Re: Jams and "traditional" bluegrass in Austin, Texas
I'm not an Austin resident, but I get there occasionally, and so far have only managed to make the Stone Soup Session (think of the long-lamented Sandy's Old Time jam from Cambridge meets a British Isles song session, no bluegrass but great eclectic fun.) That leads me to playing at a Minnesota MBOTMA jam some time later with one Gary Mortensen from Austin, one of the hosts of the KOOP radio "Strictly Bluegrass" program, and a really great dobro player. He had written the birthday article in the "Reel Times" Newsletter of the Austin Friends of Traditional Music for Dave Polacheck, the leader of the Stone Soup Session, which is what originally led me to finding the Stone Soup Session. He said that due to the very large number of professional musicians in Austin, plain old pick-up jams are not really very prevalent in Austin. They are there, but you are going to probably have to find some local folks with knowledge of them. I think you're correct that many of the "jams" listed are more watch the local professionals get down than join and play.
As an aside, an another small world story: for years I flew into Memphis, and would see adds for Fiddler's Green, a great little music store. I never got anywhere near where it was, till my company changed hotels we stayed in, and there it was, across the street. I got there once, and then they packed up shop, and moved back to Austin, from whence the owner came. I haven't made it there yet, but if you're down for Irish, they have a session on Sundays.
Rob Ross
Apple Valley, Minne-SOH-tah
1996 Flatiron A5-Performer, 1915 Gibson F-2 (loaned to me by a friend), 2008 Kentucky Master KM-505 A-Model
1925 Bacon Peerless tenor banjo (Irish tuning), 1985 Lloyd Laplant F-5, 2021 Ibanez PFT2 Tenor Guitar (GDAE)
and of course, the 1970 Suzuki-Violin-Sha Bowl Back Taterbug
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