Jam Busting Joe Val bluegrass festival with a Clarinet

[Justus True Waldron]

Finally got around to editing some rather funny footage I had from the 2011 Joe Val festival where I snuck around with a clarinet and a video camera to see what kind of reactions I could get. Not much mando content, but it's bluegrass and I think it's pretty hilarious!

[pjlama]

Way too funny, I can't believe nobody killed you.

[Brett Byers]

That. Is. Awesome.

[Nick Quig]

Love it! nice one!

[j. condino]

I wish more folks had chops like that and your sense of humor....

I don't know about any bluegrass jams, but the next time you come to Asheville you can sit in with my gypsy swing quartet and get paid for the gig.

j.

[Fstpicker]

That's too funny!! I thought it blended pretty well, however.

Jeff

[John Ritchhart]

Ya gotta love it. Things made of brass come to mind. Bill Monroe would have been proud. He loved Bb. Or he probably would have said That ain't no part of nothing.

[mandopete]

"Don't put it away - where you going?"

6:42 -

OMG, way too funny - 5 stars!

[Justus True Waldron]

I'm glad everyone gets the joke! I had a lot of fun making it. The best part is that I did that right as I was getting back into BG and the festival scene, and now some of the people in the video I met that night are now actually my friends I play legitimate music with! I'm still running into people who go "Hey, I think I met you before, but you were running around with a clarinet????"

Grandcanyon - I've played some gypsy swing before, fun music. Not sure when I'll ever be in Ashville (although I do know some people there) but if it ever happens I'll give you a shout!

[catmandu2]

Way to go Justus...I think everyone in the video was thinking, "Damn, I should be into jazz!"

[CRH]

Haha... pretty cool! I even recognized one of the people in the video. The guy pushing you into the group in the middle of the first jam was jamming under the Grillbillies banner on Saturday night at Grey Fox. Saw you there too, as a matter of fact.

[catmandu2]

... some of the people in the video I met that night are now actually my friends I play legitimate music with!

They switched to classical!??

[Justus True Waldron]

Haha... pretty cool! I even recognized one of the people in the video. The guy pushing you into the group in the middle of the first jam was jamming under the Grillbillies banner on Saturday night at Grey Fox. Saw you there too, as a matter of fact.

Yeah that's Ricky, he's one of the Grillbillies I've know the longest... a great guy and a pretty good mandolin player as well! After Grey Fox I guess I'm a Grillbillie as well - they gave me a shirt!

They switched to classical!??

Hahahaha, good one. Although actually, most of my best musical friends do play some classical/jazz as well...

[allenhopkins]

You did a heckuva lot better than the guy singing Ocean of Diamonds, anyway...

[Fishel]

Cute.

Though I also play klezmer clarinet and mandolin, I've mostly kept my clarinet out of BG settings.

I actually enjoyed it when, decades ago, a trombone-playing friend used to sit in occasionally w/our BG band. He's a great musician, so he made it work, but...

Stylistically I'd have to agree with Bill's probable verdict: "No part of nothin."

And of course there is the consideration that you could meet some large humorless banjo player who expresses his philosophical ideas manually...

[Ron McMillan]

I smiled all the way through the clip. Inspired!

ron

[homejame]

yes , reminds of the day back when ENGLISH traditional dance bands started using brass...unfortunately that led to a slowing down of the dance that evolved into whats loosely called southern style. They should've had guys like you around who could at least have kept up the pace.

mind- there's still nothing like a couple of trombone players in with a melange of melodeon players to give it some wellie- that's particularly for the English tunes tho - don't seem to work with the Irish stuff much lolol- and the other guy that posted those other - odd music clips - I shall come back to those , specially Gismonti....

[Dale Ludewig]

That was pretty funny. Too bad Andy Statman wasn't there.

[SincereCorgi]

Now, see, I hear that if you do that for twenty years, they give you an NEA heritage fellowship.

[Justus True Waldron]

Not to toot my own horn (pun intended), but it seems my video is on the verge of going viral. It got posted on failblog.org and got over 20 thousand views in one day (yesterday) alone, and it's still going up. Not bad for a video with a banjer in it!

[Astro]

That is absolutely fantastic in every way.

[CES]

"Alright, boy, Alright! Go on!!"

Loved it, man, and, gotta say, nice job blending into the mix!

[ralph johansson]

Absolutely wonderful. And I enjoyed hearing You Done Me Wrong done Bluegrass.

[Laird]

Okay, I love what you're doing--being no purist myself, in any respect. But I noticed it seems hard for the clarinet to fit in as a backup instrument--especially when someone else is taking a break in the song.

[Justus True Waldron]

Okay, I love what you're doing--being no purist myself, in any respect. But I noticed it seems hard for the clarinet to fit in as a backup instrument--especially when someone else is taking a break in the song.

Well first of all - yes it is hard for a purely melodic instrument to play backup... it would have to either play arpeggio fills or bass line type things. But secondly, at no point in this video was I even TRYING to play backup!! I tried to make it clear in the description... this was me TROLLING bluegrass jams and trying to see what kind of reactions I could get. That meant walking up to jams and surprising them, playing over breaks, etc. Not actually something that comes natural to me, someone who has always followed jam etiquette to a T! If I was really TRYING to play bluegrass on a clarinet it would sound a lot different... but I guess after 35k views and about 35 comments on the video of people saying "wow, nice job trying to make clarinet a bluegrass instrument" it's pretty hopeless for me to explain that this was a joke... I was trying to play bad for half of it!!! (: