RockyGrass continually lives up to it’s reputation, year after year. It has been called the “perfect” festival, and I have a tendency to agree. Though one might say I am biased; this is my 17th time attending RockyGrass over the last 19 years. There is just one main stage here, but it offers so many highlights in a day that you cannot capture them all. Here are a few of mine from Friday’s line-up.
Brother Mule is one of the coolest bands you have likely never seen. With Ben Winship, Brian Wicklund and Lyons, Colorado local bassist Eric Thorin, their mix of quirky covers and awesome originals is riveting. Darol Anger’s Republic of Strings (now featuring guitarist Scott Law, fiddler Lauren Rioux, and cellist Mike Block) covered the gamut from ripping old-time fiddle tunes to odd metered Swedish polskas. And Mike Block sang a hilarious tune about Michael Jordan. Find it on YouTube.
Bryan Sutton and the String Set with Darol Anger, Mike Marshall, and Greg Garrison played a number of Doc Watson tunes, fiddle tunes, originals, and a piece from the Improvised Roots Series a couple weeks ago with Bill Frisell and Ron Miles (featured on The Bluegrass Blog).
After the David Grisman Bluegrass Experience played a half dozen songs, David launched into a deep history of bluegrass which was remarkably compelling, and playing tunes from some of the earliest roots of bluegrass, like the Carter Family and others from the earliest RCA sessions. But the true highlight of the set was the encore, Fanny Hill played with Boston-based wunderkind Dominick Leslie and Alex Hargreaves.
And the Del McCoury Band closed the evening, always flawless, and just killed it. One cool moment was when Bassist Alan Bartram sang You Win Again and on the first chorus Del sang a soaring tenor which got a huge round of applause like it was an instrument solo. Their set ended with Peter Rowan, David Grisman and Darol Anger joining the band for a couple tunes.
Colorado banjoist Jake Schepps is expecting a Spring 2011 release for his ambitious album of music by 20th century Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. With Christmas approaching, he is offering a free download of one of the tracks, taken from Bartók’s Romanian Christmas Carols.
An Evening in the Village: The Music of Béla Bartók contains Schepps’ arrangements of 18 pieces for the modern string band format. Jake recorded over the course of 2010 in settings that range from a full bluegrass quintet to trios with banjo, guitar, and cello, plus a number of duets.
The album was produced by Schepps with assistance from Jayme Stone and Matt Flinner. Joining him in the studio were his touring band, the Expedition Quartet (Grant Gordy, Ryan Drickey and Ian Hutchison), the Matt Flinner Trio (Ross Martin and Eric Thorin), bassist (and former Punch Brother) Greg Garrison, and cellist (and former Sparrow Quarteter) Ben Sollee.
The selection of Bartók as a source for banjo arrangements isn’t so odd, actually. Many of his compositional themes were derived from the native folk music of eastern Europe, which he collected assiduously as audio recording technology began to appear near the turn of the prior century. On top of that, Bartók is the namesake of banjo wizard Béla Fleck.
The pieces on the album were selected from Mikrokosmos, For Children: Hungarian and Slovakian Songs, Romanian Christmas Carols, the 44 Violin Duos, and two movements from Hungarian Sketches.
Jake tells us a bit about his concept for An Evening In The Village:
“I was drawn to Béla Bartók as he was an avid collector of folk music from Eastern Europe in the early 20th century (over 8000 songs), transcribing and arranging some of these melodies for the concert setting. My initial vision was to have string band musicians reinterpret Bartók’s classical versions of folk tunes, yet as the project progressed we tackled more ambitious material, sometimes playing exactly what was written (as the Romanian Christmas Carols), and sometimes using the score as a jumping off point for more of a ‘new acoustic’ arrangement with chord changes and improvisation.
It has been an immense musical challenge, and all the musicians involved have brought so much to the pieces, as there is not a template for taking a piano score and extrapolating that to a 5-piece bluegrass band.”
To download the free track (in multiple formats), just visit Jake’s bandcamp page.
Banjoist Jake Schepps is in the studio recording his stringband arrangements of 20th century composer Bela Bartok’s music. He will include pieces from the Mikrokosmos, Music for Children, Romanian Folk Dance #1, and 6 of the violin duets.
For the first tracking sessions this week, Jake is at Brent Truitt’s Nashville studio with mandolinist Matt Flinner and his trio, and he passed along a few words about how it has been going.
“Most of the process over the last two days of rehearsal was collaborative. We all bring something different, yet also similar to the table. Ryan Drickey has a master’s in classical violin performance, but is now steeped in old-time and Swedish fiddle music. Ross Martin is a jazz guitarist at heart, but has a compelling country twang, and a beautiful new acoustic feel. Matt Flinner has a brilliant melodic and harmonic sense, as well as a bold touch to setting the stringband in such creative and innovative ways. Bassist Eric Thorin has a wicked ear and some phenomenal chops. And since improvisation is a core tenet of stringband music, we have arranged some pieces with space for solos where appropriate. Sometimes we have followed the markings on the original score closely, yet others we took the spirit of the piece and ran with it.
It has been a blast arranging this with the band. I worked a lot on tunes over the winter, but it is great to hear this music from a piano score come to life. And the Flinner Trio is so skilled as a unit at working up new material, with incredible rhythmic and harmonic adeptness.”
Later this year, Schepps will return to finish the project, recording with Drickey again on fiddle, Grant Gordy on guitar, and Ian Hutchison on bass, who perform with him as The Expedition Quartet. A couple of banjo duets are expected as well, with Jayme Stone and Noam Pikelny, and one with banjo and nyckelharp, a traditional Swedish bowed instrument, similar to a hurdy gurdy.
This as-yet untitled project is not slated for release until May 2011.
We had written about Jake and his quartet last month when they were preparing to travel to Russia to compete in the 1st Annual Terem Crossover Competition in St. Petersburg. As its name implies, this contest is about music that spans various genres, and Schepps and crew were invited to participate based on entry videos.
Here is a video travelogue they prepared from their visit which, alas, did not result in the winning of valuable prizes.
Colorado banjo player Jake Schepps and his band, Expedition Quartet, have just arrived in Russia. They have been invited to compete in the 1st Annual Terem Crossover in St. Petersburg this week, where they will go up against dozens of other small ensembles from all over the world. The Quartet consists of Schepps on banjo, Ryan Drickey on fiddle, Grant Gordy on guitar and Ian Hutchison on bass.
The competition is hosted by St. Petersburg’s renowned Terem Quartet, and the contest takes its theme from their melding of folk, classical and original music. It is open to any ensemble of 2-7 acoustic instruments, with particular emphasis placed on the “Crossover” aspect of their music. Entrants were selected through video submissions, and the semi-final and final rounds are scheduled for March 22-25 in St. Petersburg.
Jake shared a bit more information about their participation shortly before leaving on Sunday.
“Terem Crossover is a fascinating and challenging competition, mainly in the fact that the early rounds focus on music each act’s choosing, but Round 3 requires music by a both a classical composer and a selection from one of Tchaikovsky’s ballets. We have prepared a Béla Bartok piece and have arranged Dance of the Swans from Swan Lake for stringband.
Round 1 was via video late last fall, and we submitted the piece Somerset from my album Ten Thousand Leaves, a fiddle tune in 7/8 by Ryan Drickey, and the aforementioned Béla Bartok piece An Evening in the Village.
Round 2 takes place in St. Petersburg, and consists of a selection from Round 1, and something that creatively represents our group. We have worked up a fiddle tune medley, replete with metric modulations, key changes, and a more driving bluegrass vibe.
Of the 70 bands, about 50 are from Russia, then several from Europe, Japan, Brazil, and beyond. Musically, there are quite a few balalaika bands, a couple bass quartets, a cello trio, an oboe quartet, and several other bands that seem more classically oriented. We are the only one from the USA, and the only one with a banjo. The prizes include a significant purse, a potential concert tour of Russia, and a spectacular trophy. There are workshops, concerts, and music throughout the week.
We are competing on Friday, and then have a show Friday night in St. Petersburg.”
Jake tells me that his Russian is limited to “hello” and “thank you” at this time, but that he planned to listen to several podcasts on his iPod during the flight in preparation. He also pointed us to this video of the music they would be performing.
You can follow their Russian adventure on Jake’s Facebook and Twitter pages online.
Ace banjo player Jake Schepps sent along this fascinating report from his recent trip to Borneo with the Jeff and Vida Band, along with some photos and a video.
Two weeks ago, the Jeff and Vida Band performed at the 12th annual Rainforest World Music Festival. The festival is on the northwest tip of the island of Borneo, outside of Kuching, the capital of the Sarawak region of Malaysia. They host just one string band each year, and we were fortunate enough to be selected for this year’s festival.
Jeff Burke and Vida Wakeman have performed and toured actively as a duo for the last 8 years and most recently they recorded Selma Chalk, (to be released 10/1/09) with a Colorado-based band. The group includes myself on 5-string banjo, Justin Hoffenberg on fiddle, Greg Schochet on mandolin and archtop guitar, and Will Downes on bass.
The festival takes place at the Sarawak Cultural Village, an interactive center with exhibitions on the more than 20 local Borneo tribes, and over 20,000 attendees came to the festival. We were the only group from the US, while the rest came from Chile, Portugal, Poland, Hungary, China, Korea, France, Tanzania, Morocco, Finland, Indonesia, and Malaysia
The band made the 36-hour journey to Borneo, flying from Denver to Los Angeles to Taipei to Kuala Lumpur to Kuching and a bus to Santubong Resort. At the end of this journey we enjoyed the sunset while swimming in the South China Sea (still oblivious to the numerous stinging jellyfish in the area), a dinner of unpronounceable and unrecognizable local dishes, and a few pints of Tiger beer.
The festival begins each afternoon with a series of workshops, and each band member was placed in eclectic settings ranging from 10 guitarists in one group, or 12 women vocalists, or all the tiniest instruments at the festival (including a mandolin, a Brazilian cavaquinho, a Chinese pipa, an Andean charango, and more). “Funsionistas” was my first workshop and included a local tribesman playing a sape, a Malaysian percussionist, a Moroccan on Stratocaster, an Aussie guitarist, and a Korean man playing a clangy cymbal. We each discussed the history of our respective instruments, either in English or using a translator, and played a short solo piece. Then we tried to make music as an ensemble.
While the potential for disaster was close at hand, most of the four workshops I participated in had some genuine moments of cohesiveness and fun. In the “Strings with Energy” workshop, Jeff and I played 9 lb Hammer over a Moroccan percussionist followed by a traditional Chinese melody entitled Kangdang Quingge with two members of Red Chamber (I was familiar with the tune from Abigail Washburn’s Sparrow Quartet album of 2008). One of the best moments was watching Vida sing Take This Hammer at the “Women’s Voices‚Ķ..” workshop and with 2 of the Zawose sisters (from Tanzania) clapping and dancing along.
The group Red Chamber, a quartet of Chinese women living in Vancouver, performs a variety of Chinese and other music from around the world on traditional Chinese instruments. On their recent album Red Grass they adapted the traditional American fiddle tune Katy Hill and recorded it with John Reischman and the Jaybirds. We worked up the tune and performed it with them during their Friday evening set.The Jeff and Vida Band’s Saturday evening performance was met with remarkable enthusiasm. The crowd listened, learned the words as we played – singing along with verve – and then formed a long conga line that snaked across of the festival grounds. Afterwards we had many people telling us, “You play amazing ‚Äòcountry and western!'” If they only knew.As a performer and attendee of many bluegrass festivals, it was endlessly fascinating to hear our own music come across as “world music.” In this setting rhythmically, harmonically, and aesthetically, we had just as little in common with some of these bands as the Korean ensemble Noreum Machi that played percussion and bamboo flute (check them out on YouTube!).
Not to discount the notion that music as a universal language, as the workshops illustrated. As did the late-night jamming. Groups from 5 continents found much musical common ground and shared tunes to the wee hours. We played Polish tunes in 7/8, Hungarian gypsy tunes played traditionally, and then jamming on them through the gypsy jazz filter with the French band Poum Tchack’s, alongside our Big Sciota and Y’all Come.
One of the highpoints was getting to hear Kumar Karthigesu from the Malaysian group AkashA take a sitar solo on Lady Be Good. Though maybe the Maori tribesman singing Harper Valley PTA takes the cake, yet the Finns and Poles attempting to sing the Star Spangled Banner as we climbed on the bus to make the 36-hour journey home was quite hilarious.
Sunday’s grand finale was a spectacle beyond belief. The Zawose Family from Tanzania laid down a drumbeat, and each of the 17 bands came out one at a time and performed a short piece over their groove. I think I can safely say there has never been a Muleskinner Blues performed quite like that. The extravaganza culminated with all 17 bands on stage playing and jamming for a solid 20 minutes of pure unadorned rhythmic dance party.
One of the most moving moments of the weekend happened during the final moments of the finale, and is an image that sums up the experience. At the front of the stage was a Moroccan man in traditional dress, a New Zealand Maori man in a grass skirt, a New Wave Korean percussionist, and a Tanzanian woman, all unabashedly dancing and gyrating together with 100 musicians from all over the planet behind them, and 10,000 adulating fans in front.
We got a note recently from progressive banjoist Jake Schepps, letting us know that he and his Expedition Quartet are heading from Boulder, CO to New York City for this week’s Arts Presenters Conference. The annual conference brings together performing artists and buyers in the worlds of music, dance, theater, family programming and comedy.
Jake tells us that a number of acoustic string acts will be showcasing as well this year, including Abigail Washburn’s Sparrow Quartet, Laurie Lewis and the RIght Hands, Bill Evan’s Soul Grass with Sam Bush, Bearfoot, and more.
Colorado progressive banjoist Jake Schepps is releasing his latest CD next week (7/26). Entitled Ten Thousand Leaves, it features Schepps on 11 new compositions, both his own and pieces from his collaborators on this project, guitarist Greg Schochet, bassist Eric Thorin and mandolinist (and producer) Matt Flinner.
The music is adventurous and challenging, and will appeal strongly to fans of modern banjo music – and banjo players who pursue this style themselves. Among the more ambitious tracks is a Schepps string quartet, written for banjo, violin, guitar and bass.
