I’m in so many bands, it gets a bit crazy at times
Fiddle virtuoso Martin Hayes loves nothing better than working with other musicians – though it can be hard to keep track
Master musician, fiddle virtuoso, music maestro. Call Martin Hayes what you will but he will probably blush if he hears you do so. But the modest man from Clare is just that. Over four decades, he has dedicated himself to bringing the beauty of Irish traditional music to as wide an audience as possible. He does so by collaborating with a variety of musicians from different genres. Those have included Sting and Paul Simon, and he was a founding member of Choice Music Prize-winners The Gloaming. He often plays in duos with guitarists Steve Cooney and Dennis Cahill, his most regular wingman and with whom he played for President Obama at the White House in 2011.
The quietly spoken 59 year old jokes that when he is asked to play a concert these days, he has to think which version of Martin Hayes they might want.
‘I got an email the other day from somebody saying, “We’d love to get you back for a gig”. I said, “Thanks for that but I can’t figure out what I should
‘I have three kinds of duos; two trios; two quartets and a couple of bands. It keeps it fresh’
bring”,’ he laughs.
‘I have three kinds of duos that I work in. I have two trios, two quartets and a couple of bands. It gets a bit crazy at times but it keeps it fresh.’
What fans of Hayes will get in the National Concert Hall next weekend is the Common Ground Ensemble, so called as the six musicians who will play with Hayes come from contemporary classical music, jazz and the avant-garde as well as traditional Irish music and ‘end up doing what we like in the moment’ as he puts it.
‘There has to be some level of freedom for me and all the musicians playing,’ he says. ‘I love unpredictability and finding ourselves in a place musically that we hadn’t anticipated.’
Among the musicians playing will be fellow Clareman Brian Donnellan, who like Hayes played in the much loved Tulla Céilí Band. Hayes’s uncle Paddy Canny and father PJ Hayes were founder members of the band in 1946.
Hayes Sr approved of his son’s explorations beyond what might be perceived as the strict confines of traditional music.
‘My father was open. But not everything I did would have been of interest, let’s say,’ he says.
‘That didn’t mean that he would be against me trying. I think the more important point to know and understand is that when you venture off into these projects, you’re bringing traditional music with you; the real roots of this music; the real beauty of this music and the real integrity of this music.’
He says he always retains the integrity of traditional music whether he gets into dialogues with classical, jazz or any class of musician.
‘I never feel like I’m compromising anything, really,’ he says.
‘I still use the old melodies that I learned from my father but I’m also recognising deeper beauty in them all the time. We can then share what we have discovered with the audience.’
Having had to play music in bars in Chicago for years that he didn’t like – after taking the plane to the US in the 1980s like many other Irish youths – he considers it a privilege to play music he loves for a living.
‘I thought being a professional musician was a ludicrous plan, like, “Who would want to hear this?” I started playing music in bars to get out of a construction site job that I ended up doing,’ he says.
‘Playing Toora-Loora in bars didn’t exactly make me happy. But I worked my way up and out of it very gradually to playing what I wanted to and closer to what I had played earlier in my life.’
Hayes was named All-Ireland Fiddle Champion for the seventh time a couple of years before he left Ireland. ‘At the end of the day, you have to do something that is genuine and meaningful for you. Then you have to let the chips land where they land,’ he says.
‘There was a famous American fiddler called John Hartford and he said, “You have to be careful not to become successful at something you don’t want to do”. You can get locked into something you are afraid to free yourself from. This is not a business; it is more of a vocation. If fulfilling your vocation can make you successful enough to put food on the table and keep a roof over your head then you are lucky.’
Martin Hayes & the Common Ground Ensemble play the NCH on Saturday, March 26 and on Sunday, March 27.