Fiddle · Frankfurt
Christian Martin
Christian Martin, Chris to us, plays fiddle: with me as a duo, with Jazzy & Jack as a trio, and on request as an addition to Fat Jack Slam. He is German, but he learned his English in Cork and sounds so Irish that I took him for an Irishman for the first five years I knew him. We met at The Jam Jar, where he played with his band and sat in at the Friday jam sessions. Classically trained, he was playing in three orchestras by the age of fifteen; the strictness of that world was not for him, and he found his way to Ireland and to Irish folk music instead. What he brings is a new dimension to the sound: in an acoustic duo or trio the fiddle carries the melody, and with the band he plays a solo the way a lead guitarist would, which regularly surprises an audience. He co-edited "Das Irish Fiddle Buch", a tutor book of 101 jigs, reels and hornpipes, and studied sound engineering. He lives in Frankfurt and travels to Tirol for our gigs; as with Andrea, the journey is part of the price and worth it every time.