Just a taste of Irish Christmas tradition

Eileen Ivers’ “Celtic Christmas” show Monday at Walt Disney Concert Hall advertised a full evening of Irish holiday entertainment, from traditional tunes and singalongs to carols, poetry, storytelling and step dancing. For the most part, each of those elements was present, if, in some cases, only minimally.

The program by Ivers’ six-piece ensemble, Immigrant Soul, included plenty of spirited jigs and reels, a pair of traditional Christmas songs and a sprinkling of original tunes. But there were only brief appearances by an unidentified quartet of dynamic step dancers, the singalong passages were minimal and the poetry consisted of a single offering written by Ivers’ father-in-law.

Most of the evening, in fact, centered on the playing by Ivers and her musicians, and the fascinating manner in which she has synthesized a global array of musical resources into an innovative take on Celtic music.

The accurately titled Immigrant Soul band, for example, included a pair of Irish musicians (piper-flutist Ivan Goff and guitarist James Riley), one Brazilian (drummer Adriano Santos) and three Americans (Ivers, singer-percussionist Tommy McDonnell -- from “County Bronx,” Ivers explained -- and the eclectic, Chicago-born bassist Emanuel Chulo Gatewood).

The opening numbers, “Flowing Tide” and “Afro-Jig,” quickly established the inclusiveness of Ivers’ music. Seasoning her traditional Irish fiddle style with occasional funk and jazz grooves from Gatewood, Santos and McDonnell, tossing in sliding, blues-inflected improvisations, she drove the music through an amalgam of hard-swinging rhythms.

Later in the program, she found similar Celtic resonance in bluegrass (“Blizzard Train”) and classical music (“Pachelbel’s Frolics”), without sacrificing the essence of the traditional Irish style that is the foundation of her art.

Ivers is an American-born (of Irish parents) violinist who nonetheless is a nine-time All-Ireland fiddler champion. Her spectacular playing for the Irish musical “Riverdance” helped make the show a classic theater piece.

Despite her stellar work and despite the superb contributions from her musicians -- especially Riley’s versatile guitar playing and Goff’s soulful piping -- one couldn’t help but wish that the performance had been more substantively oriented toward its “Celtic Christmas” title; that, for example, the singalongs had taken place in familiar carols rather than in lesser-known material.

Ivers is right to be proud of her remarkable new framing of Irish music. But there are certain holidays -- Christmas is one -- when, despite the musical genre, tradition can be more appealing than transformation.