say anything else. I suppose they have advanced and it’s a different period between composers … Paddy Fahey, now, is a man I’d like to mention, he’s a man that has composed some great music and its evolutionary (revolutionary?), you might say, in Irish music and a lot of the players have taken on to that music. It’s played mainly in G minor keys which is beautiful, 17 makes the fiddle sound well, but will it ever take the place of ‘The Bucks of Oranmore’?
… Well, Reavy, of course, from Philadelphy, Edward Reavy has brought out a great book and ’tis very classy Irish music, but ’tis beautiful too.”
Location: John Kelly Senior’s house, Capel Street in Dublin.
Credit: John Kelly Junior interview with his father, 1979.
Musical Context