Music is in Martin Vallely’s bloodline. However, while his wider family is very well-known in the traditional Irish music world, his own talent lay dormant for a long time writes Moze Jacobs.
“In my immediate family there is hardly any music. Just one of my seven siblings plays some guitar. So I started really late. I had no idea I could play.”
Vallely is an anglicised Irish name with deep roots in Ulster, specifically Co Armagh. Its county town, Armagh, is the birthplace of Martin’s best-known musical family members. Such as the legendary Brian Vallely and his wife Eithne, prolific musicians and teachers who founded the Armagh Pipers Club in 1966 in order to “revive and promote traditional Irish music and uilleann piping”. Tragically, Eithne (81), originally from Co Donegal, died in August after being hit by a truck while walking. Their five children and ten grandchildren are all musicians, renowned for playing traditional Irish or classical music to a high standard on an eclectic array of instruments. There is also Fintan Vallely, a first cousin who is a respected flute player, university lecturer, author, ethnomusicologist and erstwhile music critic for The Irish Times.
Martin Vallely, modest to a T, takes no credit for the famous connection. Nor did it influence his musical development or career. “I’m only a second or third cousin. There is no direct lineage.” He was born in Belfast, currently lives near Clonakilty, but grew up in Cork from the age of ten, when his large family was forced to leave Northern Ireland “because of the troubles. A sectarian situation. I don’t want to say too much about it. Basically, we were in the wrong place at the wrong time and moved to the South. Cork has been very good to us. We became an integral part of the community.”
The city was also where he found his musical feet, albeit on a stop-start trajectory. “In the first year of secondary school we had a great music teacher who was very encouraging. I vaguely remember starting on the piano but unfortunately, he left and was never replaced. Therefore, it all stopped until, as a 21-year-old, I was sharing a flat in Cork with Martin Kelleher, a brilliant bass player. He was writing songs on a guitar and needed bass lines. He literally handed me an instrument and told me to play a single note. I did. He taught me another one. Within two weeks, I could play bass. Then a singer moved into the same flat, and a second songwriter. We found a drummer and ended up with a band. This was in the early 1980s. Way before Cork became the rave capital of the world. Our style was post-punk, Indie, new wave. The singer, John Campbell, thought he was David Bowie.”
Martin Vallely’s band was called Boat People (a reference to the people trying to escape the Asian countries devastated by the Vietnam War). It was the first of many musical ensembles he would be involved with down the years, in a variety of countries and situations. “Later I had some brushes with fame in a Cork band called Soon, when I had been playing bass for four years. The other musicians were Tony O’Sullivan, Giordai O’Laoghaire, Con O’Donovan. We got together and produced amazing music. That band should have become famous! People still talk about it. We clicked, there was chemistry, we were young and stupid.
“They were hailed as an adventurous musical outfit”, recorded seven studio tracks, appeared on RTE radio and TV. Everybody said we’d go somewhere. Great players, bad advice. So it didn’t happen.”
His biography shows a dazzling range of (musical and other) activities and job titles: Record and video producer, session musician, arranger, composer, songwriter, film soundtrack composer, bandleader, teacher, performer. He found paid work as a bass player in Germany, Holland, France, Spain. As a singer-songwriter, he recorded two albums with original material and transitioned into a full-fledged jazz musician. “Jazz offers a wider, more interesting canvas.” With the Martin Vallely Quartet he released a series of critically-acclaimed Jazz CDs featuring his own compositions, while touring extensively. He took up the saxophone in addition to the bass, obtained a BA, then an MA at the MTU Cork School of Music. As if that wasn’t enough, he became a film director, “after following a sign for a filmmaker course on a balmy summer’s evening in Cork.
“I thought, oh, I’d love to try that. So I did.”
He directed six short fiction films; some were shown at festivals. “I enjoyed the experience and assimilated so much knowledge. It was even more fulfilling than music. You’re looking at ten different skills that you’ve got to be working on almost simultaneously.”
This year, as the Brett/Vallely Conspiracy, he released his sixth CD, ‘Two Heads Are Better Than One’, featuring jazz standards, on which he plays tenor sax and bass together with long-term collaborators Josephine Smith (vocals), Justin Brett (piano/keyboards), David Christy Jones (drums/percussion).
The latter two also participate in his latest project, a community big band in Clonakilty, now called Seo Linn. Roughly ten members (there’s room for more). Some are professional musicians, others have a day job, everyone strives for professionalism. Vallely is very pleased with the result. After rehearsing for four months, their debut in front of an audience of thousands during the Clonakilty Street Festival in June was really well-received. “Not pure jazz but I’m doing jazzy arrangements of all the songs, including ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, ‘Moon Dance’, ‘Conscious Love’ (a reggae tune that I composed).”
A second gig, in Ár-n-Áit (Skibbereen), is booked for Sunday afternoon, September 20.
Another project close to his heart is the Clonakilty Men’s Shed Choir that he has led since September 2024. Coincidentally, it also performed at the Street Carnival this year. Martin entered them for last year’s RTÉ Choirs for Christmas competition. A recording is online at RTÉ Lyric FM. In-between, they poignantly sang at the funeral of the late, much-missed Tommy O’Donovan, which brought Clonakilty to a stand-still. “He was the founding Chairman of Clonakilty Men’s Shed and one of the choir’s original members. He enjoyed getting the guys together. And he loved singing for its own sake. He had a lovely voice. He is missed.”
Martin Vallely plays with the Dave Desmond Jazz Trio on September 5 and conducts the Seo Linn Big Band on September 20 (Ár-n-Áit, Skibbereen). Each month, the Clonakilty Men’s Shed sings for the residents of the Convent Hospital and around Christmas in aid of St. Vincent de Paul.
