Colorado banjo picker and occasional Bluegrass Today correspondent, Jake Schepps, was seriously injured in a head-on collision heading home from RockyGrass on Saturday night.
He was transported to Boulder Community Hospital where he underwent surgery in the early hours of the morning. Now in the ICU, it is thought that his various internal injuries have been successfully attended to.
We will share additional details as they as available.
Heal fast, banjo buddy!
UPDATE 7/28 – This message came from Jake’s sister, who shared this message from Jake…
“I’m still in the ICU but stable. I have some internal injuries but feeling grateful that I have full mobility of my hands and body. Thanks so much for all the love and well wishes.”
American and European mandolinists have long been fond of choro, a form of instrumental folk music from Brazil in which the mandolin is prominent. It’s a lively, two-beat sound, perfectly suited for dancing, with a beat and melodic style not unlike old time or bluegrass fiddle tunes.
Choro (pronounced sho-ro) tunes are commonly three part, as opposed to the two part format in American and Celtic fiddle music. Modern choro players typically use European type mandolins instead of the Loar-inspired instruments found in bluegrass, but the level of virtuosity required is of the highest order.
Banjo players have been less drawn to choro, though that has been changing since Noam Pikelny’s brilliant rendition of O Santo de Polvora on the pre-Punch Brothers album, How To Grow A Woman From The Ground in 2006.
Now, thanks to Jake Schepps, 5-stringers have a handy tune book in tablature to explore a bit of choro on their own. 21 tunes are included in Brazilian Choro Tablatures for 5-string Banjo, all also represented in standard notation for other instrumentalists to play along.
This is demanding music for banjo, requiring a good grip on single-string and melodic style. It would serve as a fine way to work on those sorts of chops, and a great introduction to choro music regardless of your skill level.
One free tab can be viewed on Jake’s site, where the book can be ordered for $29.
Colorado banjoist Jake Schepps will be premiering another new classical composition scored for a bluegrass group (banjo, mandolin, guitar, fiddle, bass) on December 6 at the eTown Hall in Boulder, CO. It’s part of a series of four pieces he’s commissioned, all of which will be recorded for a CD release in September 2014.
This untitled piece was commissioned from Matt McBane, a Brooklyn composer. Jake says it runs roughly 25 minutes in length, and that it isn’t yet completely finished. He hasn’t even seen the last two short movements, with rehearsals set to begin on Sunday. Talk about cutting it close!
Working with Jake at the premiere will be Matt Flinner on mandolin, Ross Martin on guitar, Ryan Drickey on violin, and Eric Thorin on bass. After the holidays, they will take the piece on tour, performing in three northeastern cities in January.
The premiere will be recorded and filmed for a documentary about this set of four commissions. Recognizing the lack of classical material either written or easily arranged for a bluegrass band, Schepps has stepped around this boundary by reaching out to composers directly. Last year he premiered Flatiron, a piece from Marc Mellits, which has also been recorded for the CD, and filmed for inclusion in the documentary.
Another piece written for Jake’s ensemble by Gyan Riley will be premiered at some point in the fall of 2014, most likely in New York City. More details on that show are yet to be determined.
The fourth in this commission series is a long-form composition from Matt Flinner, set to be recorded in March.
I guess the bluegrass band isn’t just for bluegrass anymore!
Saturday, December 1, marks the debut of Flatiron, a new musical piece by Marc Mellits. It is a modern classical work written for traditional string band instrumentation, and will be performed by Jake Schepps & the Expedition Quintent on December 1 at the Etown Hall in Boulder, CO.
Schepps has dabbled a bit in classical music of late, recording an album of Bartok music,An Evening In The Village: The Music of Béla Bartók, which also includes arrangements of several of his dance melodies for string band. Jake believes that Flatiron is the very first work of its kind, where a recognized composer has written a full-length piece for the string band, an ensemble more accustomed to arranging themselves and their various parts.
Flatiron is scored for a five-piece bluegrass band, and will be performed by Schepps on banjo, Grant Gordy on guitar, Matt Flinner on mandolin, Enion Pelta-Tiller on violin, and Eric Thorin on bass.
Here’s how the piece is described for the program:
When banjoist Earl Scruggs joined Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys in 1945, it forever canonized the traditional 5-piece bluegrass string band. In the last half-century, this combination of instruments has been explored by musicians throughout the world, in countless combinations. Yet Flatiron is something original. Flatiron is composer Marc Mellits’ view of the string band, recontextualized and reimagined as a rhythmically interlocking machine, where contemporary classical post-minimalism meets skillful technique and bluegrass drive. The multi-movement composition is as firmly rooted in the mountains as the Manhattan skyline.
Jake tells us that the performance will be filmed to document this unique premiere. Lets hope that it is sufficiently well-received to create interest in having Flatiron performed throughout the country.
Jake Schepps and his Expedition Quartet have been making waves with their non-traditional approach to both classical and string band music.
As a progressive banjoist, Schepps has the experience of annoying bluegrassers by recording and performing the music of Béla Bartok, while simultaneously irritating hidebound Bartok fans by doing so with a banjo.
But at least he does it with a prewar flathead, so he can always find a home among the banjo faithful!
The Quartet’s next project will be tracked later this year, preserved in both sound and film recording. Jake says that it is a departure for them in several ways, and that he is excited to start working on an original classical work for the bluegrass ensemble.
“We have commissioned composer Marc Mellits to write a piece for 5-piece string band (The Expedition Quartet with Grant Gordy on Guitar, Enion Pelta-Tiller on 5-string violin, Greg Garrison on bass, myself on 5-string banjo, and special guest Matt Flinner on mandolin).
Descant Productions will be following us in the process this summer and fall documenting us rehearsing and premiering the piece, which I believe is the first of it’s kind, that being a contemporary classical work written for this instrumentation by someone outside the string band world.”
Schepps has posted a video of he and the Quartet performing his arrangement of an earlier Mellits’ compositions. The piece is called Exposed Zipper, originally scored for cello, piano and marimba.
This review of An Evening In The Village: The Music of Béla Bartók is a contribution from David Hollender, Professor at the Berklee College of Music. Hollender teaches individual banjo lessons at Berklee, and leads a number of ensembles.
The cover of Jake Schepps’ new CD features a famous quote from Béla Bartók:
“Folk melodies are the embodiment of an artistic perfection of the highest order; in fact, they are models of the way in which a musical idea can be expressed with utmost perfection in terms of brevity of form and simplicity of means.”
Bartók (1881-1945) was born in Hungary and was equally important as a 20th century classical composer and as one of the first ethnomusicologists. He devoted years traveling and collecting thousands of Hungarian, Slovakian, Romanian and Bulgarian folk songs. He later used those melodies and rhythms in his compositions. Bartók was not the first composer to use themes borrowed from folk music in classical compositions, but he differed from his predecessors in that he did not “fix” the music to make it conform to the rules of classical music. He allowed the tunes to retain their quirky elements and surprises.
Any number of banjo players have included arrangements of classical music but this project is the first to explore music composed by a single composer, and a 20th composer at that! The CD is co-produced by Schepps, Jayme Stone and mandolinist Matt Flinner, who is also plays and is credited with one of the arrangements. The band consists of Ross Martin and Grant Gordy taking turns on guitar; Ben Sollee (Sparrow Quartet) on cello; Eric Thorin, Greg Garrison (Punch Brothers) and Ian Hutchinson on bass. Violinist Ryan Drickey is a kind of hinge pin in the ensemble in that his ability to play both convincing fiddle and classical violin give the sound credibility as the music shifts between styles. While all players turn in excellent performances the real focus of this project is the compositions and the ensemble.
Before anybody hears 20th century classical music and proclaims, “Modern classical music just sounds like noise!” hang on a minute. Forget about labels. This music is actually based on old time music not the least bit unlike tunes you have heard adapted to bluegrass. Schepps chose nine of Bartok’s 44 Violin Duos, several selections from Mikrokosmos (piano music), and excerpts from some larger orchestral pieces for this band, all of which have strong connection to folk music. Some tracks are basically transcriptions of music written for two violins. Those tracks are good but the real excitement comes when band picks up where Bartok Bartók left off and uses his writing as a platform to which they add vamps, rhythmic and melodic counterpoint and chords and build in sections for improvised solos. The title track, Evening in the Village,Play Song, Mikrokosmos #153 and Stick Game stand out.
The CD also includes a single tune that deserves mention. Cousin Sally Brown is not by Bartók. It is an American fiddle tune. What is interesting is how much it has in common with the Eastern European tunes. It drives home the point that American and Eastern European folk music have more things in common than the number of things that divide them.
It is easy to find examples of musicians trying to blend classical music with other styles, only to disastrous effect. In this case the effort is not just successful; it is perfectly logical since it is simply carrying what Bartók did a step further.
The field recordings of peasants in small European villages singing the old songs have been transferred to digital forms and archived. Hearing them side-by-side with the Bartok and Schepps versions is the best way to hear the connections and appreciate the innovations. If you hear this CD and like it you are encouraged to do that.
In the liner notes quote Schepps as saying, ”All kudos go Bartók, and not to me!” I appreciate that kind of humility, but still say kudos to Jake Schepps and all the players.
This interview with Béla Fleck was conducted by fellow banjoist Jake Schepps, who will review the Concerto based on Saturday’s performance. Jake’s latest CD, An Evening In The Village, also places the banjo in a classical setting, drawing on the music of Béla Bartok.
The incredibly busy and prolific Béla Fleck premiers his Concerto for Banjo in just 2 days. For those that follow Béla on Twitter (@belafleckbanjo), he has been working hard over the last year to write and learn this piece, which was commissioned by the Nashville Symphony. It will be conducted by their music director Giancarlo Guerrero, and performed with the Nashville Symphony which received the 2011 ASCAP award for Programming of Contemporary Music. The Concerto is dedicated to Earl Scruggs, “whose innovative three-finger style set bluegrass music on fire in the 1940s.”
The opening night performance (9/22) will be recorded for an album and filmed for DVD.
For those unfamiliar, a “concerto” is a musical work usually composed in three movements, in which (typically) one solo instrument (for instance, a piano, violin, cello, flute, mandolin or banjo) is accompanied by an orchestra. Traditionally, the three movements are fast-slow-fast, yet Béla describes these three as, “peppy, moody and hyper.”
In addition to solo banjo, the Concerto for Banjo is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion and strings. The program also includes Aaron Copland’s ever popular Appalachian Spring and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony (which set a new standard in composing for cymbals…..for real).
This week I got to ask Béla a few questions about the piece:
What should we expect?
“This is music I have worked on for nearly a year. It features the banjo heavily, but it also hopes to be enjoyed for the music itself, not just a vehicle for the banjo. It was a chance for me to really think hard about every single note, and try not to do things I have done before.”
What is the hardest part of the piece technically on the banjo? What about Orchestrally?
“This concerto is full of finger-busting stuff that I have had to play again and again to get down. For the orchestra there is the unfamiliarity of playing a piece generated by a banjo player’s brain. Also a lot of time changes, and held dissonances, that have to be played just right.”
Are there cadenzas? Are the cadenzas improvised? (a cadenza is an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played by a soloist)
“There are several solo cadenzas. If I get brave, there will be one improvised one.”
Given your technical expertise and experience with so much different music, you have a very large idea for what is idiomatic for the banjo. Therefore during this composition process, did you try to make it more idiomatic for the instrument? Are there places that was not the case?
“I did try to make it idiomatic as possible. I thought I had made it pretty natural, until I started really practicing it, and found it was a bear to play! I also tried to do things based on the notes, and not based on difficulty level.”
Can you describe your process for embarking on writing long form composition?
“I started by writing a bunch of small themes, and then I looked for the connectivity between them. That got me moving.”
Can you talk about how your progression from the double concerto with Edgar to the triple concerto, and now to a solo concerto? How did this progression affect the composition?
“In each case, I learned an immense amount from Edgar (and then Zakir Hussein). At a certain point I started wondering what I would come up with without such strong partners. And there were times when I might have tried a totally different approach, but I wasn’t strong enough conceptually to lead. So this time I got to try my own ideas and follow them through, and then rewrite them till I liked what I had.
That was much harder for me to do in a collaboration, especially since I don’t read and write standard notation very well.”
When we spoke last year at Swallow Hill, you said you were listening to Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony. Can you describe what you found compelling in piece, and what else did you listen to along the way?
“That is a very exciting piece. I also fell for Bartók piano and violin concertos, and Brahms piano concertos, Barber, Beethoven, and the list goes on.”
The program notes are available online which include more details about Béla and the concerto. Tickets and more information are available online as well, and the Thursday World Premiere will be offered as a free webcast from the NSO site starting at 8:00 p.m. EDT.
Here is a video created by Nashville Arts Magazine where Béla previews some of the themes from his Concerto.
This post combines Jason Lombard’s photos, and Jake Schepps‘ report from Sunday at RockyGrass. Jake’s upcoming album banjo album based on the music of Béla Bartok, An Evening In The Village, is due for release on October 4. Audio samples and pre-orders are available online.
The incredible music continued. Milk Drive started the day with an interesting combination of vocals and arresting instrumentals. Those kids can play! For me it is refreshing to hear on stage music that is similar to what I am hearing in the campground, that being a larger palette of rhythmic variety and more extended harmony. This is obviously not in every campground jam, but as the Berklee Acoustic Strings students are graduating from school, they are inspiring a lot of other musicians, and there seems to be a growing community of young musicians playing with these tonalities. At least many of them are finding their way to RockyGrass each year.
Joy Kills Sorrow followed, and the band played one of my favorite sets from the weekend. They performed a lot of music from their new album This Unknown Science. Their band is a fascinating combination of virtuosic players (Wesley Corbett on banjo, Matt Arcara on guitar, Jacob Joliff on mandolin and the great Bridget Kearny on bass), Emma Beaton’s vocals, and phenomenal songwriting. With so much talent, they have stripped the songs down, then rebuilt each tune with pop and folk-rock sensibilities, yet also taking the best ideas from stringband music. Then they add beautiful textures with acoustic instruments. The arrangements are inspired, and the rhythmic twists are always compelling. Their new album (due out in the next month or so) is also excellent.
Back on the Wildflower Pavilion side stage, Darol Anger and friends played a Kenny Baker Tribute. Those friends included the amazing Dominick Leslie on mandolin, Wesley Corbett on banjo, David Grier on guitar, Samson Grisman on bass, and a trio of fiddlers: Brian Wicklund, and Alex Hargreaves and Darol, with 3-time National Fiddle Champion Kimber Ludiker joining them for the last tune. They told some Kenny Baker stories, played some of his greatest tunes, and ended with a rousing Road to Columbus. Hopefully it makes it on YouTube soon, as they traded 8’s, 4’s then 2’s which devolved into fiddle craziness.
Larry Sparks and the Lonesome Ramblers represented the best of the best in traditional bluegrass, and then the Sam Bush Bluegrass Band closed the festival. I really love hearing them dig up old tunes from The Dillards and The County Gentlemen and reinvent them. A great festival closer.
RockyGrass is always the last weekend of July, and this year it sold out by April, so get your tickets early.
The day was packed with an incredible amount of killer music. Festivities began at 9:45 with the instrument contest finals (which for future reference can be streamed on our local radio station KGNU, interspersed with highlights from Friday festival sets). Della Mae with special guest Courtney Hartman followed, and brought the house down. Sharp left turns from bluegrass happens frequently on the RockyGrass stage, and Mike Marshall and Caterina Lichtenberg played a spellbinding set of mandolin duos; music from Italy, choros from Brazil, Bach, and original compositions. The Krüger Brothers then followed. I am not sure there is any other way of describing it other than they are magical. Of note was Jens Krüger’s face-melting solo on Eric Clapton’s song People Get Ready.
I unfortunately missed Sarah Jarosz’s set to catch the Artistworks Academy of Bluegrass Instructor performance. For those unfamiliar with this new school, Tony Trischka, Bryan Sutton, Darol Anger, Mike Marshall, and Missy Raines are the faculty for a new online community for bluegrass education. Artistworks had a film crew here to film the instructors all playing together in the Wildflower Pavilion. While these veterans are able to shred, and they certainly had their full chops on display, they emphasized the fact that the 5 teachers really break down the components of their respective instruments into manageable chunks in the lessons. I reviewed the Tony Trischka School of Banjo for Banjo Newsletter last year, and am a huge fan of this new system of education. Some very smart people are behind this, on both the technical and visionary side of things.
At 10 years old (in 1979) I joined the Steve Martin Fan Club and have been a life long fan of his work. Seeing him live for the first time surpassed all my expectations. The show with the Steep Canyon Rangers comes across as a bit more “theater,” but in the best sense. It is scripted, yet that never detracts from the well written jokes and perfectly timed punchlines. I feel incredibly privileged to have been able to see this collaboration, and the Rangers sounded fantastic. Go check them out if you can, while you can.
Hot Rize with Red Knuckles and the Trailblazers closed the festival stage. And a great set from Psychograss was tucked in the day somewhere.
And the evening finally ended at 3:00 a.m. after a fanatic jam with a plethora of Boston-based musicians from Joy Kills Sorrow and Della Mae.
