The jam last Thursday was packed.  It was a lively affair, led by a banjo player by the name of Jason.  i sat down and listened to a couple of tunes before pulling out my instrument and joining in and I was lucky it was one of my good nights.  For those of you reading that don't know how a bluegrass jam works, a group of musicians get together and play standard tunes that most of the musicians know.  Usually, the person that calls out the tune starts it off and then the melody is passed around the circle while everyone else plays chords behind them.  At the jams that have been organized usually a person leads the jam circle and calls the songs and at this particular jam, chooses who will play a solo. 

As I said, I was lucky it was one of my good nights, because if you don't take a break on a song or don't do well, the jam leader will start to pass you up in favor of people who can or will play on any and all tunes.  So, I was lucky enough to make a bit of a splash on my first try, which in this community garners some respect and as I continued to play well I got to talking with the bass player, a guy by the name of Conrad, who told me that he had played bass for Tanya Tucker a long while ago and he gave me his card, telling me to call him if I wanted to play or hear about the history of bluegrass in Southern California.  I'm hoping to interview Conrad soon and see what he has to say about the the history of bluegrass here and hopefully hear what his stance is on the traditional versus the new.

The jam ran from somewhere around 6:30 until well past 9, still going strong by the time I left.  Somewhere around 7:30ish we all took a break and I got invited to play a bit with some of the really good musicians, professionals in the San Diego area as I understood, so I took them up on their offer and played all through the break,  after which another mandolin player introduced himself and asked to exchange contact information so we could play some other time as well.  If I'm lucky I'll be able to interview him as well and perhaps see about getting a bluegrass gig with Conrad, as he said that they were always looking for a good mandolin player to play with them, but never could find one that was available.  I'll have to head back to the jam again this next Thursday and see if I can get some recordings and ask a few more questions.

I checked out an old jam that used to run on Saturday mornings and afternoons at the Vista Antique Steam and Gas Engine Museum, but I found that only three people were there and only one of which played bluegrass, he was teaching the other two.  I'm hoping that the jam I used to frequent on Thursday nights in Encinitas at Today's Pizza and Salad hasn't deteriorated like the one on this past Saturday. The jam starts at 6 and ends at 8, I'm hoping to make it there by 7 if anyone wants to come along and check out what a bluegrass jam is like just let me know.

Someone asked in class the other day what were my favorite bluegrass bands and invariably I gave the ones that featured my favorite mandolin players.  As requested I'll put up here my favorites again and one I forgot to mention.

At the top place is The Punch Brothers, a band featuring my all time favorite mandolin player Chris Thile.  Here is a link to one of the tunes they do: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=braQeLkJUvE

I actually forgot to mention the band New Grass Revival, which features Sam Bush, the rhythm powerhouse of mandolin players.  This band has a lot of material from the different decades that it was active.  Here is one of the videos they did awhile back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JW7wCeUjFcA

Another one of my favorite bands is Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder, Ricky Skaggs is probably the most traditional sounding of the mandolin players I listen to and he does a lot of standard bluegrass tunes.  Here is one of the standard tunes he does: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-gsqHGQEAY

Lastly is one of my favorite bands that isn't around anymore, compromised of Chris Thile, Sarah Watkins and Sean Watkins, Nickel Creek.  Here is one of the tunes I actually spent a long while learning the mandolin part to and one of my favorite songs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2o0TYnHEUY

After a lot of thinking I finally decided to focus on studying the fusion of bluegrass and other musical styles.  More specifically I'd like to interview people and ask them about their choices when playing songs.  For example at the last jam I went to I noticed that two mandolin players had rather distinct styles.  One player played a very traditional bluegrass style of mandolin, very much in the style of bluegrass mandolin players out of the 1940s and 50s, while the other played a style that was often associated with some early jazz mandolin and cross picking style, the jazz style very much like that of Jethro Burns (Here is a clip of Jethro and Chet Atkins music starts at 1:48 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wGUPN9-cj0 )  and Jesse Mcreynolds who was known for using cross picking on the mandolin (Here is a brief clip from an instructional video he did on cross picking for those who don't know what it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiyF52PiDz4 ).  Both of the mandolin players at the jam were obviously respected, but I've always been curious why popular bands usually play a more progressive bluegrass style, borrowing from current and popular musics a lot more than the average bluegrass musician.  While it might be a a difference between performance and jam styles I would like to explore this further, I don't have any particular literature to look into, but I'd like to talk to the people in the bluegrass community and see how people feel about the incorporation of other musical styles and why they do or don't incorporate other musics into their playing style.

After a two hour jam on Saturday morning and another hour jam tonight I'm starting to get back into the swing of playing the old standard tunes in bluegrass that often frequent jam circles.  I asked around and found a couple more places to look for bluegrass jams and meetings and one gal playing an autoharp told me that there is supposedly a jam every Saturday morning in Vista that I want to look into soon.  Tonight's jam was pretty unsual, a night of mandolins and banjos.  Next time I hit up a jam I'm going to ask if I can make some recordings, and maybe ask one of my fellow mandolin players if they might be interested in being interviewed.

Here is the link for the Poway Folk Circle Meet up if anyone is curious or wants to bring an acoustic instrument and play some American folk tunes with us.

http://www.powayfolkcircle.org/

I already knew exactly what music I wanted to study, Bluegrass and right now I'm off to a bluegrass and folk music jam over in Poway that I was lucky enough to discover just last night!  The group looks pretty tame so I'm hoping that it won't be too hard for me to keep up, I haven't exactly been keeping up on my bluegrass technique recently.