Commissions
Jacob Jolliff
Jacob Jolliff is one of the foremost instrumentalists in acoustic music today. While studying at Berklee College of Music on a full scholarship, he began his career in the seminal pop-bluegrass ensemble Joy Kills Sorrow. Soon after he won the National Mandolin Championship in Winfield, KS.
After his stint in Yonder Mountain String Band, he started his own eclectic ensemble, The Jacob Jolliff Band, and has lately also been touring with luminaries of the acoustic world such as Béla Fleck, Tony Trischka, and Michael Daves.
FreshGrass Commission
True to its title, the music on this album conveys a sense of fun, slinky peril behind every corner, relying less on the band’s considerable technical abilities than in previous ventures and instead focusing on Jacob Jolliff’s developing compositional acumen. Jolliff notes, “It’s different making a record now that I’m in my mid-30’s; I was 27 when the first Instrumentals album came out. When I listen back to my older music I can really hear the difference in my playing from then to now. At that age there’s still a sense that you have something to prove and that’s not a bad thing in your 20s – there’s a certain type of tune I would write back then that I still enjoy but these days there’s something else I’m trying to express through my writing and playing.”
In fact much of the music here wasn’t written on mandolin at all. “I wrote most of this album at the piano, which was a great way to open up new possibilities. I don’t really play piano that well, just well enough to pick out melodies, but in that creative space I was able to just focus on developing melodies rather than executing what I already know is technically possible on my primary instrument.”
Jolliff’s accomplices for this caper are George Jackson on fiddle, Ross Martin on guitar, and Myles Sloniker on bass. They more than hold their own next to Jolliff’s pyrotechnics, and in fact carve out unique supporting voices within Jolliff’s intricate textures. The thrilling duel between Jackson and Martin on ‘Los Angeles County Breakdown,’ like two cat burglars after the same prize, is an early album highlight. On the late-album burner ‘Silver Blaze’, Jackson holds strong against Jolliff’s barrage of notes and returns fire in kind. And Sloniker’s bass work is exemplary throughout, keeping the music rooted and delivering his own fusillade when called upon.
The album’s centerpiece, the three-movement Art Heist Suite, was originally written for FreshGrass as part of their Concerto Commissioning program. “It was a fun and new challenge to write a long-form piece like that, with several movements sharing melodic material. None of it was written down, everyone just memorized their parts and we let them develop individually and organically.” Jolliff’s solo on Mvt 1 is simply astounding; there just hasn’t been mandolin playing like it anywhere before and Jolliff can rightfully lay claim to being the state of the art.
“Most of the music was written in the past year, while we were touring constantly together. Lots of fun time in the car, staying up late jamming, dealing with sound issues and just being out on the road as a group, we developed a rhythm and cohesiveness you can really feel on the recording. We all listen well and have a good feel for what each other is doing. These musicians are a joy to play with and I think we’ve made something that people will enjoy listening to.”
