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Kansas City Irish Festivals, Music, Pubs, & Events by an Artist in Ireland

Some people in America think that being Irish and being Scottish is the same thing as if Ireland and Scotland weren’t distinct countries with different histories and cultures.

Malcolm is a Scottish traditional folk singer, not an Irish one. He was the singer for Scottish traditional band Old Blind Dogs.

Ireland and Scotland are separated by a sea. It might not be a very big sea but it’s much bigger than the sea that separates the US from Canada, or from Mexico.

Jim Malcolm’s most recent solo albums, Acquaintance and Tom O’Shanter and Other Tales are his interpretations of the songs and poetry of Scottish poet Robert Burns.

One difference in the folk music traditions of Ireland and Scotland that is particularly pertinent to Jim Malcolm is in the vocals. In Irish music, the vocals and instrumental elements were typically quite distinct until well into the 20th century, whereas in Scotland they’ve been wedded together for centuries.

Jim Malcolm believes the reason for the difference lies with the Scottish poet Robert Burns who he sees as being responsible for bringing the music and vocal traditions together in Scotland.

Robert Burns is our Shakespeare; not just our greatest poet, but the genius who codified our culture. He took a lot of the fiddle tunes and wrote words to them, as well as writing his own songs, and collecting, rearranging and preserving 600 traditional songs.

Rather than talk about the ornamental trills and grace notes in Irish music, Malcolm is more succint in how he describes the difference in the music of Ireland and Scotland:

“The Irish tend to skiddly-diddle more than we do,” adding that the same ornamental approach affects their singing: “It can take an Irish singer a half-hour just to sing the line, ‘One morning in May.’”

While both Scottish and Irish traditional music have experienced revivals, Irish music is seen as much less susceptible to the accompanying revisionist influences, because as Scotland accepted its colonial status Scottish music became sort of gentrified while Irish music remained representative of a culture at odds with its governing authority.

Jim Malcolm appears envious of this development of Irish music compared with how Scottish music evolved:

Irish culture was more of a rebel culture, where Scottish culture became very kind of trendy. That tended to push Irish traditional music ahead of the Scottish when Ireland became a Republic, and Scotland remained in the Commonwealth. We only got our own parliament back three years ago, after 300 years of being politically joined to Britain. So Irish culture has had a lot more time to organize itself, regroup and revive their music on its own terms, which is why I think it is much more advanced around the world. In North America, we always feel like we’re in the slipstream of the Irish.

There’s more of this discussion on the music of Ireland and Scotland being tossed into the same Celtic bin in an article by Scott Alarik brought to the attention of Sunspot by Jim Malcolm’s wife, Susie. The discussion includes members of Irish trad band Lúnasa.

MISSOURI
At 7pm on Sunday, September 7, 2008 Scotland’s Jim Malcom is performing at the Unity Center of Columbia.

Location: The Unity Center of Columbia is located at 1600 W. Broadway

Admission: $14 adults / $12 CMCAA members / free for kids 14 & under.

Snacks: Beverages are provided, audience is invited to bring goodies to share at the break.

The Columbia concert is presented by the Central Missouris Celtic Arts Association.

Malcolm also performs on Friday September 5, 2008 in Buffalo Missouri at the Southwest Missouri Celtic Festival in an evening concert for the festival and games at City Park, East Ramsey St, Buffalo MO (off Hwy 73).

And on Saturday September 6, 2008 Jim Malcolm is playing in St Louis, Missouri at Focal Point, in a gig, organised by St Louis Partnership for the Arts and Education. Info: 314-773-4195

KANSAS
Jim Malcolm performs at The Blind Tiger in Topeka, Kansas on Tuesday, September 2nd 2008, at 8pm
There is NO COVER CHARGE. The Blind Tiger is located at 417 SW 37th Street.
Phone 785-267-2739 for Reservations

Video
On Phil Cunningham’s TV show “Scotland’s Music” singing The Bonny Ship the Diamond

Online
Jim’s official website is www.jimmalcolm.com

See Other Kansas City Irish / Scottish Posts:
   • Kansas City Irish Festival Rejects Sue for Millions
   • Craic or Crack, and is it Irish?
   • KC 2008 Scottish Festival Photos

This entry was posted on Friday, August 29th, 2008 at 5:33 am and is filed under Events, Lunasa, Scotland. You can follow responses via my RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.