From Newgrass to… Grass Nouveau?

The history of any art form can eventually be traced back to its folk roots. The rich and subtle paintings of DaVinci or Vermeer have their antecedents in the simplified cave paintings of Lascaux. The delicate sculpture of Michelangelo, Bernini, or Rodin find their roots in the bluntly voluptuous Venus figures from tens of thousands of years ago. Of course, these folk forms endure through history, patiently awaiting their next cycle of rediscovery by future generations who re-appropriate and re-render them in their own contemporary image. This tension between the “primitive” forms of old and the “sophisticated” forms of educated artists informs much of the most celebrated modern art – see Picasso, Gauguin, Brancusi, and Dubuffet as famous examples. I can’t help but feel that roots-oriented music is entering a similar cycle where highly technical players are applying erudite musical knowledge with some of the oldest folk forms of American music (which were, in turn, derived from even older European and African forms.) I’m not sure what the hell to call it, though…

I began thinking about this after seeing the Punch Brothers play an hour long set at Grimey’s Record Shop in Nashville this weekend. For those unfamiliar, the band is composed of what would normally be traditional bluegrass instrumentation – mandolin (Chris Thile of Nickel Creek fame), fiddle (Gabe Witcher), banjo (Noam Pikelny), guitar (Chris Eldridge), and double bass (Paul Kowert). However, the Punch Brothers’ intricate melodies, harmonic density, lively counterpoint, and wild shifts both dynamically and rhythmically owe almost as much to classical music conventions as they do bluegrass. They take this form, the standard bluegrass band setup, several steps beyond the Newgrass music pioneered by John Hartford, Sam Bush, J.D. Crowe, and others in the 70’s and 80’s. It’s very difficult to classify.

While the taxonomy and categorizing of music can be a painfully frivolous endeavor, it can also be convenient. I’ve described the Punch Brothers and other groups with similar characteristics as chamber music with a strong bluegrass/old-time influence. (To emphasize that point, the Punch Brothers were heading to Vanderbilt University’s Ingram Hall, a fine-arts theater with a “chamber music” vibe and hefty price tag, right after their free afternoon in-store appearance.) So, perhaps Chambergrass might be appropriate? Or, instead of Newgrass, how about Grass Nouveau (because let’s face it, everything sounds more sophisticated in French)? None of this “highfalutin” wording is meant to imply that Grass Nouveau can’t be a foot-stopping, ass-shaking good time. It definitely can (and was on Saturday.) However, its complex forms can also make for pure head music, perfectly suited to strap on some ear cans, slurp down bong hits, and waste an afternoon drooling in a beanbag for those so inclined. Also, it can provide dense educational fodder for serious music nerds looking to study some pretty heavy compositions. In fact, the supercharged versatility of Grass Nouvea is its greatest strength, though its practitioners are few and far between (to this writer’s knowledge, anyway.)

Other than the Punch Brothers, the first group that comes to mind blending chamber music-like compositions with bluegrass and old time forms is the Sparrow Quartet (and, perhaps, some of its individual members in their solo projects.) Similar to the Punch Brothers, the Sparrow Quartet weaves very complex melodies, boisterous dynamic shifts, and somber harmonics with gleeful explosions of fiddle riffs, blues vamps, and other folk forms. The group boasts two banjo players, a fiddler, and a cellist. Of course, when one of your banjo players is Bela Fleck, renowned newgrass pioneer and virtuosic player, and the other is Abigail Washburn, a clawhammer banjo player with a stunning voice who sings in both English and Mandarin, one shouldn’t expect rote renditions of bluegrass standards. (By the way, Fleck and Washburn are now married, apparently working to create a master species of lightning-fingered banjo deities.) Filling the space around the dueling banjos are two highly educated musicians in their own right. Casey Driessen is a Berklee-trained fiddler whose solo explorations would certainly qualify as Grass Nouveu, though they have more electronic and jazz influences than the “prototypical” Punch Brothers or Sparrow Quartet. Ben Sollee is a classically-trained cellist from Kentucky whose side projects eschew the intricacies of chamber music for experiments in a soulful acoustic indie-pop with a strong rural influence. While I appreciate the solo work and various side projects of all of these musicians, the sum is greater than the whole of the parts when the Sparrow Quartet brings all of this talent together in one room. Whether they record further as a coalition or experiment separately, these are some of the musicians, along with the Punch Brothers, that I’ll keep my eye on to see what strange and interesting new hybrids flower from the roots of bluegrass music.

Of course, Bluegrass itself is also a hybrid of prior forms including European folk songs, African blues forms, early jazz, and more. Such is the history of art, constantly tilling the soil of the past and planting the seeds of differing cultures who find themselves unexpectedly intertwined. The tale is as old the hills that spawned Earl Scruggs or Roscoe Holcomb before him. While the story isn’t new, each generation tells it a little differently, re-arranging the chapters and verses. Indeed, everything old is nouvea again, and I’m glad to be around for this arrangement.