Those who know me may be surprised to hear this will be my first coverage of an exclusively instrumental album. I have done reviews of projects from the likes of Bryan Sutton and Michael Cleveland, but they obviously believed their talents were served just as well improvising off of vocal melodies than instrumental creations. Usually this is a good call, even the best bluegrassers fall into the world of war horses if they want to create an instrumental album. Although Mike Barnett’s project is strong, he uses less original works and lets the great musicians of the past create the set list. This may be because of Barnett’s more insider status as a bluegrasser. Touring with David Grisman, Bryan Sutton and others will do that for you. The man I am talking about today has been on the peripheries of bluegrass for a while now. Jacob Jolliff is mostly known for being the mandolinist for one of the most controversial “bluegrass” bands ever, The Yonder Mountain String Band. This instrumental project does not give into any of the frills of jam grass and is straight ahead shredding by Stash Wyslouch, Alex Hargreaves, and Jeff Picker which will go down as a turning point and possibly a changing from the old guard to the new guard.
For an album that relies on more atonal breakdowns as it goes along, “Storming Heaven (tune for William Gerald)” is a serene introduction. What first starts off as a California Rock odyssey quickly transitions into this off kilter and third heavy mandolin riff which is used to create a little hiccup which needs to be responded to by the rhythmic guitar of Wyslouch and the long bows of Hargreaves. The long bows of Hargreaves give way to a back and forth conversation between him and Wyslouch which has some of Stash’s strongest right hand work I have heard from him. Whether with the Deadly Gentlemen or other projects, I Have always felt like Stash’s rhythmic guitar and vocals were strong but his right hand was far too wild and unsettled to present strong clean breaks. Maybe it is due to the advantage of numerous takes, but Wyslouch’s low string to high string transitions work much better here than they usually do live. When I hear this song I can’t help but think I am first entering an unknown forest and that this song is meant to inspire good faith. After hearing the rest of the album, I am sure this first light palate cleanser it meant to do just that.
If on the off chance this palate cleanser was too far out there. “Dirty Dynes” is a nice Irish style fiddle tune that should give any skeptics an ear for what they’re listening to so they can adjust. And just they must for possibly the grandest instrumental display I have heard besides Parker/Gillespie Be-bop jazz. From start to finish “Sheerson Crosses the Rocky Mountains” is a bombardment of beautiful rhythmic varieties, harmonic relationships, unison displays of virtuosity, and near impossible to decipher transitions that creates one of the grandest minute musical experiences I have ever experienced. Stash’s variation of the breakdown melody into a combination of out of scale bends is beyond brilliant and to transcend into a bowed bass solo is pristine. It is also heightened by the brilliant right hand rhythmic patterns of Jolliff who then takes off with his own unique style of wonky rhythmic repetitions as well as string crossing displays that would make any musician to blush, even the one and only Chris Thile. When this song seemed to reach a climax, it breaks down into a chaotic sublime mess that can only be controlled by the most extraordinary of musicians. Again, I can only think of punch brothers as a group of musicians who can execute this, but I can’t help but think that Hargreaves display of creaking octaves and double stops and Jolliff’s rhythmic connection with his mate is unparalleled. By the 4:40 mark when they return to the head it feels more like a twenty minute opus than a five minute four piece instrumental. You even get a damn coda!
Where does an instrumental group go when all left hand tricks and right hand dexterities were used in the previous five minutes? A Waltz of course! “Lelia’s Waltz” displays not only the virtuosity but the variation that this solely instrumental album provides. This lyrical melody sounds one or 2 degrees away from a classic Monroe or Osborne tune. What makes it more complex often times is the rhythmic conversations between Picker and Wyslouch. The dynamics of each instrument descend and rise on a moments notice and leaves the listener wondering what timbral set will perk up at any second. As being Jolliff’s album, this is also the time where he gets to answer the traditionalist question “Sure he can pick fast, but does he have tremolo and tone?” If unconvinced, skip to 3:10 and hear the incredible twin he does with Hargreaves as they bob and weave between harmony and melody as only two people who lived across the street from an early age can.
“Stumbling Distance (The 376 Years)” is a necessary jazz track that also plays as a “look how many instrumentals we can play besides jazz”. “Waitin’ on Gravey” is another nice palate cleanser rag type instrumental that shows what these pickers can do in a more neutral and traditional genre. These two tracks carry a lot of ethos going into their six minute E jam highlight “Russ and the Wolf Fox”. Where “Lelia’s Waltz” focused on Jolliff’s right hand tremolo and “Storming Heaven (Tune for William Gerald)” displayed his left hand double stop technique, Russ focuses on Jolliff’s inhuman ability to put both hands to good use for some mind bendingly long and clean pull offs. Many pull-offs seem to begin on the G and he somehow gains the traction to bring them all the way up to the high E and continue to melody. This song is also slow enough for Wyslouch to pull the kitchen sink including some harmonics that bend so heavy it sounds like a whammy and a G run attached to a double stop bend pull off combo. It really is something that only Wyslouch has the gumption to do in today’s crop of guitar players and I can’t applaud him enough for it. I believe the closest we get to vocals on this album is Hargreaves whining fiddle gently abiding above the fray of Jolliff’s chipped shoulder and Wyslouched demented mind. After Picker is done mashing a terrific bass solo, Hargreaves just molds in and starts with hitting every right sonority and it’s honestly not fair, how the effortlessness just oozes through the speaker.
This album is an outlier in a world where star studded albums and heavy handed instrumental displays usually come off underwhelming. What makes this different? Comradery, freedom, and time. Hargreaves and Jolliff have known each other since childhood, but together they lacked the edge that Stash has provided to many different musicians including these two, and lastly the time and groove established by Picker and whoever is not playing a solo is so selfless, intricate, and fueled by such a palpable chemistry that this album was bound to succeed from the first notes. In an era where the “best” bluegrass musicians seem to be set in stone yet not improving, Jolliff’s project stands as a reminder that the young guard is ready to reach heights that the earlier bluegrass generations didn’t even dream of reaching.
