Patrick Ourceau
Interview from Fiddler Magazine Winter 2002/2003
A Journey from Gif-Sur-Yvette
to New York by Way of Clare
By Allison M. Brock
It's four a.m. on a Tuesday. The chairs at the bar are empty at Mona's, an Irish pub in Manhattan, and Patrick Ourceau's fiddle case is still open. "How about 'The Galway Rambler?'" he suggests to Eamon O'Leary, who's sitting next to him. O'Leary responds by picking the first few notes on his guitar, and his partner confirms them on fiddle. Into the tune after a false start, Ourceau's bow slowly sweeps across the strings. His notes are lifting and lyrical and bounce with each stroke. Even at this hour, his brow is furrowed and his eyes are intense. Besides O'Leary, the only person appreciating his deliberate old-style tempo is a bartender, taking a break from cleaning pint glasses.
A slow tempo is key in Ourceau's style, and he doesn't recognize that priority in many of his contemporaries. "It's a mistreatment of the music, going full speed ahead in one direction without even considering what you're leaving behind. I cannot allow myself to or treat the music disrespectfully. It can be an empty bag of tricks, and there's a great lack of integrity and respect in it. Tradition is a journey; it's a journey in which you know what came behind you and then you carry it on."
But the journey Ourceau took to reach these truths began a long time ago and in another country. It's 1983, and sixteen-year-old Ourceau sits on the edge of his friend's bathtub and begins the first notes of "Castle Kelly" on a borrowed fiddle. His friend joins in on whistle -- typical bathroom jam session, except the shouts of encouragement coming up the stairs are, "C'est un beau morceau! Magnifique!"
The times Ourceau spent in his hometown of Gif-Sur-Yvette (an hour drive south of Paris) with schoolmate Benoît Tremolières sparked his interest in Irish music. Benoît's parents, Antoine and Henriette, caught up in the European folk revival of the '60s, formed a folk band called Lous Velhadours. They were also avid music collectors, mostly of old LPs of solo and duet artists from all parts of the world. "Actually, they encouraged me to play when Benoît and I started listening to a lot of their records. We both fell in love with Irish music," says Ourceau.
Ourceau was smitten with other music long before his weekends with the Tremolières family. His own family was full of music- makers. One uncle played trumpet in a four-piece Cuban band. "Our attic was really huge, and when the local football team would win, my uncle would bring his band up for a party." Another uncle played the harmonica. "He started me off on it when I was eleven or twelve and would ride his bike for about twenty or thirty miles every Wednesday to teach me. He used to play Parisian waltzes."
Despite those influences at home, the records Ourceau favored at the Tremolières' were those from such legends as the Chieftains, Boys of the Lough, Cathal McConnell, Sean Potts, Ted Furey, and Clare and Galway fiddlers Bobby Casey and Lucy Farr, respectively. "Listening to those albums was a great way of putting it all together," says Ourceau. "Antoine and Henriette had a very interesting philosophy about living and music. Antoine's concept was participation -- making your own music and not being a passive consumer. It was very inspiring to a child."
Ourceau learned the tunes he heard. Antoine taught him jigs and reels on whistle and, when Ourceau took up fiddle at sixteen, he had nearly fifty melodies to transpose with Antoine's help. "That's really the only formal instruction I had," says Ourceau. Antoine also stressed the importance of the community of musicians and meeting those rooted in their traditions. "When I started fiddle, we used to visit some of the old players in Giat in the Auvergne region. One musician I remember was Monsieur Larfeuille. His father played the vielle à rouée (hurdy gurdy), and after he passed away, Larfeuille made a replica of his father's instrument. He also had a whole collection of tunes, and he passed a lot of them on to Benoît and I."
Ourceau continued teaching himself by ear. "Back then, I spent every bit of money I had on LPs. I was actually looking at my collection the other day, and I bought a lot of good stuff, a lot of the old lads: Bobby Casey, Padraig O'Keefe, Julia Clifford, Denis Murphy, albums like that. And I bought them randomly, because I had really no idea then, yet, who everyone was."
So absorbed in Irish music, Ourceau never thought of buying a French record. "As a teenager, I thought French music was not exotic. It was also not available. I had better access to Irish music. It was a lot harder to find French [folk] music. You really had to go to the country for it."
Irish music was becoming popular in Paris, and Ourceau eventually found the Sunday Irish session at Johnny's on Rue Montmartre. He joined French musicians like Vincent Blin, Hervé Cantal, Michel Ferry, and Denis Kersoual at that same session every week until he moved to the States in 1989. One Sunday, someone passed him a tape of two great Clare and Galway fiddlers, Paddy Canny and Paddy Fahy. "It was one of those home recordings. It's one of my precious early tapes. That has been a great influence, really, in my playing, even though it's not something that kicked in right away. That music was so different from other Irish stuff I had heard. There was something special about it, and there was a richness in it. It took me a few years to fully appreciate what's in that."
When another Clareman, Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin, a concertina player and ethnomusicologist studying at the Sorbonne, began bringing over his compatriots for sessions and concerts, Ourceau put the recordings aside to learn firsthand. "That's when I met a lot of musicians -- Noel Hill, Joe Burke, Paddy Glackin, the Shannons, and loads of musicians from England."
With so many new Irish connections, a trip to the source seemed logical. His maiden voyage to Ireland was in 1986 to compete at the Fleadh Cheoil in Listowel, County Kerry. He was immediately impressed with the number of teenagers involved in the scene. "The people who were playing Irish music in Paris were in their thirties. There was no one from my generation playing the music at home," says Ourceau.
The growing Irish music scene in New York prompted Ourceau's next move in 1989. "I had no intention of making a living at music there. All I wanted to do was have the chance to go to some places and play. I knew of all the musicians there, and I figured it would be a good move for me." After settling in, Ourceau began scouting the area for sessions. Scarce in Manhattan at the time, there were plenty in Queens and the Bronx. "My first was in Mineola, one of the Comhaltas sessions. I met a whole bunch of people there, like Mattie Connolly, Martin Mulhaire, and Don Meade." He heard James Keane, Jerry O'Sullivan, and Liam O'Connor in pubs like McGovern's in Queens. Another hangout later on was The Eagle Tavern, a well-known venue then. "One of the great concerts I remember there was with Martin Wynne, Paddy Reynolds, and Felix Dolan. It was one of the last times they played together before Martin passed away. It was a wonderful night of music."
As more pubs in Manhattan opened their doors to music, Ourceau's talent was in demand. "At one stage, I was doing about five sessions a week, myself and Eamon O'Leary. A lot of them ended within two weeks or a month, because the bar owners had no idea what they were getting into. It was just some sort of a fad."
Bigger gigs further afield started to filter in. Ourceau toured with accordion and concertina player John Williams (ex-member of Solas) off and on over a three-year period. He was also a member of céilí band Celtic Thunder from 1995 to 1998. A chance meeting with old friend Gearóid Ó hAllmhuráin, now based in the States, happened at the Irish Arts Week in the Catskills. "We sat in the corner all night and just played these old Clare tunes." The two have continued to play Clare music ever since, touring together frequently. They released an album in 1999 called Tracin': Traditional Music from the West of Ireland. "It's hard to say why I like that music so much. Some of the first musicians I heard were from Clare and East Galway, and they made a strong impression on me. There's a tone and lift that I love in that music."
With such a strong gravitation towards one regional style, it's no surprise that he counts many great Clare and East Galway musicians among his chief influences, like Paddy Canny, Paddy Fahy, Peadar O'Loughlin, and Jack Coen. "Meeting Canny in 1997 was really important. He was so generous to me, welcoming me to his house for tunes. And Peter and Jack have such a natural knowledge of the music," says Ourceau. "A lot of tunes I play I automatically connect with certain people. There is something special in that connection between people and music."
The Clare-based Tulla Céilí Band paid him the ultimate compliment when they invited him to play a few gigs with them. "To be asked to play in the Tulla? Jesus, it doesn't get any better than that for me," Ourceau laughs. "It was a great experience, because the music they play is the music I like. There was no struggle. I'm really grateful to Martin Hayes for inviting me. It was great to spend some real time with those musicians. I felt really honored."
Despite what he thought when he came to the States, Ourceau has made music his full-time career. He's currently playing for The Big Potato, an educational production for children about the potato famine. Occasionally he tours with Ó hAllmhuráin or Andrew McNamara (an accordion player formerly of the Tulla Céilí Band). He still leads a Monday night session at Mona's with O'Leary, which usually flows into early Tuesday morning. Sometimes touring Irish musicians will pop in for a tune and a chat.
As an experienced session player in New York and elsewhere, sometimes Ourceau hears the music being taken into directions that trouble him. "I do see a pop/rock influence in the music today, especially with young people. It's the star mania, the attitude, where everything is a commodity. They hang on to the label of traditional just to justify what they play." One of the ways Ourceau resists that, aside from his own playing, is through teaching, both in Brooklyn and on the road. Recently, he taught a beginner workshop at the Tionol in St. Louis. "Let's try 'Rolling in the Rye Grass,'" he said to the class. "It's one of the first tunes you'd learn in County Clare." Then the students, at various levels in age and ability, carefully watched him make the melody on his own instrument. After a good deal of group practice, he made his rounds to hear each player's progress, and praise and encouragement flowed. While one young girl, not in her teens yet, waited for her turn, she flawlessly plucked the tune to herself. Some weren't as confident. The young man to her left, at least ten years older, interrupted her music and flustered, said, "Wait. Is this how it goes?" When Ourceau, aware of her all along, stopped for her tune, he asked her to stand and play for the class. Everyone smiled at her poise as she delivered the best version in the room.
Perhaps Ourceau recognized something of himself in the young fiddler, a reminder of those first lessons with Antoine. The teachings give Ourceau the opportunity to give back what he's learned, from the network of players, a chance to pass on the slow, stirring Clare tunes, and a chance to keep the tradition the way he wants it kept.
[Allison M. Brock is an editor and freelance writer in St. Louis, Missouri. Her articles and reviews have appeared in Irish Music Magazine, Treoir, Rhythm Music Magazine, and ther music publications.]
