My guest this week is George Jackson. George Jackson is a Nashville-based fiddle player and the 2022 IBMA Instrumentalist Of The Year Momentum Award Winner, who performs as a band leader and fiddler for hire with artists such as The Jacob Jolliff Band, Jake Blount, Tall Poppy String Band, The Local Trio, Front Country, Peter Rowan, Missy Raines, Charm City Junction and others. Born in New Zealand, George grew up in a musical family and first heard bluegrass music around the age of 14, immediately falling in love with the style he started trying to work out how to play it from recordings and from mentors in New Zealand. Moving to Australia as a 16-year-old, he won the Australian National Bluegrass Championship on fiddle three times and toured the country with his bluegrass band, “The Company”, playing all the major folk festivals on the Australian circuit. As a resident of Nashville and the USA from 2016, George has released three albums of fiddle tunes, “Time and Place” in 2019 and “Hair & Hide” in 2021 and most recently “George Jackson’s Local Trio” with Eli Broxham and Frank Evans in 2023. He was awarded first place in the Mike Auldridge tune composition award by the DC bluegrass union in both 2019 and 2021 for his tunes “Chapel Hill Deer Stalk” and “Neighbor Mike” respectively. He also sparked a viral fiddle tune frenzy with his composition “Dorrigo”, when hundreds of musicians learned the tune and posted videos of themselves playing it online, becoming known as the “#dorrigochallenge”. In his free time, George loves to watch Star Trek and cook food at home, with recent obsessions in Italian and Cajun fare. He loves Swedish fiddle music and —fun fact— he was a competitive Highland dancer until the age of 21.
George’s Links:
Songs featured in this episode:
Beef Demon by George Jackson (Center of the Universe)
Dorrigo by George Jackson (Time and Place)
The Oddest Chicken by George Jackson (Center of the Universe)
Horse Cage #2 by George Jackson (Center of the Universe)
Booth Shot Lincoln By George and Tristan Scroggins (The Old Time Vol.3)
Pierce Road Waterline by Frank Evans (Fit for a Dog)
Humphry’s Jig by George Jackson (Center of the Universe)
As Always a HUGE thank you to all of my sponsor’s that make this podcast possible each week!
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Transcript available below:
Hey, everybody, this is Daniel Patrick, and this is episode number 311 of The Mandolins and Beer Podcast, brought to you in part by my favorite website, The Mandolin Cafe. How’s everybody doing? Also, just a reminder, you could support this podcast for as little as $1 a month by going to my Patreon. Thank you for those who sign up and thank you just for listening. I truly appreciate it. I’ve got brand new merch. Actually, I’m picking it up today. It’s Friday and I am picking it up. Currently, I’m in Michigan. I’m recording this from Charleston, but I’m in Michigan today when you’re hearing this, if you’re listening when the day it came out, and I’ve got the brand new MTV-styled M&B logo t-shirts. I’ve already got the stickers. The stickers are awesome looking. I’ll have all of that on the website available to purchase when I get back from the Northeaster Festival. Then I’ll put that stuff up there. I’m super excited to have some new merch and I’ll have some sales too. I’ve got some of the Just Pick It kind of Nike-style shirts that I just found a small box of that I didn’t realize I still had. So those will be priced to move if I have some left from the festival, of course. And I’m really looking forward to playing the Northeaster Festival. My buddy Jason Denny is gonna be playing guitar with me. And then I’ll have some special guests along the way as well. If anybody has tried to send an email, by the way, I don’t think I mentioned this last episode. I’ve spent maybe seven hours last week. I realized none of the emails from the website, from the contact form were coming through a few weeks ago. And then I’ve just been dealing with AI bots on WordPress. And we are good to go. So I don’t remember if I mentioned that last week. Sorry, I’ve been packing and getting all the stuff ready and running, running around. So you can get me at daniel at mandolinsandbeer.com. That is the new web address as well. And so, yeah, or you can get me to the contact form. So if anybody out there has not been contacted back by me, I never got your email. Send me another one. I’ll respond promptly. My guest this week is George Jackson. George is an incredible fiddler, an incredible banjo player. I first heard of him when David Benedict was sharing the Dorrigo project or the Dorrigo. I believe that’s what it was called. I can’t remember now, but it was awesome. David played it and I was like, what is this song? I bought it on Bandcamp and I’ve been a fan ever since then. I’ve seen him play with Jacob Jolliff and he’s just, he’s an incredible old time player, incredible modern bluegrass, and you’re going to hear his background in jazz stuff. So it’s a great talk. I had a wonderful chat with him. I think you’re really going to enjoy it. Super, super cool guy. We also talk about Frank Evans. Frank was a banjo player. He plays with Bronwyn now, but he used to play with the Slow Can Ramblers. He’s incredible. And George mentioned that Casey Campbell, friend of the podcast, played fretless mandolin on one of Frank’s songs. So I asked Frank if he was cool if I played a sample from that and he was. So, and all of George’s stuff, available on Bandcamp as well as Frank’s, links are in the description of this podcast. All right, everybody. Again, Ireland, if you’re listening in Ireland, be there the 18th, 22nd, and 23rd I have gigs and those will be, I can’t pronounce the cities but I’ll post those on my website now that it’s working properly. So let’s get into the sponsors real quick. Peghead Nation with Peghead Nation streaming video courses in Mandolin, guitar, banjo, fiddle, dobro, ukulele, and bass to learn bluegrass, old time and other styles from some of those talented players and instructors in roots music. People like Sharon Gill, Chris Joe K. Walsh, Mike Compton, John Reichman, Aaron Weinstein, Marla Fibas, Chad Manning, and Ian Corey. They have everything from beginner to advanced to weekly practice techniques. They’ve got it all and the best part is the courses include high-quality multi-angle video lessons, downloadable notation and tab play along tracks and plenty of tunes and songs to play, and you get your first month for free using the promo code NorthfieldMandalinsBeer all one word at checkout. NorthfieldMandalins, let’s build more than a mandolin together. Check out their website at northfieldmandalins.com or download their app at Mandosummit.app for lots of special performance recordings, demonstrations and special workshops except no substitutes, NorthfieldMandalins. Ear Trumpet Labs hand-built microphones from Portland, Oregon. Their mics are beautifully designed and have great feedback rejection for live use in the most natural tone you’ll find for acoustic instruments. I love them. You’ll love them. Check them out at eartrumpetlabs.com. Today, Tone Slabs. Get yourself a slab of tone. Just go to toneslabs.com. Pick out the shape and size that you want. If they don’t have what you’re looking for, you just shoot them a message and I bet you they can make it for you. They can put your name on it. They can put a logo on it. They are masters. I love them. You can go to toneslabs.com. Tell them Dan Patrick sent you. Less friction. More tone. Tone Slabs. PAVA dedicated to building for the impassioned player. PAVA Mandolins are built in Austin, Texas. And Elderly Instruments. Boy, I’m hoping to swing by Elderly Instruments on Tuesday. Elderly Instruments is your trusted source for new, used and vintage fretted and stringed instruments. For the experienced beginner player, their vast selections of mandolins, guitars, banjos and ukuleles, and did I say mandolins? Includes all of the accessories and books to go with them. All instruments are inspected and set up for easy playability and their down to earth and eligible staff are there to help. Heading into their 54th year, their family owned and operated, they ship worldwide, they’re award winning and you can visit them anytime at elderly.com. All right, that is all I’ve got. Thank you so much for tuning in. Once again, George Jackson, my guest. I think you’re gonna enjoy it. Thank you to George for doing the podcast. Thank you to Frank for letting me play his tune as well. And yeah, support your favorite musicians. Go to Bandcamp and pick up copies of the samples that you hear or just any of your favorite musicians as well. Oh yeah, I didn’t mention I also I mentioned it last week, but I have more copies of the vinyl in my possession. I haven’t even had a copy of my own. It’s orange translucent. It looks awesome. And I’ll be having it at live shows and events like that. And I’ll also get some to Adgeropa to put up on Bandcamp. So that’s it. That’s all I’ve got. Have a fantastic week. Cheers, everybody. All right, well, wow, it is an absolute pleasure to have my next guest on. I first heard of George, my guest George Jackson, when David Benedict did a kind of like a internet thing of playing one of your tunes and trying to get other people to play it. Is it Dorrigo?
Yeah, Dorrigo, yeah.
Yeah, my guest is George Jackson. George, how’s it going, buddy?
It’s great. Great to be here, Daniel. Thanks for having me.
Yeah, great to have you on. It’s good that we got to hang out. I think, was it last year, I guess, in Charlotte? What, had it been a year ago now?
Yeah, about a year ago, I think, yeah, with the Jacob Jolliff Band.
Yeah. So you got a brand new album out. And it’s got another one of my favorite players that’s not a mandolin player, it’s called Center of the Universe, and I believe Frank is on there, Frank Evans.
Frank Evans is on the album, yes.
Great player as well.
One of the best.
Definitely, man. Yeah, tell me, let’s talk a little bit, let’s kick it off for the new album, then we’ll talk some mando-centric stuff here.
Yeah, so this new album came out earlier this year, it’s called Center of the Universe. It’s the second album that I’ve done with this trio that I called The Local Trio. We call ourselves that somewhat ironically, somewhat accurately, we all live here in Nashville, Frank Evans, Eli Broxham, and myself, and but none of us are from here, and as you can tell by my accent, I’m from the deep south as I like to say, much to the chagrin of folks here in Tennessee, but no, I’m from the deep south. I grew up in New Zealand, and Frank is from Canada, and Eli is from Chicago, but we all have found our home here, and so we only play local gigs, and we record albums here under that name. So hence the Local Trio, but yeah, it’s a really fun group. It’s a stripped-back instrumentation with just fiddle, banjo, and bass. So a lot of harmonic room with no often no guitar or no other chordal stuff aside from what the fiddle or banjo can provide at any one time, which is a fun setting. Yeah, and we did this album with Stash Weisslatsch producing. So he really helped us with the musical direction and helping me develop some of these really wacky ideas on this album. So yeah, that was a lot of fun. So Stash plays on a couple of tracks. And yeah, that’s a little bit about the album.
I love, I think it was Horse Cage No. 1, where I had to check. I thought the batteries on my AirPods died and then they weren’t that. Then I was like, they’re not connected right. It was like getting all fired up. And I fast forwarded it a little bit and I’m like, oh.
That’s the best. I love that. Yeah, so there’s a couple of tracks which are mostly improvised called Horse Cage 1 and Horse Cage 2, and it’s my thought experiment meeting of the composer John Cage and the great old time band The Horseflies. And what it is, is it’s this melody that I wrote that’s a little bit in the style of Judy Hyman’s Fiddling, and then we just like use, we play bits of the melody, but just kind of with a lot of space in between it, and we sort of improvise playing random bits of the melody. And so sometimes there’s a lot of space, and then sometimes there’s a lot of chaos. But it is all kind of in time and kind of makes some sort of logical sense too. So it’s a lot of fun. You know, some of the stuff on the album, you know, it’s sometimes more fun to think about and play or be a part of, maybe then to listen to, but you’ll have to make that choice for yourself. But that’s kind of the fun of it is, you know, like, I’m really not trying to make any sort of commercial success out of any of this music. This is more just kind of like pushing the boundaries and having as much fun as we can.
Yeah, it sounds like a fun album when you listen to it, actually. I mean, it sounds like…
I’m glad to hear that.
Yeah, yeah. You could tell when you listen to albums, that just sounds like one it was fun in the studio to do, like a very relaxed, I mean, as relaxed as you can be when you know you’re spending money to record something, I guess.
Yeah, no. I mean, and that’s a pretty relaxed crew of good time friends too, you know, Frank, Eli and Stash and our recording engineer, Sean. Really good group of guys and we had a lot of fun making it for sure.
Was it Sean Sullivan?
Sean Sullivan, yes. Yeah. That guy is one of the best and yeah, if you look at the bluegrass album Grammy nominees every year, there’s usually two or three of the albums that Sean has kind of mixed and or engineered. Yeah. He’s just a total institution for bluegrass recording here in Nashville.
Yeah. Yeah. He does great work. The album just sounds incredible as well.
Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. I love working with Sean. Yeah.
Was that the first time Sean had met Stash?
Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
That seems like unless he’s familiar with his music, that could probably be a wild like his albums. I love his albums, but man, they are wild sometimes.
Absolutely. Yes. Stash is a wild card. I love how unique he is and how much of a just total singular approach to music and the guitar and bluegrass that he has. He really is a unique musician in our community. But yeah, it was a lot of fun to see Sean get to experience Stash for the first time. It’s certainly not the usual type of music or guitar playing that Sean’s used to listen to. But Sean is a really, he’s a punk musician. His background is playing kind of punk music, and he grew up in Cincinnati in the punk scene. And he does a lot of bluegrass recordings and stuff now, and he’s really involved in our scene. But I feel like he’s down, he’s open to whatever, and I think he enjoyed it.
Where’s the best place? Bandcamp for everybody to pick this up? Is that the best way to get it?
Yeah, Bandcamp is definitely where I have all of my music up. Yeah, I think it’s just georgetjacksonmusic.bandcamp.com.
And we should also mention, now people might be familiar with your name because you’ve also worked with Tristan Scroggins, one of my favorite people on the Old Time 100 project as well.
Yeah, totally. Yeah, Tristan is another unique person, great mandolin player and just one of my good friends here in Nashville. And yeah, I’ve loved working with him. We have this project called The Old Time 100. We actually just a couple of months ago released the third volume of our Old Time 100 series. So each volume has 20 old time tracks on it. And we recorded all 100 of these like maybe three years ago now. Almost all in one day. Which is, this was this kind of thing that Tristan came up with. Tristan, as I said before, is a unique human being. And he came up to a bunch of our friends and myself, and was like, hey, I want to record 100 old time tunes in a day, like, who’s interested? And everyone was kind of like, oh my God, man, I don’t know about that. But I was like, dude, I’m down, let’s do it. Like, I’m always down for sort of a crazy idea, as you might be able to tell from Center of the Universe. So another crazy idea is like, let’s see if we can record 100 tunes in a day. As we were sort of like getting closer to recording to that session, and we’d sort of gathered like a group of friends, including Frank, by the way, and Eli, both guys from my trio, and Frank’s partner Amy Alvey. That’s kind of the core band for the whole Old Time 100. You know, they had agreed to, you know, be paid to do it, but I had agreed to sort of like go in financially with Tristan and kind of be a creator of this project and see what we could get out of it. But, you know, like as we were getting closer, I started doing the math on like, you know, if each song, if we do one take of each song and, you know, like, and then we have a few minutes rest in between each song, you know, I’m going, I don’t know if we can actually do it. So I did sort of say to Tristan like, man, maybe we should get together like a couple of days out and just like see how many we can get in, like an evening just to kind of like get us a little head start. So we did actually record like maybe the first 16 or something like that a couple of days out and then we did the remaining like 70, whatever, after that or 80 something, yeah, in the one day. So most of them recorded in one day. We still sort of like were able to pull off that stunt somewhat, but a little head start.
Was Casey Campbell there too for some of that?
Yeah, Casey is on some of those tunes. Yeah, he was there. We had a bunch of people there helping. We had someone taking notes and Jake Stardewall was recording, and Casey was there as like a relief pinch hitter, mandolin guy. Yeah, it’s kind of funny, like recording 100 tunes is like, it’s really like 100 tunes is a lot. Like you think that if you stay up all night playing tunes that, yeah, we probably played hundreds of tunes last night or whatever. But man, 100 tunes is a lot of tunes and man, you get sore and tired just like, because we did like most of those tunes just on one take each, but yeah, Frank played all 100, so he’s the MVP. There was one tune that I just didn’t feel like I played, I knew well enough and so I kind of bowed out on that one and Rafe Stefanini, who happened to be there took the lead on that one. So I played on 99, but Tristan relinquished the mandolin duties to Casey for a good portion of some of that, which was really awesome. I mean, Casey is a great, I mean, obviously he’s a great bluegrass mandolin player, but he has a really great feel for old time music too. If you ever see his Instagram page, he’s often playing really great versions of old time tunes on there. Yeah, it’s great to have Casey on there too.
Yeah. When I heard of the project and then I heard Casey was there when I interviewed Tristan, it reminded me of the first time I went to Nashville to actually play with pro players. I did a live stream and Casey was one of the people, and Thomas Castle and Dominic Leslie. So I was already nervous as it was.
That’s some good players.
Yeah. I was like, boy. I went to Carter. Carter Vintage, they sponsored it. It was during COVID. So it was like, I needed money for the studio, and they did that and they gave me some shirts to give away. I was talking to, I can’t remember if it was Christy or her husband, but one of them was like, wow, you’re playing with Casey Campbell. Good luck with that guy. He learns fiddle tunes backwards just to challenge himself. I’m like, oh, no. I was like, oh my gosh.
What am I doing here? That’s hilarious. Yeah. Well, I don’t know if you’ve listened to Frank Evans’ new album that he just put out actually, but Casey plays a bunch of mandolin on that.
Oh, well check it out.
There’s one track that I play fiddle on as well and Casey’s playing on, where Casey is playing his fretless mandolin, which is something to behold. It’s a pretty cool sound. Yeah, he has this fretless mandolin that I feel like he turns up to at parties here in Nashville as a joke with sometimes. But the thing is, he can totally play it. It sounds awesome and he plays it on this one track. It’s called I think Pierce Road Waterline, I think is the name of the tune. I’m playing fiddle, and, but yeah, there’s a really killer, like, soul mandolin, fretless mandolin solo that Casey plays.
Oh my gosh.
Check it out.
I’m gonna check it out for sure. Yeah. So how in the heck did you get into, like, old time style music from New Zealand? Was that something you picked up there?
Yeah. No. So I lived in New Zealand until I was about 16. And, you know, that’s where I grew up and that’s where I got into bluegrass music. I was, you know, 13, 14, around about when I moved to a little town in New Zealand called Martin. And my parents joined the local Taekwondo Club. And that meant that we met this young black belt who was a 12. And her name was Bibi Bowness. And yeah, so Bibi and I, like we just kind of started getting into bluegrass music together. She started coming around to our house to learn like music theory and stuff from my parents. And after that, we would just kind of start jamming together on tunes and trying to figure it out. And I started playing the banjo. And so that’s where I got into bluegrass music. And Bibi and I, for those who, you know, I’m sure most of you listeners are familiar with Bibi or Katherine Bowness, Bibi Bowness.
She was just on a few, maybe like a month and a half ago, actually.
Oh, killer. Awesome. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she’s, you know, like one of my oldest and best friends. And like, you know, neither of us would probably, probably be playing bluegrass or, you know, any of this kind of music or living here in the US, if not for like meeting each other and kind of having someone to, to really bounce off of and like encourage each other with. So, so, you know, that was a really important part. I moved to Australia when, when I was 16 with my parents who moved there for work. And, you know, Bibi and I kept in touch and like visited each other. You know, it’s about a three-hour flight from New Zealand to Australia. And, and, you know, I started visiting the US to sort of come to fiddle camps when I was about 17. And I was encouraged actually by a great Scottish fiddler from Boston, Hanukkah Castle, who I’d met at a fiddle camp in New Zealand. And she was like, you need to come out and go to Alistair Fraser’s camp in California. And when I went out there when I was 17, I met like a bunch of great bluegrass musicians or, you know, string, you know, people in the sort of string band scene, you know, including like Alex Hargraves who was 14 and Tatiana who was very young. And and Bernie Haas and Daryl Anger and Tristan Claridge and Simon Christman and Ben Crackauer. All of these guys were were hanging out at this Scottish Fiddle Camp. And I was like, wow, these these musicians are awesome and I want to be them. So, you know, I just had to go back to Australia and, you know, just kind of like live by the tapes that I had recorded. And, you know, try to sort of explore that music scene from afar as much as I could. And, you know, like I was inspired by meeting a lot of those people to sort of study jazz music because I was like, wow, a lot of these people seem to have like a handle on jazz. So maybe I should look at jazz. So I went to music school for jazz in Australia and I did like a performance degree there for violin for jazz. And, but, you know, by the end of that, I was getting pretty burnt out on the kind of performance music and like the stress of like taking solos and, I don’t know, just the competitive nature of institutional music. And I took another visit over here and I went to Clifftop. So I was about 22. I went to the Clifftop Old Time Gathering and it was just such a breath of fresh air to not have to worry about my solo. And I was like, this is making me feel great. So I just kind of threw myself into that for a little while. Because it just like relieved my, the sort of anxiety that I built up from music school. And you know, I was able to sort of like, really joining the Jacob Jolliff Band in the last few years has really allowed me to come back to enjoying kind of being in like a improvisatory environment in a really friendly kind of exploratory zone. And you know, come back to that sort of stuff as a little bit of an older, you know, in my thirties and maybe not so stressed out about impressing everybody at every turn or whatever. Yeah, so old time music was really important for me in that sense, you know, it really helped me kind of recalibrate my relationship to music during that time.
What type of players were you listening to jazz wise or were you emulating like learning as far as solos and different things like that from? Were you learning from all sorts of instruments or were you just kind of focused on jazz stuff or jazz violin players?
Yeah, well, at jazz school, you’re encouraged to listen to all the greats. So I definitely got the message pretty early on that if you want to be interested in this stuff, you should check out Charlie Parker. So Charlie Parker was definitely like one of the earlier things. I think that’s like pretty standard. If you want to get into jazz, that’s definitely one of the places to start. And so yeah, I got into the bebop stuff. I kind of actively was a little bit hesitant to look at the Django, Stefan Grappelli stuff. It wasn’t kind of the sound that I was looking for at that time. I’ve come to actually really appreciate it more recently and just like the brilliance of it. But for whatever reason, as a young person, I wasn’t compelled by that. That wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I wanted to hear more bebop or hard bop or stuff based out of that, John Coltrane. As far as fiddlers go, yeah. I think originally I was inspired by listening to fiddlers. Jeremy Kittle actually was my big hero when I was at jazz school. I don’t know if you’ve ever listened to his jazz violin album, but it’s a really, really good album of jazz standards, of hard bop era jazz standards played on the violin, and a very horn style playing on the violin. That’s like a far departure from the sort of like Stefan Grappelli type kind of approach, which is very violinistic. Yeah, so Jeremy was a big inspiration. Obviously, I was hearing Billy Contreras, and that was kind of mind-blowing, and whatever I could get of that, and Christian Howes, and Alex Hargraves. And yeah, but other than that, a lot of just your standard horn players, yeah.
Yeah, I wonder because it was listening to, I guess I know you more probably from like old timey sort of stuff. Like I have your Hair & Hide album on vinyl, and I bought the one that had Dorrigo. What was that? Was the album called Dorrigo?
Time and Place. That was the first album that I made here when I moved.
Yeah, I bought that on Bandcamp after that David Benedict video. I’m like, oh my God, this is awesome. Then the Old Time Project, and then I saw you with Jacob and I was like, how in the world do you go from old time to this? Because I mean, you blew me away.
I was going back to that. That was where I started. My starting point for this music was Baylor Fleck. I feel like that was always the central tenet, the central sound or central inspiration for me wanting to get into this kind of music, was Baylor Fleck’s Drive album. Then I’ve just gone in various directions since then, far back into old time music to really explore that, and as I said, I enjoyed the way in which I didn’t have to think about soloing, and that I could really experience a communal playing, or the goal of everybody sounding good in old time music. But also really exploring the early roots of where bluegrass fiddling comes from, because it’s like obviously heavily. Like bluegrass fiddling is highly influenced by the old time fiddlers that came before it, obviously, like it’s where it comes out of. So, you know, like that’s been a fun project. But I would say that’s been kind of a diversion or a journey that I took, sort of like, and now like being back with the, well, being with the Jacob Jolliff Band is kind of back to where I started in some ways. You know, although like, you know, Jake’s music is very unique and, and, you know, nothing like that has been done, but like that kind of spirit in the music is, yeah, where I started, I think.
Yeah, I could see that though, like, you know, like on a bad day, the last thing I usually want to listen to is bebop or hard bop because it could be kind of frantic, you know? But we’re like, old time is almost like trance music, especially playing it because, I mean, you know, you’re just playing the same rhythm for a few minutes. I mean, but there’s a feel and there’s a, it’s that tempo and just the, just the slow drive of it. It just, I love it, man.
Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. And, you know, of course it’s probably more fun to play than to listen to, you know, like, I mean, legitimately, like, I mean, it’s really fun to listen to sometimes, but like, it’s a really fun to play. When you’re in a good old time jam and it’s like pulsing around you, it’s, there’s nothing like it. And, you know, I think when I went to Clifftop that first time and I sort of experienced that, I was like, wow, this is really, this is a really special thing.
Yeah, that’s a, that’s a good point too, the listening to it part, because I’m thinking back to that Ed Haley box set that came out recently. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it, but it’s like.
Yeah, yeah, stole it from the start of the bed.
Yeah, yeah, and I was at Daryl Anger’s house, actually, and I just ordered it and he had a copy of it. And he was like, oh, yeah, it’s great, but it’s a little screechy.
It ain’t good. Yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, it does.
So I guess it’s got, maybe that’s the ties of bebop and old time in there somewhere.
I like it. I like it. See, this is, this is, this is getting back to, you know, Center of the Universe. You know, like, like I am kind of connecting those dots in a weird way on that album. You know, like there’s actually, so speaking of Ed Haley, there’s a tune on Center of the Universe called Humphry’s Jig that I got from that box set. And it’s just this really strange tune, and it’s not really a jig, but it kind of has this fast triplet feel. Like it’s kind of like diggity, diggity, diggity, diggity, diggity, which is like too fast for a jig really. But it does have that sort of underlying triplet thing. And I was kind of like, oh, that’s almost like swing. You know what I mean? And so, so on the on the track, like we play Humphry’s Jig. And I kind of like was inspired by listening to Ornette Coleman and thinking of like, like just doing away with like what would be traditional harmony underneath that. So we just like improvise the harmony completely free. Like when you listen to Eli playing the bass underneath that, he’s just like going where he wants to with the lines. And then I just take a completely free fiddle solo that goes wherever I want to, harmonically speaking, but keeps the form. Yeah. So that’s kind of the idea behind that is like, yeah, we really are connecting Ed Haley and free jazz in that moment.
I love it, man. So I love about music. So I love about this podcast is discovering stuff like this too, you know, like these connections together. So let’s go to some stuff like I always like to talk about, you know, like practicing because again, people have different types of practice. But what’s the difference between working on a jazz tune in an old time tune for you? Like, what did that look like between learning a Charlie Parker solo compared to like an Ed Haley tune? Is it the same or do you have different approaches to it?
Yeah, that’s a really interesting question. And actually, I love this question because I feel like I’m coming to a different conclusion with that than I might have in years past. But, you know, I think in the past, I would have had a totally different approach to those two things. You know, for me, like learning an old time tune is often about trying to get the feel right. And trying to pick up the little nuances of maybe like the Boeing or the melody that like are kind of hidden in there. Sometimes the old time, you know, source recordings, like you’re saying, like an Ed Haley recording, you know, might be kind of hard to hear all of what’s going on. You know, like the recording technology when it was recorded isn’t, you know, isn’t super great. So it’s, it’s, it’s difficult to hear all the notes. So, you know, you’re listening really closely and trying to sort of pick out. Maybe if there’s, you know, sometimes your ear tricks you and it tells you that there’s a note here or whatever. And, you know, you got to try and sort of like take a deep listen sometimes, make sure that you’re right or, you know, see what the bow is doing and then try and sort of emulate that feel. And I think, you know, like that’s how I learn old time music. Um, I think how I used to learn like a jazz tune or like a Charlie Parker solo or something was very much like analytical, you know, like very, you know, that’s very jazz school, you know, because at jazz school, you’re constantly sort of thinking about, like, what is the theory behind all of this stuff? And, you know, like, what, you know, oh, is he doing a chromatic surround or, you know, like, oh, is that a, what scale is that? Is that an altered whatever? And I think all of that stuff is kind of important and interesting. But like now I’m actually probably taking a, when I listen back to my own playing and I’m self-critical about it, I’m like, sometimes I feel like I’m taken out of my enjoyment of my own playing because of it not feeling good at all times. And so I’m like, I want to be able to play like a jazz solo and emulate the feel as much as anything else. And so actually I was transcribing a Sonny Rollins solo and a Hank Mobley solo this last month. And really trying to focus on, like not trying to sort of be overly analytical about like what the theory is going on or whatever. Just trying to sort of like hear it and play it with the like minutia of the little groove, you know, like the minutia of the groove, but by which I mean like, you know, oh, is it a little bit back here or, you know, is he pushing ahead here or like, you know, what’s that, how exactly is he feeling this and like in relation to the beat and like, how can I sort of sound like that? So I like the idea of actually bringing those two things closer together, because I think the ends is the same, like you want old time music and you want jazz or whatever you’re improvising to sound to be really groovy. And I think if you’re thinking too much, like I do sometimes, you can trip yourself up and get out of the groove a little more often.
Yeah, my wife laughs because I always say, my favorite saying is, when you think you stink. And that’s like, because I’m always like, oh, I’m in my head too much or like, I thought about it all the way up to it and just missed it. You know what I mean? I’m like, if you think you stink, that’s my, I don’t know if it’s the problem. I like it.
I like it. I’m stealing that.
So when you transcribe like a jazz solo, like that Sonny Rollins solo, do you write it out or do you just remember it?
No, I just remember it. Yeah, I mean, I kind of think that the utility of writing something out, for me, it doesn’t do what I’m looking to get out of it, I think. At this point, I’d rather be able to hear where things are going intuitively than sort of write it out and analyze it in that way. And plus, it takes a long time and I have a one-year-old daughter and you know, I ain’t got time for that. Yeah.
So how do you, this is the guy that I interviewed right before you that came out last week is the guy, Rob Capoletto, who is Billy String’s guitar teacher now.
Oh, killer.
Yeah, and he’s a great interview and we were talking about that. He learns everything by ear and so, you know, like he learned all the Bach violin, you know, things on guitar by ear.
Yeah. I love that. I love that. That is so cool. And that really subverts the idea of like how you learn classical music. Like I think it should be more like that. Something that I’ve been telling people recently is like, you know, music notation is a form of communication, right? Like, you know, that was the main utility for like how to communicate, how to play something. Well, we have recordings now that you can get a lot more detail in a recording than what you can put in music notation. So, you know, there are other ways to communicate even more information than what you can get on a written page.
Yeah. And I told him in that episode, like that is when I stopped relying on music, like I bought everything, dude, anything that was out on tab, you name it, I probably bought it. You know what I mean? What I’ve maintained from those songs compared to tunes that I’ve just now been learning by ear, and I remember the tunes that I learned by ear way more than anything I just looked at or pulled up on the internet or bought, you know?
Yes. Yeah. Ear learning is by far the superior way to like learn how to play a style. You know, I’m not ready to like completely throw away like the utility of any sort of written stuff. You know, like sometimes buying a book or something can inspire you to like get into a certain thing. And that’s totally cool. But yeah, for sure, like the best way, in my opinion, to learn stuff is to learn a style or to learn how to improvise or whatever, you know, is to learn everything by ear.
Speaking of learning by ear and then pulling up music and also feel, I’ve been working on Clifford Brown’s The Blues Walk In, I believe it is.
Oh, killer, yeah, right.
And it’s killer, you get to that solo and there’s just one spot, he does this triplet so flipping fast, like I had it slowed down to where it was unmusical. And I’m like, what is that? I just couldn’t hear it. You know what I mean? I finally found someone who had transcribed it, even though it was for Trump. But at least I could look at it and be like, ah, there it is.
Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, but then also the feel, you could look at that written out and if you look at that intro and try to play it just off the music, I don’t think the feel is just, you have to play it to his feel. If you just read it straight, you would sound completely stiff.
Totally. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, like that’s the thing. You feed a bunch of music notation into a AI system and it’s going to sound very robotic. But yeah, but if you feed a bunch of recordings into a human, they’re going to be able to spit out some of that feel.
So do you think that was one of my questions I had for you? Because I see that question comes up a lot or I’ve been emailed that question and I’m like the wrong person. Had a bunch of concussion so my memory is already pretty shoddy as it is. But remembering tune, so for this 100 Old Time Fiddle Project, how do you retain so many of these songs? Because that’s the other thing at jams you go to in people’s memory for songs. Some people know hundreds of tunes and some people know like five, but have learned hundreds of tunes. What’s a secret for that?
Yeah, that’s a tricky one. I probably don’t have as good a memory for this stuff as it seems like I do. I know hundreds of tunes and a lot of old time stuff. But even the old time 100, like those 100 tunes that we recorded, a lot of them, if you ask me to play them right now, I would have to listen to a couple of notes, and then it would come back to me, do you know what I mean? I think that there’s no shame in that. That’s just like a human’s brain. I think of my memory for tunes as a little bit of a rotating cloud a little bit. There’s a lot in there that will come back to me if I just hear a couple of notes or whatever. I’ll know how the rest of it goes. But sometimes it’s hard to pull it up out of nothing. And yeah, and that’s why you go to these old-time gatherings or whatever or bluegrass campouts. And you’ll hear people playing those tunes, you’ll be like, oh, that’s right. Man, I love that tune. I’m going to go play that. That’s all part of just memory and memorization. But so for me, like, you know, the tunes kind of live in just remembering the melodies. And, you know, so that comes with like a lot of listening. I really, with the students that I work with, you know, I really can’t like emphasize enough sometimes how important like listening to a lot of music is. Like you, if you want to be good at something, you have to like drench yourself in, you know, in bluegrass music or old time music. You know, if that’s your chosen thing, you just have to listen to as much of it as you can because then you like get to understand the language of it and you remember the tunes and melodies or lyrics or whatever. And, you know, a lot of that stuff is kind of, you know, for me and I think for a lot of people, it’s kind of hazy on the margins, you know, like I might know a bunch of tunes that I’ve never even played because I’ve listened to them. And, you know, if you asked me to play one of those tunes, I couldn’t, but if I turned up at a jam and someone started playing it, I could. You know, but that sort of stuff, that sort of like hazy outer rim of knowing a genre is like, you know, that’s all part of the listening part of it, I think. But yeah, you know, sometimes, you know, I actually don’t think that I have the best memory for tunes of some of the old time musicians that I know. Like, you know, some of them are really good at bringing up these melodies sort of apropos, nothing. That’s definitely not my strong suit, but I am really good at like having those melodies sort of floating around in my brain somewhere. And with a little bit of a jog, that will come out.
Yeah, I had it happen this Sunday morning. I played with a guy that was filling in for my duo partner. He’s like, hey, you know, Red Hair Boy? I’m like, yeah. And I’m like, you play me the first couple notes. I just couldn’t remember it for the life of me in a bit. You know, within two notes, I got it. I got it.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
They’re all banging around in there. It’s just like, I need you to remind me how it starts. You know, it’ll be good to go.
Yeah.
What for mandolin players getting into old time, speaking to a fiddle player that plays old time so well. You know, it’s I find some of those tunes are a little tougher because so much does rely on the bowing in the feel of a fiddle that you sometimes just, you know, can’t necessarily replicate as well on mandolin. What’s some advice you would give a mandolin player working some of these old time tunes, especially by ear?
Sure.
Yeah.
Well, funny you should mention, but you can check out the old time 100, which features this great mandolin player, Tristan Scroggins. Yeah. You know, it’s a really funny thing, actually, just like a slight little aside here about the old time 100 with Tristan. I love to give Tristan a hard time about this now because he mentioned to me that wherever he goes now, people are like, oh, you’re the old time mandolinist. In his mind, he’s like, I really don’t know old time that well. I’m a bluegrass player. When you go see Tristan play bluegrass, man, that guy is one of the best like just ripping bluegrass mandolinists around, man. He is really good at that.
Can I put in a side tier and a side real quick? Well, because I just saw him with Bronwyn here in Charleston.
Yeah.
You know, I jammed with him and hung out with him. And he’s so quiet. And he is a different person on stage. Great showman, great ripping player. So sorry, back to your side.
Yeah, he’s very loud in his playing and his musicality. And then, yeah, he’s a very gentle, quiet, sort of introspective fellow. Otherwise, yeah, he’s a, I get a kick out of Tristan. I really do. But yeah, like, you know, I think when you listen to, like, what Tristan does on The Old Time 100, you know, it’s somewhere in between playing the melody and playing the rhythm and playing the chords. You know, it’s almost banjoistic in that sense, where, you know, you can be emulating parts of the melody or playing parts of the melody, emulating some of the, like, fiddle bowing with the kind of, like, pick shuffle kind of stuff and, you know, the rhythm stuff. And then, you know, filling in some of the gaps with just, like, tremolos and chords. And I think that that is a really nice role for the mandolin in old time music. You know, it probably leans a little heavier on, like, your kind of trad mandolin sensibilities, you know, like your tremolos and the way in which, like, a Monroe style player might kind of play a bit more shuffly, you know, like, if you listen to, like, a Mike Compton or a Monroe or someone, you know, like, there’s kind of a good amount of, like, bow-esque or old-time-esque kind of bow-y, shuffly kind of vibes in there. That actually, like, really sits beautifully in old-time music. On that album that you mentioned before, Time and Place, Andrew Marlin plays mandolin on that album. And, yeah, he has a great feel for this sort of stuff, too, because, you know, like, he’s a very sort of Monroe-y mandolin player, you know, and kind of shuffly and tremolo. And also, you know, like, being in that sort of triangle area in North Carolina, there’s a lot of old-time music around. And, you know, he loves sitting down and playing tunes. And, you know, I think he has a really great feel for that sort of stuff. So I think that, like, you know, like, your trad mandolin is a pretty good, like, the recipe that that sort of stuff has fits really well for old-time music, I think. Yeah.
It’s interesting you mentioned Andrew Marlin and Mike Compton, too, because when I first interviewed Andrew for his, I guess it would have been a Buried in the Cape album.
Oh, yeah, yeah, great album.
Oh, so good. And one of his big influences was the, oh, the Wild Hog and the Red Brush. And that’s Compton playing on the Hartford album. And it’s just, yeah, totally great tie-in.
Yeah, totally. Yeah, that’s perfect because like that’s essentially like an old-time album and yeah, yeah, and Compton fits perfectly in that setting, you know?
Now, do you have to nerdy question here when you get ready to do-
Wait, these other questions weren’t nerdy? Wait, what?
Yeah, good point. Yeah, I forget my nerdyness level.
I’m looking more to the nerdy question. All right, hit me up.
When you go out on the road, let’s say you were going to play tune with just the Tall Poppy String Band, you’re getting ready to do a run of dates with them versus you’re getting ready to go out and do a run of dates with Jolliff. Do you have to mentally shift yourself ahead of time or is it at this point you can divide them in your head, the styles that you have to play?
Yeah. They do occupy two little areas, but I’m trying to bring some of that stuff together. Ideally, I don’t want to be divided into like George the old time player and George the bluegrass player. I want all of those things to be in there. The gumbo that becomes my influences and styles. I’m continuously trying to bring those things together. But in saying that, if I’m about to go out and play old time with Tall Poppy String Band, obviously, I’m going over the arrangements for that band and the tunes that we play and trying to play in that groovy old time bowed way. When I’m hitting out for stuff with Jake Jolliff, man, you got to be setting the metronome on, you got to be remembering how to play fast. That guy plays very fast.
Not as he’d play fast, but he plays faster live. All those songs are a few ticks hotter than the album.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, no, they just keep creeping up. It’s really funny. But it’s shifting bass line with the speed of things, because when we’re recording it, all of that stuff’s pretty new. So even at a slow tempo, it feels stressful and hard. And once you’ve played it 100 times, you’re like, oh yeah, yeah, this is this line, I’ve played this 100 times now, I can rip this off pretty good. And then you listen to the tempo difference, you’re like, oh, whoa, we’re playing it way faster now. But yeah, yeah, no, like going out with Jake, you know, you have to shed and get ready for like playing, playing fast and doing a lot of improvising. That’s a particular mindset. And so yeah, I get the metronome out, I get the strum machine out and I go over a lot of the chord progressions that were, you know, like it’s much more sort of harmonically dense stuff that I do. So I had to get my brain into that gear. You know, so it is a little bit of a different thing. But I think ideally, you know, I continue to bring those, those things closer together. And I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about, you know, ironically, thinking less. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about thinking less as we talked about earlier. And, you know, I think that ideally when I’m sort of prepping for the Jake stuff, you know, yeah, I’m working on my technique and stuff, but I’m really just thinking about, like, playing with good feel and going where my ear tells me to go.
That’s awesome, man. That’s great advice. Yeah, that’s Center of the Universe, too. It’s bringing bringing you two worlds closer and closer together, man.
Yes, you got it.
I got I got two more questions for you here. And the first one is, you know, a lot of people listen to this podcast. They, you know, they aren’t like ourselves who have, well, I don’t have a one year old, but I have a lot of free time to play as you probably had. But some people only have 10 minutes a day to work on something, maybe.
Yes.
And some always like, just pick it up and play 10 minutes a day. That’s you’re going to get better at it. What’s one thing you would recommend somebody to do if they only have a few minutes, if they to pick up their instrument and play?
Yeah, and I definitely find myself in this situation a lot at the moment. You know, looking after my little baby, and my wife actually left for her own tour today, so.
Oh, what’s she play?
Oh, she’s a great fiddler and banjo player and singer songwriter. She’s mostly an Americana songwriter these days. Rachel Bayman is her name. Oh, no way.
She’s killer.
Yeah.
Oh, man, I got to have her on sometime. I’m a big fan.
Yeah. Yeah, totally. Yeah. So Rachel left for her own tour this morning. And you know, like, you know, baby’s at daycare right now, so, you know, I got a little time. But, but yeah, often, you know, days I’m just got a little, a little window. But I’ve been trying to think, you know, like about I think some of the advice that I was sort of giving earlier in this podcast, like of just like listening is actually really important practice. And that’s something that I can do while I’m looking after Odella, baby, is like listening to music. And so it gives me a little extra time. So, you know, if you’re driving to work and stuff, you can definitely practice without your instrument by listening to music and, you know, trying to sort of like be mindful of, what’s happening and how that can inform your playing, or just kind of remembering tunes or whatever. But if you have literally 10 minutes on your instrument, I think finding something that you like, that you want to transcribe and just trying to play it like that person, I think that’s been the most helpful for me recently. The last couple of days, I’ve been listening to Johnny Gimble, and I’ve been transcribing just in little chunks his Ragtime Annie and the variations that he has on that. I’m just trying to play with the feel that he has, and Gardena Walsh, you know. Yeah, so I don’t know. I think that’s the best practice. Ten minutes, sit there with your instrument, and just try to play it with the same feel as whatever it is that you’re trying to work on.
Yeah, great advice. Then the final question is, do you have a favorite beer?
Well, being from New Zealand, I feel like I should say Spate’s Pride of the South Gold Medal Ale, but that probably isn’t my favorite beer, but it’s a decent one.
Yeah. Can you get that in the States or do you have to go back home to get it?
No, you can’t. That’s more of a nationalistic answer than an accurate one. No, I got to say that probably my favorite beer is, and I’m probably a little bit of a broken record on this one. Man, a heavy topper when you get one of those up in Vermont and you crack the can and that first step is, there’s nothing like it. I think that’s the best one.
So good.
Yeah.
Well, George, thank you for doing this, buddy. I really appreciate it. I love your playing. You’re a super great guy as well, which is just goes. It’s that’s the case with 99 percent of the musicians in this style of music, man. You know what I mean?
And thank you. Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely. And is there what’s the best place for everybody to find you? And then I can put links below.
Yeah. Well, my website, George Jackson music.com, my Bandcamp, which if you just look up my name, George Jackson, I think it’s georgejacksonmusic.bandcamp.com, and my Patreon page, which is Patreon forward slash George Jackson. Those are some pretty good places to find my music and myself and my Instagram, I guess, which is at George Fiddle on Instagram.
Perfect.
Yeah. So there you go.
Man, thank you for taking the time, buddy. This is a blast. I could talk to you for a while. I think maybe the new thing people are going to have to pick up, I just got to hang out with Kim Warner recently too.
Oh, killer. Yeah.
I think everybody needs to do this podcast with a New Zealand or Australian accent going forward.
I challenge all guests hands full to a New Zealand or Australian accent. Yeah. It sounds like you had Kim and BB on recently.
Yeah. It’s just so cool. I love the accent too. I mean, besides the fact that you guys are super intelligent and incredible players, but then the accent is just like the icing on the cake.
Love it. Well, I’ve lived in the US 10 years now, so I’m just trying to keep it at this point.
Oh, yeah. You got to. You can’t let it go. Man, thank you so much, George.
Man, this has been a really fun combo. It was a real treat, man. Yeah, I had a little laugh, so thanks for having me.
All right. Thanks to George for doing the podcast. Truly appreciate it. Great guy, great player. Go out and pick up a copy of his albums, pick up a copy of Frank’s album. They’re all available at the links below. Have a fantastic week. Cheers, everybody.