Volume 1
Dedicated to the Late John McGrath
updated 6/22/11
This book is now available at $25.00 per copy from:
Luke O'Malley
25 Buckingham Court
Maywood NJ 07607
LukeOMalley@optonline.net
TheStoneCrusher@gmail.com
201-226-9233
201-638-6600
A CD tune sampler is in preparation and will be available shortly.
Click here for Introduction and General Instructions pages
Click here to go to tune sample page
Click here to go directly to the ABC tune file
Luke O'Malley
===========
===========
For a biographical sketch, this will be pretty
short and simple:
"Born in the South Bronx, Luke started his career in Rockaway Beach, N.Y. He worked with Andy Kerrigan, Tommy Hickey, Marty Scanlon, Peter McNulty and Ruthie Morrissey. After leaving Rockaway, Luke worked in East Durham, N.Y. He learned arranging at Berklee College in Boston and uses this skill to write background arrangements." (This is from the website of the "Round the House Band", a NJ pub band with whom Luke was playing in the 1990's.)
Luke's father was from "a musical family in Roscommon" and his mother from Mayo.
In the 1950's Luke was an accordion student of the great Mayo-born NYC traditional music teacher John McGrath, who taught or influenced many first-class New York area musicians (including the late Andy McGann, Kathleen Collins, and Jackie Roche). According to fellow McGrath student Dan Collins, Luke played what is called a "continental", a large elaborate accordion that allows those licensed to drive it to play in any key. "This was Luke's second instrument - the first was a two-row, I believe, a C#-D Baldoni (13-key). [Luke notes that he also played a Walters 20-key box.] Until Paddy O'Brien perfected the B-C, everyone played a C#- D and very much the same, influenced by John Kimmel, who played a 10 key Globe." [Luke adds "... and Joe Derrane, who played a Baldoni."]
"I believe Luke was McGrath's best pupil," says Collins. (With uncharacteristic modesty, Luke himself awards that particular title to a player named Tommy Ryan.)
As will be noted from the cover of the book, this volume 1 is dedicated to McGrath, and the majority of the tunes included have some connection to either McGrath himself or to his students. There are many attributions, mostly to musicians no longer around (or totally unknown in the memory of Luke's contemporaries Dan Collins and Joe Derrane), but there are contributions as well from the likes of Seán Maguire, Larry Redican, Martin Mulhaire, and Joe Burke. There are a few of Luke's own tunes as well ("The Cow's Tit" is one of them, a jig that Luke tells us he composed "for no good reason at all"!)
There are a few missed identifications - "Martin Wynne's #2" appears as "Joan Coyne's", for example - and some of Luke's hornpipe settings are perhaps a tad heavy on the ornamentation, not suprising considering that Luke's instrument of choice - the "continental" mentioned by Dan Collins - is the perfect vehicle for playing in such a florid style. But the overload of flat-key triplets in a few tunes - and the minor annoyances that "quite" is consistently misspelled "quiet" and "Wynne" is always "Wynn" ["McGrath's spelling," notes Luke] - doesn't detract from the overall value of the book.
Volume 1 of the collection was published in 1976. For good order's sake it should be noted that there was never a Volume 2 (at least as far as I know). I have no idea if Luke ever went any further than planning to put one together - lack of material would presumably not have been a problem for him - but I don't believe the project ever took actual shape.
When the trad session scene bloomed in the NYC area in the early 1970s, Luke seemed not to be part of it. I emphasize "seemed" since this is a purely subjective observation on my part, based primarily on the fact that as active as I was in the session scene, I never recall meeting Luke or hearing of his participation in events involving other traditional musicians (for example, he was as far as I know never present at any of the legendary New Year's Eve parties at Mike and Terry Rafferty's house in New Jersey). [Luke: "At this time I was playing six nights a week in English Pubs in New Jersey. I had no time for sessions."]
One gets the idea that Luke could be a bit touchy on certain subjects, as witness his denial of any such thing as regional fiddle styles expressed in the introduction to Volume 1 [Luke says that style in the prerogative of "the expert"; most musicians plays what they can] or his failure to see the value of transposing flat-key tunes into more "user-friendly" keys [to which point Luke notes that he has since changed his attitude about this - he now believes that the key should be the one best suited to the tune, as witness the keys on his soon-to-be-released CD - who plays in F# minor? In absence of a 'best', Luke advises, revert to the original.]
No musician of my acquaintance is totally free of such shortcomings and it would be wrong on my part to leave the impression that Luke - whom I emphasize I never met - is any better or worse in the strength of his feelings on certain subjects than anyone else in the crazy world of Irish traditional music.
Until his recent (and welcome) reappearance in my field of vision, I had last heard of him as occasionally in attendance at box player Jim Coogan's session in Suffern, NY in the early 2000's, but it was evident that session playing was not to Luke's taste (although he told me it was fun until the owner of the venue started feeding the musicians "dog food"!) I recall Coogan telling me that a change of management had morphed the place into (gasp, choke) a "sports bar" with a huge TV screen right behind the musicians, so the session was doomed regardless of what the musicians were being fed.
Similar to Joe Derrane, Luke stopped playing the Irish box in the late 1970's. Two years ago he ordered a gold D/C# box with a stepped keyboard from Alessandrini in Castelfidardo, Italy. Since then, he says, he has relearned all that he lost ... and then some!
"Born in the South Bronx, Luke started his career in Rockaway Beach, N.Y. He worked with Andy Kerrigan, Tommy Hickey, Marty Scanlon, Peter McNulty and Ruthie Morrissey. After leaving Rockaway, Luke worked in East Durham, N.Y. He learned arranging at Berklee College in Boston and uses this skill to write background arrangements." (This is from the website of the "Round the House Band", a NJ pub band with whom Luke was playing in the 1990's.)
Luke's father was from "a musical family in Roscommon" and his mother from Mayo.
In the 1950's Luke was an accordion student of the great Mayo-born NYC traditional music teacher John McGrath, who taught or influenced many first-class New York area musicians (including the late Andy McGann, Kathleen Collins, and Jackie Roche). According to fellow McGrath student Dan Collins, Luke played what is called a "continental", a large elaborate accordion that allows those licensed to drive it to play in any key. "This was Luke's second instrument - the first was a two-row, I believe, a C#-D Baldoni (13-key). [Luke notes that he also played a Walters 20-key box.] Until Paddy O'Brien perfected the B-C, everyone played a C#- D and very much the same, influenced by John Kimmel, who played a 10 key Globe." [Luke adds "... and Joe Derrane, who played a Baldoni."]
"I believe Luke was McGrath's best pupil," says Collins. (With uncharacteristic modesty, Luke himself awards that particular title to a player named Tommy Ryan.)
As will be noted from the cover of the book, this volume 1 is dedicated to McGrath, and the majority of the tunes included have some connection to either McGrath himself or to his students. There are many attributions, mostly to musicians no longer around (or totally unknown in the memory of Luke's contemporaries Dan Collins and Joe Derrane), but there are contributions as well from the likes of Seán Maguire, Larry Redican, Martin Mulhaire, and Joe Burke. There are a few of Luke's own tunes as well ("The Cow's Tit" is one of them, a jig that Luke tells us he composed "for no good reason at all"!)
There are a few missed identifications - "Martin Wynne's #2" appears as "Joan Coyne's", for example - and some of Luke's hornpipe settings are perhaps a tad heavy on the ornamentation, not suprising considering that Luke's instrument of choice - the "continental" mentioned by Dan Collins - is the perfect vehicle for playing in such a florid style. But the overload of flat-key triplets in a few tunes - and the minor annoyances that "quite" is consistently misspelled "quiet" and "Wynne" is always "Wynn" ["McGrath's spelling," notes Luke] - doesn't detract from the overall value of the book.
Volume 1 of the collection was published in 1976. For good order's sake it should be noted that there was never a Volume 2 (at least as far as I know). I have no idea if Luke ever went any further than planning to put one together - lack of material would presumably not have been a problem for him - but I don't believe the project ever took actual shape.
When the trad session scene bloomed in the NYC area in the early 1970s, Luke seemed not to be part of it. I emphasize "seemed" since this is a purely subjective observation on my part, based primarily on the fact that as active as I was in the session scene, I never recall meeting Luke or hearing of his participation in events involving other traditional musicians (for example, he was as far as I know never present at any of the legendary New Year's Eve parties at Mike and Terry Rafferty's house in New Jersey). [Luke: "At this time I was playing six nights a week in English Pubs in New Jersey. I had no time for sessions."]
One gets the idea that Luke could be a bit touchy on certain subjects, as witness his denial of any such thing as regional fiddle styles expressed in the introduction to Volume 1 [Luke says that style in the prerogative of "the expert"; most musicians plays what they can] or his failure to see the value of transposing flat-key tunes into more "user-friendly" keys [to which point Luke notes that he has since changed his attitude about this - he now believes that the key should be the one best suited to the tune, as witness the keys on his soon-to-be-released CD - who plays in F# minor? In absence of a 'best', Luke advises, revert to the original.]
No musician of my acquaintance is totally free of such shortcomings and it would be wrong on my part to leave the impression that Luke - whom I emphasize I never met - is any better or worse in the strength of his feelings on certain subjects than anyone else in the crazy world of Irish traditional music.
Until his recent (and welcome) reappearance in my field of vision, I had last heard of him as occasionally in attendance at box player Jim Coogan's session in Suffern, NY in the early 2000's, but it was evident that session playing was not to Luke's taste (although he told me it was fun until the owner of the venue started feeding the musicians "dog food"!) I recall Coogan telling me that a change of management had morphed the place into (gasp, choke) a "sports bar" with a huge TV screen right behind the musicians, so the session was doomed regardless of what the musicians were being fed.
Similar to Joe Derrane, Luke stopped playing the Irish box in the late 1970's. Two years ago he ordered a gold D/C# box with a stepped keyboard from Alessandrini in Castelfidardo, Italy. Since then, he says, he has relearned all that he lost ... and then some!
= = = = = = = =
| Master file
(contains all tunes in the book) |
| Reels |
| Jigs |
| Hornpipes |
I have also put together a page of very
brief bios for musicians mentioned by Luke in his commentary.