Essay About John Mckenna And Irish Music

John McKenna and Matt Molloy
John McKenna was an Irish flautist from Tents, Tamron, County Leitrim. He was born on the 6th January 1880 and lived to be 67 years old. McKenna grew up in an area that held a huge connection with Irish music with musicians such as John Frank Doherty, Francie Rourke and Mick Conlon within a close distance of where he lived. In later years he married Mary Jane Keaveney and shortly afterwards they emigrated to New York, where he had a very prosperous recording career which spanned between the years 1922 to 1937 with various recording companies including ‘New Republic’, ‘O’Byrne De Witt’, ‘Columbia’ and ‘Decca Records’.

Matt Molloy was born on the 12th January in Ballaghederreen, County Roscommon. At the age of eight he began learning to play the flute and went on to win the All-Ireland Flute Championship at the age of nineteen. He is well known for being a member of the Bothy Band during the 70’s and in 1979 for joining the Chieftains. Aside from that he has also had a very successful solo career, recording ten solo albums with his first album ‘Matt Molly with Donal Lunny’ released in 1976 to his latest release in 2007 ‘Pathway to the Well’.

John McKenna’s approach to solo performance playing is one that combined a sweet tone with a light natural vibrato and remarkable rhythmic drive. On the other hand Matt Molloy’s style is generally quite fast, flowing and ornamented.

McKenna’s music was made for dancing: music that has a great lift and rhythmic drive. This style of playing could be mainly due to fact that when McKenna was growing up dance houses were a huge part of their culture, especially in rural areas as it was an important form of entertainment and sociability. Musicians learned under the instruction of dancers. McKenna’s strict tempo for reel and jig playing is clearly evident in the jig ‘Clancy’s Dream’ and the reel ‘Down the Meadow’. The excellent rhythmic drive achieved in McKenna