Fiddle Club of the World

Tune Session on Sunday, April 21

6:30 – 8:30 and beyond
Leadway Bar & Grill
(5233 N. Damen – in the back room)

Some of us have been getting together to play tunes on (usually) the third Sunday of the month in our first home, the Leadway. The kitchen is open. There are a good selection of beers on tap. And the sound is good. It’s easy to hear.

We’d love for anybody to come play along with all or some of the tunes — or even just sit and listen. All instruments are welcome. We’ll work on that single jig that Jimmy Keane, Jr. taught us at the January concert, Jack Murray’s jig.

I’ll do a little teaching of some of the tunes shared by other recent guests,
like The Rout, from Kirk Sutphin,

and Barres de la Prison, from David Greely.

Here are the list of tunes we’ve done at the last three jams.

(click for full list)

(click for full list)

January jam session
(click for full list)

Filed under: Meeting Schedule,Session Tunes,Tunes by Paul | April 17, 2013 | Comments (0)

Tunes from Kirk Sutphin

Kirk Sutphin & Bertram Levy
Banjos, Bows and Bellows
Sunday, March 10, 2013, 6:30pm
Seman Violins (4447 Oakton, Skokie)
B.Y.O.B. Snacks will be provided.

Fiddler Kirk Sutphin, from Walkertown, North Carolina, joins with banjoist and concertinist Bertram Levy for a unique presentation of old-time tunes from the Blue Ridge Mountains. For more background, visit this earlier Fiddle Club post, or Bertram Levy’s website.

All fiddlers and friends of fiddlers, including players of other instruments, are welcome. $15 admission. Click here to register.

Kirk and Bertram will present a short concert, followed by a jam session. Here’s some of the tunes we’ll play in the session. (Some teaching may happen.)

The Rout learned from Burt Edwards

Here it is a bit slower.
The Rout learned from Burt Edwards

Jump Jim Crow learned from Alan Jabbour

Here it is a bit slower.
Jump Jim Crow slow

Paddy on the Turnpike learned from a recording of Frank Jenkins

Here it is a bit slower.
Paddy on the Turnpike slower

Paul Tyler, convener

Filed under: Session Tunes,Tunes by Paul | February 23, 2013 | Comments (0)

Jimmy Keane brings his accordion to Fiddle Club

Sunday, January 27, 2013, 6:30pm
Seman Violins (4447 Oakton, Skokie)
B.Y.O.B. Snacks will be provided.

All fiddlers and friends of fiddlers, including players of other instruments, are welcome. $15 admission. Click here to register.

Here’s a tune I recorded Jimmy playing on stage at the Indiana Fiddler’s Gathering in 1980 when he was a mere lad of 22.
Frieze Britches aka The Friar’s Breeches, aka Cunnla

And a half dozen years later he played with the also youthful and equally accomplished Liz Carroll in a concert for the Adler Cultural Center in Libertyville, Illinois.
unnamed reel-Limerick Lasses

From that same 1986 concert comes this solo performance of two Cuz Teahan tunes: The Road to Glentowne and The School of Glentowne . . .

Jimmy, of course, has had a long and outstanding career performing and composing wonderful tunes in the Irish tradition. You can find more samples on his own website (click here).

Paul Tyler, convener

Filed under: Meeting Schedule,Preview Tunes,Tunes by Paul | January 21, 2013 | Comments (0)

Fiddle Club Tune Sessions

Five years worth of Fiddle Club of the World guests, a total of 36 from six different countries (and fourteen states in the US of A)! We’ve heard a lot of great music and played a fair amount ourselves. This would be a good time to remember and work on some of the tunes our guests have shared with us.

Starting today, Fiddle Club will hold a Tune Session every month, usually on the third Sunday of the month, at the Leadway Bar & Gallery (5233 N. Damen)–back to our original home. The tune sessions will run from 6:30 to 8:30 (or beyond). Each month, we’ll pick out a few old treasures to work on. A little bit of teaching might happen. Plus we can play anything that strikes our fancy.

January 13, 6:30 at the Leadway
In two weeks, Jimmy Keane will be our featured guest at a concert and session at Seman Violins. So let’s brush up on some of the Irish tunes we’ve learned in the past.

A set of Kerry Polkas from Paddy Jones

The Black Rogue a jig from Liz Knowles

Gone for his Tea a reel also from Liz

Cuz Teahan’s Polka from Kathleen Keane

Check out this set of hornpipes we worked on with Deirdre Ní Chonghaile.

Maybe also
Tripping to the Well & Galway Belle from Frank Ferrel

February 17, 6:30 at the Leadway
Old-Time night. Suggestions?

February 17, 6:30 at the Leadway
A little Klezmer, a bit of Scandinavia and a Ukrainian tune.

Filed under: Meeting Schedule,Tunes by Paul | January 13, 2013 | Comments (0)

Fiddle Club guests for 2013

Two concert meetings * are now scheduled for the Winter and Spring to be held in fun new location with great acoustics, the back room at
Seman Violins (4447 Oakton, Skokie)
(Check ‘em out.)
B.Y.O.B. Snacks will be provided.

(click to enlarge)
Jimmy Keane

Jimmy Keane, Accordion Master
Sunday, January 27, 2013, 6:30pm
Wild and beautiful Irish tunes, suitable for fiddle, played on piano accordion.

Visit Jimmy’s website.

As a young boy, Jimmy chose, not the ubiquitous button box or melodeon, but the full scale piano accordion. And he mastered it fully, becoming All-Ireland champion while still in his teens. Today he rules the roost. A Chicago treasure, Jimmy was recently named the Irish “Male Musician of the Decade (2000-2010).” An accomplished solo artist, he has performed with such bands as Aengus and Bohola, and participated on numerous tours of “Greenfields of America” and “An Irish Homecoming.” He’s got some new tunes he wants to try out for us, and will teach us a few.
Jimmy
$15 admission. Click here to register.
Jimmy

Kirk Sutphin & Bertram Levy
Sunday, March 10, 6:30 pm
Banjos, Bows and Bellows

Visit Bertram’s website

JKirk Sutphin & Bertram Levy
(Click to enlarge)

This unique program features two artists who learned their music back in the 1970s from the same Blue Ridge Mountain luminaries–Henry Reed, Tommy Jarrell and Oscar Wright. Kirk still lives near his birthplace in Walkertown, North Carolina. He is both an excellent fiddler and accomplished in clawhammer and old-time finger-style banjo. He plays with the New North Carolina Ramblers. Bertram Levy spent his younger years in North Carolina, where he was an original member of the Hollow Rock String Band. Some years ago he moved to the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, where he helped found the American Festival of Fiddle Tunes in Port Townsend. A virtuosic banjoist, favoring gut strings, Bertram also plays tango music on bandoneon in the band Tangoheart, and traditional American music on the Anglo concertina. Their recent CD, “The Bellow and the Bow” features duets with fiddle, banjo and concertina.
Jimmy
$15 admission. Click here to register.
Jimmy

* Our guests will present a short concert (one set), to be followed by jam session.

Filed under: Meeting Schedule by Paul | January 9, 2013 | Comments (0)

Euro Roots World Music

Jutta & the Hi-Dukes
Sunday, November 18, 6:30pm
Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln)

A world music trio from Evanston, they will play a short concert to start things off. Then we’ll work through a couple of tunes (see the link below), and maybe even do a simple circle dance or two. All fiddlers, musicians, listeners and dancers invited.

The tunes: click here for recordings and actual notes!

Jutta Distler plays for folk dancers. Terran Doeher leads the dance.

To register, follow this link, type ‘fiddle club’ in class name box.
$15 for this meeting. $60 for a year long subscription.

Filed under: Meeting Schedule by Paul | November 17, 2012 | Comments (0)

Fiddle Events

Jutta & the Hi-Dukes
Just booked as special guests for our next meeting
Sunday, November 18 – 6:30p
Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln), in the back room
(To register for this meeting, see below. *)

A bit of world music. Maybe a little Klezmer. Maybe a touch of Danish.
They are Terran Doehrer, Zoï Doehrer and Jutta Distler.

(Click either photo to enlarge.)
xx
Old-Time Square Dance this Friday
October 26, part of the Old Town School’s Global Dance Party. Great music by Geoff Seitz & Friends. ** Calling by Paul Collins. The dancing starts at 8:30. All dances will be taught throughout the evening. No experience necessary. Fun will be had.

*You can register for Fiddle Club of the World meetings at www.oldtownschool.org and search the class catalog for Fiddle Club. That brings up two choices: 1) a single meeting registration for $15, or 2) a year’s subscription to all Fiddle Club events for $60.

** Jim Nelson, Dedo Norris and Steve Rosen.

-Paul Tyler, convener
Chicago Chapter

Filed under: Meeting Schedule by Paul | October 24, 2012 | Comments (0)

Guest Artist for next Fiddle Club meeting

Frank Hall, Old-Time Fiddler
Sunday, September 30 – 6:30p
Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln), in the back room

Founding fiddler of the Easy Street String Band, Bloomington, Indiana’s finest in the 1980s. Frank also played with the Yeah Buddys and the Monks before moving to Ireland right at the start of this century. He’s still playing American old-time tunes along with some of Ireland’s best traditional musicians.

xx
You can register at www.oldtownschool.org and search the class catalog for Fiddle Club. That brings up two choices: 1) a single meeting registration for $15, or 2) a year’s subscription to all Fiddle Club events for $60.

Here are some tunes to learn for the jam session with Frank . . .

Sopping Up the Gravy learned from a 1972 recording of Charlie “Jake” Corns of Battle Ground, Indiana

Jim Shank from Bruce Greene

Frank is a fine dance fiddler. So Fiddle Clubbers get to decide. Do we want him to play a concert set, or should we have a dance? If the latter, we’ll start with the jam session at 6:30, and follow with the dance. Let me know your druthers with a comment below.

- Paul Tyler, convener

Filed under: Meeting Schedule,Session Tunes,Tunes by Paul | September 18, 2012 | Comments (1)

Fiddle Stuff on the Schedule

Square Dance! (It will make you a better musician.)
In Chicago this Friday (Aug 17) with music by Patt & Possum and calling by Bill Sudkamp. Dancing starts at 8:30 in Szold Hall at Old Town School East (4545 Lincoln). All dances will be taught. No experience necessary.

(click to enlarge)

Possum, as many of you know, is Charlie Walden, who was a featured guest at Fiddle Club of the World in February 2011. Patt Plunkett played piano with him then, and will at the Global Dance Party square dance.

Fiddle Club Meetings

(click to enlarge)

Frank Hall
Sunday, Sept. 30, 6:30
Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln)
Frank is a fine old-time fiddler, who once lived in Bloomington, Indiana, where he played with the Easy Street String Band. He now lives in Ireland, where he continues to play American old-time.

jam session
Sunday, October 21, 6:30
Atlantic Bar & Grill (5062 Lincoln)

Rosin your bows.

Filed under: Meeting Schedule by Paul | August 15, 2012 | Comments (0)