Folk musicians gather for old-time jam sessions in Seoul

An old-time jam session breaks out at Casa Amigo in central Seoul's Itaewon neighborhood, Jan. 20. Korea Times photo by Jon Dunbar

By Jon Dunbar

• Published Mar 12, 2024 5:30 PM KST
• Updated Mar 13, 2024 11:51 AM KST

Somebody posts on a quiet Facebook group that it's time for another old-time jam session. Usually, there's no more than a week's notice, and at the anointed time and place, a group of musicians versed in various folk traditions come together to make music. There are core participants who show up almost every time, but they're welcoming of newcomers, and each time is a little different.

Guitarist Sean Og McKiernan told The Korea Times they always keep things informal.

"We do this for the love of it — not just the music but the comradeship," he said. "It's just a lot of fun hanging out with people from different walks of life through a common interest. It gives us a good excuse to have a few drinks and unwind a bit, too. I think it's hard to put a price on that, so we generally don't play for money. We never formally rehearse but just get together and learn and exchange tunes on the fly or through our group chats."

"Old-time" is most often described as a collection of North American folk traditions. But it's much more complex than that, according to Daniel Daugherty, who founded the group about a decade ago.

"When we say 'old-time,' we usually mean the traditional music from the southern Appalachians. However, old-time is actually much bigger," Daugherty said. "The U.S. is an immigrant country, and as new ethnic groups joined the mix and spread throughout the continent, they developed their own versions by mixing their music into the new American style. Midwestern old-time has wholly different lists of tunes and songs that aren't played in Appalachia or New England. Canada also has old-time music. Old-time includes just about everything in the American music traditions ... Murder ballads and songs from Britain and Ireland, African American spirituals, blues, songs for children, cowboy songs, etc. It's an ethnic music made up of many different ethnic musics."

That holds true for the group in Seoul, too. "We all come from different musical backgrounds and experiences, and old-time is kind of the genre where most of us meet in the middle," McKiernan, who comes from an Irish traditional and bluegrass background, said. "Our sessions are not strictly old-time or bluegrass, but there are tangible connections between all of the songs and tunes we play."

According to Daugherty, old-time was just a catch-all name used by the recording industry in its early days to market various genres of music that had already existed. Old-time music commonly features the fiddle and banjo as well as other stringed instruments, but can also feature harmonicas, accordions, flutes and whistles.

"In old-time, the players want to tap into the groove together. While we generally play the melody together, rhythmic accompaniment is welcome, and some improvisation is also part of the process. Just don't bust the groove. Nobody really takes solos," Daugherty said.

Old-time can often be confused with bluegrass, which Daugherty refers to as "radio-friendly old-time music."

"Old-time is much more participatory. It's for anyone to join in any way they can, whether that's dancing, playing their bodies as an instrument, singing, etc. The purpose is danceability, so it's slower than bluegrass, but also, for the players, it's a meditative experience," he said. "Tommy Jarrell, the patron saint of modern old-time music, once described fiddle tunes as a circle with no beginning and no end."

Daugherty, who originally lived in Korea from 2010 to 2017, founded the old-time jam group about a decade ago, hoping to hone his improvisational skills.

"I've been playing music my whole life, including oboe and guitar, but I have been on a journey of exploration since 20ld-timhen I was inspired by longtime Seoul-based musician Seth Martin. Since then, I've been learning and appreciating American traditional music through the mandolin. I started learning old-time fiddle (violin) in 2019, and I wish I'd started 20 years ago," he said.

He started going to Irish music sessions at the Wolfhound in central Seoul's Itaewon, where he found himself drawn to the old-time style, which leaves more room for improvisation than Irish folk music. Around 2014, he started jamming at his apartment with banjo player Roger Peacock, and shortly after that, they decided to start having their jams in public spaces. Early on, Korean fiddler Koh Hae-young started coming regularly.

"There was a rocky start, often we were the only two to show up, and it was hard to find a good venue," he said. "We had some support from local bars and cafes in HBC, but things really settled in once we got our regular venue at Hair of the Dog. I would say that without their bar, our jam would never have found its footing."

But the group went into hiatus in 2017 when Daugherty moved away. He left for Albania and later China.

"When I left Korea in 2017, I didn't really expect the group to stop meeting," he said. "It'd be rather narcissistic to say I was the reason that people came to play music together, but I think any community suffers when losing a core member."

It was in China that Daugherty and McKiernan first met, albeit online and never in person due to the pandemic.

"As is the case with lovers of genres like old-time, bluegrass and Irish music, you end up getting connected through mutual friends or through group chats, etc.," McKiernan said. "Daniel and I had connected through a Chinese social media platform, though we never actually got the opportunity to meet in China."

Living through pandemic lockdowns in China, Daugherty and McKiernan each individually decided to leave for Korea. "I think COVID is actually responsible for bringing the jam back," Daugherty said, adding he spent the lockdowns in China learning to play the fiddle.

Both of them found themselves living in Korea in 2022, although Daugherty lives on Jeju Island this time, a little far away to participate regularly in Seoul events.

Everyone seems to agree Daugherty's return to Korea precipitated the revival of the old-time sessions, even if he can't participate directly. However, he added that he invited the others down to Jeju for a jam there once, and he's hoping to create an old-time community on the island.

Although the players communicate via messenger, they maintain a group on Facebook, itself an old-timey social media platform, in order to find new talent. Many of the current regulars found it through there, and they've even met several visiting musicians that way.

"I always try to maintain the facebook group so that it looks active and shows that there are old-time players in Seoul, even if we aren't meeting up," said Daugherty, who's also a member of the band Boss Hagwon.

"These kinds of sessions are where bands and collaborations are formed," McKiernan said. "We've all kind of collaborated independently on different projects, and some of us are working on original material and have enlisted help, input, or feedback from various members of the group at different times. I think there'll be a lot more of this happening in the future as the group expands."

Since resuming, the jam sessions have been held at Hair of The Dog, as well as Casa Amigo in Itaewon and Baekusaeng Makgeolli in western Seoul's Ahyeon Market.

The next one will be at the Craic House in Itaewon on Sunday for St. Patrick's Day. Daugherty will fly in for the weekend for that event, as well as to perform a couple shows with Boss Hagwon.

"Living overseas, [old-time music] helps me feel connected to my home culture in a way that is deeper than going out for a burger or celebrating Thanksgiving," Daugherty said. "It has affected my understanding not only of music but of art and performance and of community and fellowship. The true values of these things are deeper and more important to society than their profitability. Sorry, that's a really academic way of saying: Old-time is music for anybody who wants to make it, so come join the circle!"

Visit the Korea Old-Time Jam group on Facebook for more information.