Newgrass/Progessive Bluegrass/New Acoustic Music

[Baron Collins-Hill]

Well, I posted this question under the mike marshall thread, but I know there are a lot of knowledgeable people around here, so I figure i would open it up to the general public.


Similar to an above post about mandolins and formal education, I am currently doing a self designed major at college that is centered around your kind of music.

1.) If one were to come up with a blanket term to describe the music of you and your contemporaries, what might it be? bluegrass, newgrass, progressive bluegrass, new acoustic music? I feel as though a lot of names are thrown around that are either too vague or to specific to really catch hold of the instrumental bluegrass ensemble that doesn't play straight ahead grass and branches into jazz, Choro, rock, etc. etc.

2.) Seeing as I am trying to center my education around this above mentioned kind of music, I have been relying heavily on albums, live concerts, and the rare internet article or interview. I feel as though beyond Monroe, there aren't any real tomes of information about all you great musicians that have been doing crazy for decades. Is there anything out there that I am missing? Any suggestions that may help me further my education in the field?

Also, I guess to be more specific about the kind of music i am thinking about:

I guess I am thinking about the supergroup style albums and concerts with Sam Bush, David Grisman, Mike Marshall, Chris Thile, Bela Fleck, Tony Trischka, Jerry Douglas, Vassar Clements, Stuart Duncan, Mark O'Connor, Mark Schatz, Tony Rice, and some others that arent coming to mind.

Next semester I am going to be doing an independent study on bela fleck's Tales From The Acoustic Planet: Bluegrass Sessions (http://www.amazon.com/Bluegrass-Sessions-Tales-Acoustic-Planet/dp/B00000JC6D/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1260457432&sr=8-1), and must admit there isn't much literature behind these guys.

Any help, story, suggestion, and tidbit big or small will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Baron

[Willie Poole]

In days gone by people that lived in the mountains in most of the southern states only had their music for entertainment after their supper meal was finished thats what they di, played music, they didn`t know a thing about minor chords so their music was kept real simple and as the years progressed the new breed of bluegrass pickers threw in some relative minor chords and some people liked it some didn`t so now we ended up with "Traditionl Bluegrass" and "Progressive Bluegrass"...Then came money hungry promoters that bill their acts under any name they see fit as long as it will attract an audience so some rock and roll songs started being played with "Bluegrass instruments" and those bands could get booked on a variety of festivals and shows, after a while the youngters coming up just figured all music player with "bluegrass' instruments was in fact bluegrass and some disc jockeys started using names like "new grass, acoustic music and progressive bluegrass' so that the listeners at least had an idea of what was being played...It is a never ending arguement as to what bluegrass really is but like a man once said "You will know it when you hear it"...Ralph Stanlet says his music is "Mountain Music" and I guess that is really what traditional bluegrass is....

Very interesting article you are working on and there are a few books that have been written describing all of the phases of bluegrass and mountain music by all different names...I don`t recall any off hand but a public library should have some good books on bluegrass....

Good luck....Willie

[Bigtuna]

I've have some times described Mike Marshall's and especially Chris Thile and the Punch Brother's music as "grassical" to friends of who have never heard their music before.

[Fretbear]

Just in the interest of a balanced view regarding traditional versus progressive, I think there is one thing that needs to be remembered. When Monroe, Flatt, Scruggs, Wise and Watts (The Original Bluegrass Band) recorded in 1946-48, it was perceived as wildly progressive and exciting (which it most certainly was, compared to anything heard on the Opry or in country music previously) and yet today it is presented as the only authentic example of traditional bluegrass (which it went on to become perceived as, after the fact.)
An argument could easily be made that inherent in this driving "new acoustic music" form from it's very inception was a progressive, restless spirit of experimentation.

[250sc]

I think Willie's view of the history of mountian music is flawed in saying people didn't know anything about minor chords, as if playing a major triad is any easier than playing a minor triad. The evolution of music didn't go; first there was major music than someone added minor tonalities. The vast majority of people who ended up living in the area he's discussing came from Europe and they brought the music (fiddle tunes and other) with them from their original homelands. There are lots of minor (modal) and major fiddle tunes.

Good luck with your project.

[Samjessin]

Dave Van Ronk's autobiography "The Mayor of Macdougal St." discusses the ongoing saga of "traditional" vs. "progressive" in a jazz setting. He has some tremendous insight into the debacle?

You at Hampshire? Seek out and interview Crystalline Roses, he has some interesting thoughts on this stuff.

[PT66]

“All music is folk music, I ain't never heard no horse sing a song”

Louis Armstrong

[lgc]

Yeah, Crystalline Roses is RAD.

[farmerjones]

Baron's heavy hitters list; Even in a colaboration/project, you can tell who's playing. All Individuals.
All these artists put food on the table with their own music. In an age of a thousand categories, the best thing you could do, if you want to reach for better than union scale, is put yourself out there as an individual. If you share a category with someone else, you share the market/money.
If you want to hear Sam Bush, buy his CD. A parking lot picker can try to copy Sam, but if he wants reach for the top, he's got to get his own sound.

If you wanted to respect the individual but still categorize, you could simply by their favored instrument. That's how i'd like to be known.

Do you want to study the highly sucessful artist, or do you aspire to become one? I don't understand.

[Baron Collins-Hill]

You at Hampshire? Seek out and interview Crystalline Roses, he has some interesting thoughts on this stuff.

I am indeed at hampshire, how'd you know?

I havent heard of crystalline roses, is it a band or a person? i can't seem to find much online. any more information on that?

[mandroid]

this a Musicology/ criticism written thesis as a final project , or a performance in the style of .. project?

[Perry Babasin]

Music influences music, influences music, influences musicians. Artists are always looking for something new or a twist that will make their offering stand out from the crowd. Artists like Bela Fleck, and David Grisman, Nickel Creek, Mike Marshall, etc. blur the boundaries between Jazz, Bluegrass, Swing, Latin, Rock etc...

Django Reinhart takes Gypsy campfire acoustic jam music and takes it to new Jazz swinging levels. Jazz purists say, where is the saxophone? Grisman adds mando to the mix and traditional purists say, that ain't Bluegrass!! Lloyd Loar invented the F5 form to enhance Classical performance sensibilities (Bluegrass didn't exist at that point!); Bill Monroe picks up the silly little thing and picks like crazy, basically focusing the past and creating a new genre of music (based on traditional music from the Ozarks which was based on traditional English/Celtic music); and Chris Thile, Mike Marshall and others, boggle the mind with incredible renditions of Classical violin pieces, and then turn around and play astounding bluegrass/Jazz/Pop/Rock.

So my Dad, extremely opinionated, Jazz Bass player/purist hated Country music, therefore I hated Country music. But rebellious teenager me loves Rock, Dad hates Rock. I hear Celtic Rock (Fairport Convention and others) in the '70's complete with mandolin, and many traditional song forms, love it but still hate Country. Listening to eclectic acoustic music, start hearing Bluegrass, Love It!!! Many traditional familiar themes and forms, but this isn't Country. Grisman is playing Jazz and Bluegrass... Unheard of, this is awesome, but it isn't Country is it? Fast forward 25 years, I'm playing mandolin, Newgrass is a fusion of all the stuff I love, and Country is more like Rock (and I sort of like some of it!)

Music, the final frontier... These are the explorations of a group of talented eclectic (sometimes troubled) individuals whose lifelong mission is to create new music, to express the emotion in their souls... to boldly go where commercial viability and creative wackiness stay in delicate balance (based on fickle public acceptance).

Ha,ha,ha Thanks for this forum..................... Perry

[allenhopkins]

Hanging labels on various musical styles is a good way to have an argument. Whether it's a good way to understand or appreciate the music is another thing altogether. However the differing traditions of American (by which I mostly mean "US," since that's what I know something about) music evolved historically, they are what they are.

Whatever "purist" words musicians may utter, they're notorious experimenters and eclecticists, with "rabbit ears" that hear a wide variety of sounds and styles; and they often try to adapt, combine, reshape and innovate what they hear into something that resembles a current style, but goes beyond it in one way or another. Think of white musicians listening to black banjo playing in 1820's New Orleans, or African-American pianists "ragging" hymns and parlor songs after the Civil War. After the initial period of experimentation and stylistic innovation, a certain number of musicians tend to agree on what a particular genre sounds like: that's Dixieland, or be-bop, klezmer or old-timey or bluegrass. Then someone else comes along to combine or extend one or more of those styles, and a "new style" is born.

The new innovation challenges the just-a-few-years-older orthodoxy, and some like it, and some don't. "That's not jazz/bluegrass/classical/Celtic/whatever!" So now we have people disputing over labels.

In the end, perhaps there are two kinds of music: the kind I/we/you like, and the kind I/we/you don't. Or good music and bad music, realizing that those terms are wholly subjective.

[Baron Collins-Hill]

I didn't mean to start any sorts of arguments, and I guess I should have worded my question better. I guess its not about puristic ideals, but more about something to give it a name, however fitting it is or not. In a sense, I'm not so much asking questions about what to call specific mandolin related music, but what to call this concept of music that blurs boundaries by definition. What do you call something that is inherently hard to identify. I'm not necessarily saying there is some golden term that will become a blanket term, and I don't really think that is possible. At the same time, however, part of me feels the need to be able to make use of such a term rather than spewing out a couple of paragraphs every time you want to refer to this kind of music. Along this line of thought, this sort of music is being made in every music that has become a tradition. traditions get broken, its a good thing, but so is preserving that tradition. If there is a term that defines such music, perhaps lets use the term "progressive", or "fusion", or something similar. is there then a word that can narrow it down so we aren't grouping classical/metal fusion alongside bluegrass/jazz fusion.

I am in no way supporting the ideas of specific genres, in fact I do not have any of the genre tags filled out in my itunes library (but thats just a quirk of mine). I just think that there is something to be said for definitions, and its about finding the balance between vague and specific in order to maintain function without pigeonholing a concept (like music genres) that is in such a gray area to begin with.

too much rambling for a friday night,
thanks to all for thinking about this with me.

p.s. in terms of my education, i dont really know the details at this point. I dont plan to be a whole hearted ethnomusicologist, nor do i think i will every become a professional performing musician. I love to play music to much to just think and write about it, and I don't really have the chops to keep up with the stars of my generation.

Baron

[Perry Babasin]

Great question and no arguments that I perceive. I enjoy this type of discussion. Music is an organic constantly evolving art-form and I for one love every minute of it... Generally speaking for the most part, our labels are pitifully poor and inadequate...

Thanks........... Perry

[Charlieshafer]

Hi Baron; I'm thinking this is a book you'll have to write, which is a good thing as you'll need a thesis when you're getting done, anyway. Fortunately, you're close to a lot of good live music venues where a lot of these guys come around to perform. Best bet, to get the info straight from the horse's mouth, is to interview them. Most all of the artists we present are extremely nice and would be happy to talk to you. Best way to poach interviews is to see who will be playing in your area down the road. Go to their site, and usually under the "contact" tab, there will be a listing for their agent. Email them, let them know what you're trying to do, and they will almost always forward your request and help set up an interview, if there is time in the artist's schedule. Go ahead and ask them what they play. I'd be curious to hear what the answers are. Try to hook up interviews with guys like Darol Anger, who have been around long enough, starting with the Turtle Island String Quartet, almost classical, to making duet albums with Mike Marshall. Some of the best "new" talent is right close to Amherst, in Boston, where groups like Crooked Still are out of. New England Conservatory has a Master's program on String Improvisation, so interview some professors. A couple of our musicians are getting their masters there right now.

Lots of fun to be had, but there's not a lot of source material as the music is still too new and evolving, plus all the musicians are still alive. Get 'em while their hot.

On a sort of related topic, I remember what one agent said upon hearing of Elvis' death: "Good career move."

[TonyP]

All good stuff as usual. I think the only argument like has been said, is when you try to make up a specific slot for any of the luminaries you mentioned. When I talk about this music, it starts with new acoustic, to get it in the same cosmos. Then to narrow, it's Marshall, Thile, Rice, Grisman, Statman, whomever. Because they all have their band, wavelength, groove,whatever, that's pretty specific to them.

Yeah, they play an acoustic instrument, and some of the stuff they do overlaps, usually with those aforementioned "usual suspects" . But, the name, for me brings up the catalog of where those folks have been. And even though there are overlaps, each one is worthy of a tome to me.

You can tell by the questions people ask, there's a lot of their personalities that go into their sound catalog. And to just look at them by what's recorded, doesn't tell you where they have been and why they are playing this right now. Because the next cd, it could be, and most likely will be, totally different. The recorded tracks of these folks is really far ranging.

I think all these folks are more like celestial bodies that are influenced by the gravitation of the other bodies they come in contact with/record with. Some of them are very distinctive in their sound/phrasing. But, I have several albums where say David Grisman sits in on a track or two, and I'll have search the cover info to figure out "who was that masked man?" It doesn't "sound" like him at all!

I don't envy you at all trying to write about this, and I wish you all the best in your endeavors. I'm reminded of how in the Tao Te Ching it says:

Tao is beyond words
and beyond understanding.
Words may be used to speak of it,
but they cannot contain it.

Same for music, and especially the music of these "usual suspects".

[GTG]

It's a good topic, but as with any continuum, you'll encounter lumpers and splitters: just like it sounds, lumpers lump everything together (it's all bluegrass!), while in the extreme, splitters have a term for just about every band out there (it's metalcore-jazzgrass-spoken word fusion).

IMO (and I do love this stuff), there are certain types of music that do fit the labels, but artists generally go between several styles. So just because the Grateful Dead played 'Going down the road feeling bad' at times during their shows doesn't make them an old time (or bluegrass) band. And Yo-yo Ma may be primarily a classical musician, but has occasionally been known to delve into jazz and other styles; that doesn't mean that he suddenly needs to be considered a jazz musician, or that Dvorak's cello concerto should suddenly be considered jazz. The music sometimes fits these labels, the musicians, less often. So during a Punch Bros concert, I can expect to hear bluegrass, jazz, classical, folk, rock, and more experimental influences. Sometimes all in the same tune. Some of what Bush, Marshall, Thile, Fleck, etc. do is obviously jazz, of course, with no '-grass' suffix needed.

But really, these labels only matter to purists. What does 'rock 'n' roll' mean? Elvis? The Who? Iron Maiden? Nine Inch Nails? How about 'classical'? Could be anything from a Gregorian chant to some dissonant unlistenable thing by Xenakis or Shoenberg. What's really amazing is how narrow a definition we have ascribed to the term 'Bluegrass' - seems to be the exception rather than the norm. Even Rap is more open-minded! :))