Tomorrow is release day for Mark Stoffel’s new mandolin solo project from Mountain Home Music, Coffee & Cake, and to celebrate they are sharing another track from the album with our readers.
Mark is, of course, the longtime mandolinist with Chris Jones & The Night Drivers. The Munich native moved to the US and made his home in southern Illinois back in 2001, and became a US citizen in 2016. We have enjoyed his tasteful and virtuosic playing with Chris for more than a decade, and have been finding the music on Coffee & Cake to be delightful listening.
Today’s track premiere is a pairing of two well known fiddle tunes within the bluegrass tradition, one an old timer in the key of Bb, and the next a Kenny Baker classic usually played in D. Stoffel combines them to interesting effect, even with the jarring signature change.
He explains how they came to be chosen for the record.
“A medley of a couple of timeless fiddle tunes. Lody van Vlodrop, an old friend and mentor, taught me the first one, Jon Weisberger, bandmate for 12 years, helped me pick the other one.”
Have a listen.
Mark has also released a clever music video from another of the new record’s tracks, a mandolin orchestra arrangement of In The Mood, the major Glenn Miller Orchestra hit from 1939. Stoffel and a number of his global mando-buddies assembled the recording remotely during COVID-19 shutdowns, and pieced together this video from the sessions.
Coffee & Cake will be widely available on October 2 wherever you stream or download music online, or on CD directly from Mark’s web site.
Radio programmers can get all the tracks from AirPlay Direct.
