jamgrass bands

[Justus True Waldron]

I would be much cooler with the whole jamgrass thing if the band members would be able to have honed their craft and play better. It just seems backwards to have longer solos and instrumental showcasing when a lot of the players aren't very good and interesting to hear on those extended breaks.

^^ This is exactly how I feel.

EDIT: observe the banjo playing here. I mean, dude. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrcWTuWwBrI

Now that was painful... if I didn't know it was for real I would almost think that was one of those "shreds" videos.

My dad used to say when I was growing up "there is a time and a place for jamming... like in the garage. Not on stage". I guess I've always tried to follow that.... But that said if a band has a ton of skill, I can dig some extended action. I mean hey, I'm a huge jazz head - I'll be sitting on the edge of my seat through 15 minute solos if the musicianship is there. Unfortunately for me, with a lot of these "jamgrass" bands that just doesn't seem to be the case IMO.

As for the "big tent" thing, I have mixed feelings there. I can see the appeal for getting more young people turned down the path of bluegrass, but I also am wary of the real thing being lost in the process. There is a new festival called "Freshgrass" that has been put on the past 2 years at the Mass Moca art gallery. The lineup has been pretty good - some "out there" artists, but some real solid bluegrass as well. Since it is only an hour away from my house (closest festival to me, actually) and some friends from Berklee were playing there I figured I'd check it out. I had a fun time, but was left feeling a little strange afterwards, and I know I wasn't the only one.

I ended up meeting the guy that runs the festival at IBMA this year, and spent a few minutes talking with him. I told him I enjoyed the festival, the atmosphere was nice and fun, sunny days, cool art and lots of accessible food and drink. I told him my one concern was not that he had "other" types of music - an old time cello player, Trampled by Turtles, etc - but rather that it was labeled only as a "bluegrass" festival. My feeling is that by using the "bluegrass" name as a catch all, all these new fans (and there were a lot of young people there) will think that thrashing about on stage whacking and strumming at a banjo in a semi regular fashion is exactly what bluegrass is - and ultimately this is what they will learn to play. I guess maybe I do feel a little like an old geezer saying that, but I'm 24, and I mean it.

Being from the northeast we have a really tight bluegrass scene, and when somebody is really about the music you know it and they are treated like family. Some of the better nights in my life have been staying out in a field picking until dawn, and the people that are dedicated to bluegrass know each other and all continue to get better and better over years of this. I know lots of people in pro bands at this point because of seeing them at festivals and jamming with them, and even while I may not be as polished or proficient as them we can do that because we "speak" a common language - bluegrass. This common language has allowed me to do things like meet complete strangers on the Staten Island Ferry and end up picking songs we both know and talk about mutual friends. Indeed this kind of thing happens almost everywhere I go... If suddenly strumming banjo and hacking at a mandolin to 15 minute songs about being smashed becomes the new norm, I'm afraid that whole late night close knit acoustic jamming culture will dry up and die out - and to me that would be the greatest musical tragedy ever.

This point was further drilled home to me this year at the Ossipee valley festival in Maine. It was my first year attending, and when I got there the gate attendant was SHOCKED that someone would drive 5 hours from New York to get to their festival. To be honest this shocked me - I've traveled everywhere from Florida to Prince Edward Island to play bluegrass, and that didn't seem so impressive to me. I knew a ton of pickers that were there and mostly came to see them. In the past couple of years the Ossipee festival has gone from bluegrass to a "music festival", and even though they still had a lot of bluegrass acts like Blue Highway there were a lot of Folk and Folk Rock bands too. I have to say, it was one of the oddest experiences setting up my tent in the middle of the campgrounds near my friends, and being bombarded on THREE sides by bands with drum sets. I still had one of the best nights ever jamming with my friends there, but the way things seem to be heading I have to wonder if that will even happen again next year - we had to walk clear across the place at night to find a quiet spot to pick. The next weekend I didn't go, but I heard from friends that all jamming at a festival in NH had been shut down at 2 am BY POLICE!!!! Is this what the "festival scene" is going to be turning into?

To make a long story short, as I talked to the FreshGrass promoter I could pretty much see his eyes gloss over and he answered by basically implying he was going to do whatever got a bunch of kids to show up to His festival. I guess I can't blame him for that, but again I have my concerns. That same night I talked to him, and indeed the rest of the week, I spent jamming until dawn with awesome musicians, many of whom I had never met before but are now friends of mine. I slept for the week in a hotel room with on average of 3 - 8 other musicians ages 16 - 30, mostly all professional musicians, all well versed in bluegrass and pushing the musical boundaries while understanding and following the form. Bluegrass is alive and well... but more and more I'm left wondering for how long?

Sorry for the rant guys, but after a summer of hitting up almost a festival a weekend (and sometimes more) this is a subject I've had a lot of time to think about. I'm excited for festival season next year - but also waiting with baited breath to see how this all pans out.

[allenhopkins]

Some of this sounds like an argument that's been going on since I got interested in bluegrass around 1961. First it was the Country Gentlemen playing The World Is Waiting For the Sunrise and other "non-bluegrass" material; then it was long hair, electric basses, piezo pickups on instruments, women (shocking!) picking and singing, New Grass Revival, Keith style banjo, Earl Scruggs Revue, drums/harmonicas/"non-standard" instruments, rock'n'roll songs, the New South's pedal steel player, "new acoustic" music, Chris Thile, and so forth.

Always tension between those who revere the "original" (read, "1940-50's") sound of bluegrass, and those Young Punk Kids who want to try "new stuff." Never gonna get settled, one way or 'tother. Too loud, too "progressive," too unstructured/improvisational, too loose and sloppy, too disrespectful. "No part of nothin'," as it were.

What I was trying to say in my first post here, is that there should be "big tent" room for bluegrass-rooted music that veers off a bit from the established paradigm -- if it's well done. Now "well" is a subjective judgment, and you'll never get universal agreement. Never. But a lot of what was dissed by the bluegrass community four decades ago, is pretty much accepted today.

No one has to like everything that's being played under the "big tent bluegrass" rubric, and I sure don't. But there are bands that have at most one foot in the standard bluegrass tradition, but still make enjoyable music that most bluegrass people seem to like. What I find a bit off-putting, is a priori disapproval without giving these musicians a fair hearing.

Not that I think that's going on here. We listen, we like or don't like, and try not to exclude whole categories of music because this or that band in that category, doesn't please us. We play what we like, try to find others who enjoy playing that kind of music with us -- but, I would hope, don't dismiss others, and their music, without giving them fair hearing.

[Mike Bunting]

I guess maybe I do feel a little like an old geezer saying that, but I'm 24, and I mean it.

Consider yourself an honorary geezer!

[ralph johansson]

I question some of the history here. I don't recall any controversy regarding Sunrise and similar CG material; it was well within the tradition established by Reno&Smiley - although R&S at least used to play the melody first. And New Acoustic? Just a case of a musician with (partly) a BG background wanting to play something else.

[Rush Burkhardt]

If we're gonna' enlarge the tent:
1. let's try to keep Bill and Ralph (and the other 1st Gen folks) in the center of the tent.
2. let's be sure people who want to see/hear what's going on in the center can get there.
3. let's not forget the difference between quality and quantity, loud and good, yours and mine and ours!

RIP John

[AlanN]

Face it. The bg face is changing, already has. My daughter (22) likes 'bluegrass'. Not the Monroe, F&S stuff, but the newer faces of it - Avett Brothers, Trampled By Turtles, YMSB. Even the bands which do and did the different - Beatle Country, CG, Del and Boys, etc. hold little interest. She and her friends don't sit there in rapt attention at festivals catching licks, vocal arrangements, checking out stage manner. They dance, party and have a good time. They hardly care if a solo is good or not, doesn't matter.

For the most part, I can't hack the jam bands. I'm old, too.

[mandopete]

EDIT: observe the banjo playing here. I mean, dude. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrcWTuWwBrI

IMHO I would barely call that "Jamgrass". What I see (and hear) in that clip is no interaction between the musicians. This is, to me, is what I like about the jamgrass concept. I really like hearing something along the lines of the Chris Thile/Mike Marshall interactions and the way they communicate through music.

With respect to the "big tent" concept, maybe it works better if there are multiple smaller tents inside

That way one can partake of whatever circus act appeals.

[Jim]

With respect to the "big tent" concept, maybe it works better if there are multiple smaller tents inside

That way one can partake of whatever circus act appeals.

I feel pretty much the same way, I really don't like multiple act at the same time within earshot of each other.

[allenhopkins]

I question some of the history here. I don't recall any controversy regarding Sunrise and similar CG material...Just a case of a musician with (partly) a BG background wanting to play something else.

1. The Country Gentlemen's excursions into "folk" and non-standard bluegrass, designed to appeal to college audiences and to express Duffey and Adcock's more adventurous ideas, got quite a bit of flack as I recall. When Porter Church sat in on banjo with them, didn't he hang a rag on his banjo headstock to show his distaste for "ragtime"? Seems I remember that...

2. The second point is exactly what I was talking about, taking a "bluegrass background" in new directions, but with a clearly discernible link to the tradition. Alison Krausse another example; Ricky Skaggs, Tim O'Brien, Peter Rowan...

[Mike Bunting]

No one has explained why any band needs to be in the "tent" of bluegrass.

[Bernie Daniel]

I am perfectly happy with the small tent bluegrass - -a festival attended by hundreds not thousands, an audience that is polite, respectful (not necessarily all "old" either) and who sits in their seats mainly, and shows appreciation by clapping & cheering. Where no one is intoxicated, or stoned, or otherwise impaired, and those inclined to stand up and dance (happens but not too common) are directed to the sides of the stage not in front of other paying attendees.

At these festivals most of the jams are smaller affairs, maybe seated around the "yard" of someone's RV.

So far, at least as late as last summer, I could find all of the little festivals like this that I had time to attend. So far the caliber of bands that perform at these festivals has been first rate. If I want to go to a big tent for other kinds of music, and sometimes I do, I can go there too.

Now if I made my living playing BG music and could get paid better at the larger tent venues I might see things differently. I would not blame the musicians for going where the money is. So how one sees this issue depends on who you are.

[Dave Gumbart]

I enjoy a fair amount of the jamgrass type stuff, Yonder included. That said, the video posted by the OP wasn't all that exciting to me. I also enjoy plenty of real 'grass, and, yes, can distinguish between that and the jamgrass scene. As for why a big tent? Dollars, I'm sure. To the point about making sure that Bill and the Stanley Brothers can be found, right there in the center - absolutely. But in order for folks to know about Bill and other 1st/2nd generation bands, it's nice to have the doors to the tent open and someone saying "welcome."

[lukmanohnz]

Very interesting thread. Since my awareness of IBMA is very limited, I am not sure I can comment intelligently on whether or not its tent should be enlarged. All I know is that I like what I like, and others like what they like. There is a subjective assessment of quality in music, but I also think there can be objective assessments as well. Objective assessments focus on whether a musician has mastered their instrument - which to my mind means that they have internalized and can execute the musical techniques and expressive feel of the earlier masters who are the fountainhead of whatever genre they perform. The subjective assessment is the 'eye of the beholder' dimension that is open to interpretation. There are lots of musicians out there who have by an objective assessment mastered their instrument, but whose music I don't care for. Then there are musicians who have fairly limited technical skills but who create amazingly emotive music that I love. I would think that the folks at IBMA who need to make decisions about inclusiveness and shepharding the bluegrass genre forward into the future have a difficult balancing act, and I don't envy them their responsibility.

[Justus True Waldron]

No one has explained why any band needs to be in the "tent" of bluegrass.

Yeah I guess after my previous long rant I'm still waiting for an answer to this question as well. What is there to be gained by a band by slapping on the Bluegrass label? Certainly not fame and fortune! My only guess is that to a degree this shift has already happened. This has been confirmed to me (a young guy myself) by the amount of people my age I've met who claim to love bluegrass but don't have the first idea who Bill Monroe or the Stanley Brothers are. (You play Bluegrass? I LOVE the Avett Brothers! etc.)

So perhaps by using the "Bluegrass" title for their music these bands can make it easier for their fans to find them and similar music because they don't seem to have a very good title of their own. I'd suggest sticking with Folk Rock or making a new title, but I guess that just doesn't have that exciting air of authenticity Bluegrass has... So if I'm right we have yet another case of people hijacking something with real history to give credibility to something that lacks it. IMO that just makes this the newest "hipster" movement.

However, if my theory is true, then Bluegrass already has a much broader meaning to a lot of people, and I'm not sure what Chris Pandolfi was appealing for. It seems a lot of promoters etc are already using the term loosely, and a lot of younger kids already see bluegrass that way. If that's the case, does the opinions of the IBMA and a few small festivals really matter much anyways?

For the record, I actually really like the Stringdusters - well at least I did until Jesse left. Now I have a hard time listening but I still have a lot of respect for their musicianship.

[Mike Bunting]

I would think that the folks at IBMA who need to make decisions about inclusiveness and shepharding the bluegrass genre forward into the future

Why? Just to justify their existence?

[Alex Orr]

Speaking as a former long-haired, perpetually baked Phan who routinely followed Phish summer tours for weeks at a time in the '90s, I never cared for jamgrass acts back then, and nowadays, when I don't even care for Phish or the Dead much anymore, I like them even less. I'll tell you the number one reason why I don't think jamgrass works: the instrumentation doesn't lend itself to lengthy workouts nor do the arrangements. Three chord type tunes played with bluegrass instrumentation just become tedious after a while, no matter who's playing. However, a three chord tune with an electric rock band set-up can go many more places texturally. You can plug in delay loops, wah pedals, use keyboards to do an endless number of things... You can shred for a while then slow things down to a very dense ambient sound collage with dozens of overlapping loops and intriguing use of controlled feedback, then morph it into a deeply funky groove with wah and clavinet, and eventually speed things up again into a soaring rock crescendo. Phish, in their prime, were masters of that kind of jamming. Now, try the same thing with mando, guitar, upright bass, banjo and fiddle...with no effects pedals. It just gets a bit tiresome. Wrong tools for the job. Like most jam bands, the songwriting often seems mediocre as well. I think the Dusters do this kind of sound better than anyone, and honestly, even their shows get a bit tedious and tiresome to me after a while. I got stuck seeing Trampled By Turtles a year or two back at a Festival and it was one of the most boring, one-dimensional acts I've ever seen. Every song was blazing fast, with everyone playing with terrible tone, using the same licks over and over and over and over again, then after 10-12 minutes ending the song and starting another one that sounded the same and lasting for another 10-12 minutes, etc... Loads of folks around me seemed to love it, but I just didn't get it.

Honestly, when I was much younger, I used to love getting stoned and trying to jam with friends for long stretches with no real idea what we were doing, and really, we had no idea what we were doing. I was over at a buddy's place about a year ago and got into a jam like that. Even though I'm a far better musician, it bored me to death. I wanted to play actual songs and 15-20 minutes of noodling over the changes for Cuckoo Bird, with multiple guitars and everyone sort've playing over each other was too much. I finally put my mando away and left the room while the rest of the folks kept going on and on and on... Maybe the old joke about the Deadhead who stops smoking pot and all of sudden realizes that he finds the Dead to be really boring has some basis in fact when it comes to that kind of jamming. I like idea of going to a jam and playing a number of different songs over the course of the jam; to me, that's fun. Meanderingly working one song to death for an extended period of time? No thanks.

Like others have said, I worry about too big a tent. At a certain point, when does a "big tent of bluegrass" lose the thread so much that anything with an acoustic guitar is suddenly bluegrass? Good grief, do you know how many folks I've heard and read this year that refer to that God-awful folk rock band Mumford and Sons as being a bluegrass band?!?! The thing about bluegrass is that it is sort've a unique style of music that doesn't sound like much else, and the idea that the term should be used more widely to describe bands with sounds that greatly diverge from bluegrass sort've confuses me. As Justus True Waldron said earlier, "What is there to be gained by a band by slapping on the Bluegrass label?" A band can sound however they like, more power to their originality, but I think certain genres should stay somewhat conservative in self-policing their membership for basic existential reasons.

[mandolirius]

In a way, I regret introducing the phrase "big tent" into this conversation. It came from Pandolfi's address and I regurgitated it in a reflex kind of way without really thinking about it. Now that I do, it seem to me it's more or less aimed at the IBMA itself. I think the "music festival" trend is going to continue, with fewer and fewer new festivals starting up that are dedicated to one style of music alone. Other pre-esisting ones will widen their own tents and even those that still call themselves a folk festival or a jazz festival will, and already are, booking bands that wouldn't really fit even a mildly-strict definition of those categories.

To take the idea of a big tent and apply it to bluegrass is a different kettle of "phish". It's confusing and maybe even somewhat frustrating to hear bands refered to as bluegrass just because they happen to have a mandolin or banjo, or they're all acoustic (but not using mics, of course). But, as I said in the previous paragraph, that kind of thing has already happened to other types of music and life goes on. I can still find what I want to hear at those festivals and sometimes I get pleasantly surprised by something I either didn't know about or wasn't expecting to be as good as it was.

So when I find so people mention having the same kinds of experiences as me (eg. Mumford & Sons = bluegrass) I'm going to suggest the horse is already out of the barn. It may no longer be possible to express a lot of information just with the descriptor "bluegrass". It may become like the word "jazz". Nowadays, if I said to you let's go to this jazz show, you're going to need more information. Is it big band or swing, bebop or free jazz, Dixieland with a bunch of guys in striped jackets and straw boaters, three vocalists improvising over samples on a laptop accompanied by electric cello and body percussion?

Maybe it's time to let the term "bluegrass" go. Release it into the big, wide world to go where it will, do what it may. The die-hard, old school fans like me will still know where to go to find what we like. And I don't fear it will disappear. A lot of the people I know who are attracted to bluegrass are fairly unique and individualistic folks, compared to the mainstream of society. They appear to march to their own drummer which leads me to believe there will always be people who will put on the kind of bluegrass festivals featuring the traditional style and lots of jamming and that there's always going to be five people standing on a stage with a fiddle, mandolin, banjo, guitar and bass laying it down in the style of Monroe, Stanley and the other great masters of the style. If we have to start calling it "traditional bluegrass" of something like that, for the purpose of being able to communicate about it, I think I'm ok with that.

[allenhopkins]

I find the idea of "self-policing" any genre of music ridiculous. What if the swing musicians had tried to exclude the beboppers as not being "jazz"? Would it have made an iota of difference? Think of how all the folkies (me included, "but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now") tried to excommunicate Dylan when he laid down his acoustic and picked up a Strat. Does any of the tsores around the '65 Newport Folk Festival seem relevant now? Or does it seem, well, quaint?

Betcha there were string band musicians who thought Bill Monroe was messing up their music, playing too fast, and hiring that Scruggs fellow who wouldn't play decent clawhammer banjo like String did. And of course the Monrovians were shocked, shocked! when the Bluegrass Alliance and New Grass Revival came along with all them jeans and T-shirts and long hair.

Where bluegrass, or any music, is going will be determined by the musicians who play it and the people who make an effort to listen to it -- buy recordings, go to concerts and festivals. If a whole bunch of younger fans like jamgrass and support it, concert and festival promoters will hire those bands, iTunes will sell a ton of their clips, and they'll become the "face" of bluegrass for a lot of people who haven't spend the years that many of us have spent, playing and understanding the roots of the music.

It reminds me of the incredulous Rolling Stone reporter who talked to teenagers outside a Wings concert around 1980, and couldn't believe they weren't familiar with McCartney's work with the Beatles. Time passes, stuff happens, and unfortunately a lot of good stuff gets washed away with the dreck.

Whatever we think we, or IBMA, or anyone can do to configure the "tent," it's gonna be what it's gonna be. I'm a sucker for inclusiveness; doesn't mean I like everything, just means that playing King Canute by forbidding the tide to come in, seems pretty ineffectual.

Now, where's that Blackgrass album by Bad Bascomb?

[Laird]

If we have to start calling it "traditional bluegrass" of something like that, for the purpose of being able to communicate about it, I think I'm ok with that.

Exactly what I was going to suggest, as it seems to have worked pretty well to separate Irish trad from Clannad.

That said, considering how shallow and heterogeneous the roots of "traditional bluegrass" are, maybe we should just call it "old school."

[Mike Bunting]

Maybe it's time to let the term "bluegrass" go. Release it into the big, wide world to go where it will, do what it may. The die-hard, old school fans like me will still know where to go to find what we like. And I don't fear it will disappear. A lot of the people I know who are attracted to bluegrass are fairly unique and individualistic folks, compared to the mainstream of society. They appear to march to their own drummer which leads me to believe there will always be people who will put on the kind of bluegrass festivals featuring the traditional style and lots of jamming and that there's always going to be five people standing on a stage with a fiddle, mandolin, banjo, guitar and bass laying it down in the style of Monroe, Stanley and the other great masters of the style. If we have to start calling it "traditional bluegrass" of something like that, for the purpose of being able to communicate about it, I think I'm ok with that.

We don't even know what "bluegrass" is and any attempt at defining it is anathema. Someone please tell me what a band like Yonder Mt. has in common with a hard core grass band.

[catmandu2]

If we have to start calling it "traditional bluegrass" of something like that, for the purpose of being able to communicate about it, I think I'm ok with that.

I thought we had been calling it trad BG...or at least I had been--since mandolin mick advocated such in his thread about 6 or 8 or 10 months ago

[catmandu2]

Someone please tell me what a band like Yonder Mt. has in common with a hard core grass band.

Banjer?...

[coletrickle]

Speaking as a former long-haired, perpetually baked Phan who routinely followed Phish summer tours for weeks at a time in the '90s, I never cared for jamgrass acts back then, and nowadays, when I don't even care for Phish or the Dead much anymore, I like them even less. I'll tell you the number one reason why I don't think jamgrass works: the instrumentation doesn't lend itself to lengthy workouts nor do the arrangements. Three chord type tunes played with bluegrass instrumentation just become tedious after a while, no matter who's playing. However, a three chord tune with an electric rock band set-up can go many more places texturally. You can plug in delay loops, wah pedals, use keyboards to do an endless number of things... You can shred for a while then slow things down to a very dense ambient sound collage with dozens of overlapping loops and intriguing use of controlled feedback, then morph it into a deeply funky groove with wah and clavinet, and eventually speed things up again into a soaring rock crescendo. Phish, in their prime, were masters of that kind of jamming. Now, try the same thing with mando, guitar, upright bass, banjo and fiddle...with no effects pedals. It just gets a bit tiresome. Wrong tools for the job. Like most jam bands, the songwriting often seems mediocre as well. I think the Dusters do this kind of sound better than anyone, and honestly, even their shows get a bit tedious and tiresome to me after a while. I got stuck seeing Trampled By Turtles a year or two back at a Festival and it was one of the most boring, one-dimensional acts I've ever seen. Every song was blazing fast, with everyone playing with terrible tone, using the same licks over and over and over and over again, then after 10-12 minutes ending the song and starting another one that sounded the same and lasting for another 10-12 minutes, etc... Loads of folks around me seemed to love it, but I just didn't get it.

I agree with this, but will say that there are bands and musicians playing acoustically that can do this. David Grisman created an entire genre based on instrumentals and longer than bluegrass breaks. It is not the same as jamgrass...but the fact is that highly skilled musicians can really make this happen. I'd add the Sam Bush Band to this too...

Edit: I should say that effectively doing this with acoustic instruments typically requires more complex music than three chords...through not always.

[mandopete]

David Grisman created an entire genre based on instrumentals and longer than bluegrass breaks. It is not the same as jamgrass...but the fact is that highly skilled musicians can really make this happen.

EMD is only 4 chords........

[mandopete]

Maybe it's time to let the term "bluegrass" go. Release it into the big, wide world to go where it will, do what it may.

...and for those "tradionalists" out there, don't worry, you will still know real bluegrass when you hear it.