Category Archives: Meeting Schedule

Arto & Antti Järvelä workshop

Posted on by
Reply

Finnish Fiddle & Guitar workshop with
Arto Järvelä & Antti Järvelä
Seman Violins (4447 W. Oakton, Skokie).
Monday, October 6
Admission is $15 at the door. *
A family friendly workshop will begin at 5:30pm followed by the regular workshop at 7pm.

* Present a ticket stub from Arto & Antti’s concert at the Old Town School of Folk Music on Sunday. Click here for information and reservations on what is sure to be a fabulous show.

Top ten reasons why you don’t want to miss this workshop.
10. This is Arto’s 3rd visit to Fiddle Club of the World. **
9. Arto’s first two visits were awesome.
8. Polskas are awesome
7. Finnish fiddling is both archaic and contemporary.
6. Järveläs have been playing the fiddle for at least 7 generations.
5. Antti is a really friendly guy.
4. This will be a load of fun.
3. Antti and Arto are awesome musicians.
2. Arto is one of Fiddle Club’s best friends.
1. Did I mention that Finnish fiddling is awesome?

** Check out these previous Fiddle Club posts (or just click Arto’s name in the tag cloud in right hand column). Check back later in case they send us more tunes.

Like these . . .
Foops two polskas from Maria Spoofs manuscript collection, circa 1800.

Reinon Knäpsäys a polkka (aka polka)

Fiddle Club Guests – Fall 2014

Posted on by
Reply

Meetings held at Seman Violins (4447 W. Oakton, Skokie).
Admission is $15 at the door.
All meetings begin at 7pm with a short concert * followed by a jam/workshop.

Pete's Posse
Pete’s Posse – Sunday, September 28
Traditional tunes and interpretations from Vermont. This is Pete Sutherland’s return to Fiddle Club, after a successful visit in October 2009 with Mark Roberts & Jeremiah McClane.

Fingal’s Cave-The Big Picture by Pete’s Posse

Pete Sutherland – Fiddle, guitar, banjo, piano & vocals
Oliver Scanlon – Fiddle, mandolin, dobro, foot percussion & vocals
Tristan Henderson- Guitars, bouzouki, mandolin, harmonica, jews harp, bodhran, snare drum, doumbek, foot percussion & vocals.

Arto Järvelä & Antti Järvelä – Monday, October 6
Traditional fiddling from Ostrobothnia, a district in west central Finland, an area that has one of the largest concentrations of fiddlers to be found anywhere.

Polska Ostrobott & Rahapolska by Arto Järvelä & Antti Järvelä

*Workshop and jam session only. Arto & Antti are doing a concert at the Old Town School of Folk Music on Sunday, October 5. Bring your ticket stub and get half-price admission to this Fiddle Club meeting.
 
 
Maja Kjær Jacobsen & David Boulanger – Sunday, November 9
Traditional Danish and Québecois fiddle music. (Pending visa process)

Danish Tune-Quebecois Tune by Maja & David

Maja Kjær Jacobsen, from Silkeborg (Danmark) plays fiddle and hardingfele (hardanger fiddle). David Boulanger, a member of La Bottine Souriante from Montreal, plays fiddle.
 
 
Bob Bovee & Pop Wagner – Sunday, November 30
Old-Time tunes, cowboy songs, heart songs and maybe a rope trick or two by this pair of old friends from Minnesota.

Robinson County by Pop Wagner & Bob Bovee

Pete's Posse

-Paul Tyler, convener
Fiddle Club of the World (Chicago Chapter)

An evening of English Traditional Music

Posted on by
Reply

Folkestra from England
Sunday, April 13, 7 pm
Seman Violins (4447 Oakton, Skokie)
This event is free.

Folkestra is 11 teenage instrumentalists and singers from Sage Gateshead, an Old Town School clone in Northern England. They are doing a week-long residency at the Old Town School of Folk Music, highlighted by a concert and ceilidh/barn dance at Global Dance Party on Friday, April 11. (That event is also free.) Their visit to Fiddle Club gives us a chance to hear more tunes, learn a couple, and play together.

I hope to be able to post some tunes to learn this week. But try out this pair.

New and Old Morpeth Rants by Our Northern Branch

Just added! A peek at Folkestra’s performance at the Old Town School of Folk Music’s Global Dance Party on April 11, 2014.

More tunes, and maybe some notes, to follow.
Paul Tyler, convener

A Night of Swing with Don Stiernberg

Posted on by
Reply

Don Stiernberg
It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing!
Sunday, January 26, 7pm
Seman Violins (4447 Oakton, Skokie)

$15 at the door. Fiddle Club is not just for fiddlers. All players and music lovers are welcome.

I am very excited that our next featured guest at the Chicago Chapter of Fiddle Club of the World is Don Stiernberg, a fabulous jazz mandolinist and all around good guy. Don also plays a mean fiddle, and I expect we will hear both fiddle and mandolin in his mini-concert in the back room of Seman Violins. Chris Walz will provide guitar accompaniment.


Don Stiernberg.

In the jam sesseion/workshop to follow, Don will help us through the first steps of swing and improvisation. Start out with this class, Sweet Georgia Brown. Two more standards will be posted later today.

Sweet Georgia Brown slow

Sweet Georgia Brown lesson

Sweet Georgia Brown improvised


Don Stiernberg with Jethro Burns & John Parrish

– Paul Tyler, convener

Lotus Dickey CD release party

Posted on by
Reply

Lotus Dickey CD Release Celebration
Sunday, December 1, 7pm
Seman Violins (4447 Oakton, Skokie)

Honoring the memory of Lotus Quentin Dickey (1911-89), Dickey’s Disciples will play tunes from the new CD: Down the Pike and Other Fiddle Tunes from Orange County, Indiana. The four disciples who accompanied Lotus in recording these tunes will be present: Fred Campeau-banjo, Jim Nelson-guitar, Steve Rosen-banjo and Paul Tyler-guitar and mandolin. To make it look even more like a Volo Bogtrotters appearance, Lynn “Chirps” Smith will also join the fun. And after the concert set, we’ll make a circle and everyone can play. Some of Lotus’s favorites will be taught.

Lotus Dickey: Down the Pike

Lotus Dickey was incredible man, a brilliant song writer and powerfully good fiddler. I was very privileged to spend a great deal of time with him from 1981, when I booked him for the Indiana Fiddlers Gathering in Battle Ground, up until his death in 1989. During that time, we made an concerted effort to identify and document all the tunes he had learned during his boyhood (the 1920s) from the old fiddlers who were his neighbors in Orange County, Indiana. The last time I saw Lotus, was a visit he made to Chicago in April of 1989. We set up an overnight recording session in the concert hall at the Old Town School of Folk Music and recorded about fifteen tunes with accompaniment by Dickey’s Disciples. The next morning, Lotus and I sat in front the microphones in engineer Flawn Williams living room and record another eight or so tunes, mostly waltzes.

Those were magic moments. The public first heard them on a 2-cassette album issued by Marimac Records in 1992. Now thanks to Vigortone Records, these session have been re-mastered and re-issued on CD. The CDs can be purchased at this Fiddle Club of the World meeting.

Lotus at his cabin on Grease Gravy Road
Lotus Dickey in front of his cabin on Grease Gravy Road near Paoli, Indiana.

To hear some tunes from Lotus Dickey & Dickey’s Disciples, go here and here.

-Paul Tyler, convener

New Season Starts Sunday

Posted on by
Reply

Open jam this Sunday (9/15) at the Leadway Bar & Grill (5233 N. Damen) at 7 (pm).
Fiddlers and all players of other instruments are welcome. Bring your current favorite tune.

new season
(click here for a printable flyer)

To hear Norwegian tunes from Vidar Skrede, click here or here.
To hear recordings by Stuart Rosenberg, click here.

For the most current info and other goodies, check the Fiddle Club of the World facebood page. You do have to be on facebook (You mean you’re not!) and you do have to ask to join. Just ask, we’ll open the door for you. Click here for our facebook page

– Paul Tyler, convener

Special Last Minute Fiddle Club Guests

Posted on by
Reply

Bjärv
Monday, June 24, 7pm
Seman Violins (4447 Oakton, Skokie)

Sometimes great musicians wander into Chicago with open dates on their schedule. Fiddle Club of the World loves to take advantage of these situations, especially when the musicians in question are the talented men of this folk trio from Sweden and the US.

Bjarv
Bjärv

Olof Göthlin (fiddle), Ben Teitelbaum (nyckleharpa) & Mikael Grafström (guitar) will be in the acoustically wonderful back room of Seman Violins. (Thanks to Peter Seman and his staff for hosting). They’ll give us a bit of a concert and teach us a tune or two so we can all play together. All we ask is a $15 donation, payable at the door. This is a great chance to hear these fine musicians up close.

Fiddle Club meetings at Seman Violins are BYOB. Munchies will be provided.

If you want more, check out their bios, visit their website,
listen to the them on MySpace or watch them on a recent visit to the US . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVt-xKzrcHY

Paul Tyler, convener
Fiddle Club of the World, Chicago Chapter

Tune Session on Sunday, April 21

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Click month for a list of tunes we played at recent jams.
March jam

February jam

January jam

Jimmy Keane brings his accordion to Fiddle Club

Posted on by
Reply

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.

Paul Tyler, convener