My feature on Sarah Jarosz aired Monday evening on All Things Considered. And her new album Follow Me Down came out yesterday. It's always tough paring down all that I'd like to say about an artist like this into the few minutes we have to tell stories on the radio. My attention to her enrollment at the New England Conservatory is a short-hand way of pointing to a huge issue - the growing sophistication and breadth of the influences shaping bluegrass music. It is, I hope, complimentary to my pal Chris Pandolfi's recent, insightful survey of the Boston new acoustic music scene, which you should read right now if you love bluegrass.
And yet, already some jerk has commented on the NPR site with the kind of reactionary blather that keeps bluegrass down:
No teenage Barbie doll with no sould (sic) has the ability to 'redefine' Bluegrass. If you play a completely different music than Bluegrass, then that's what you play, regardless of instrumentation. Secondly, the New England Conservatory may be relevant to the yuppies who listen to NPR, but it's completely irrelevant to Bluegrass...a vernacular music from the Kentucky hills.
What a sexist insult to one of our finest, most daring musicians. What a bizarre concept of the world, as if he needs a personal little culture war with his own caricature of NPR listeners. No sir, whoever you are, when a searching young musician grows up at bluegrass festivals, masters the repertoire, jams and records with Bela, Sam, Jerry etc. and runs with the Stringdusters and Crooked Still, she is, by definition, not "completely irrelevant" to bluegrass music. I've started calling these people Bluegrass Birthers. They thrive on ill will, and facts mean nothing to them.
But I didn't mean to go off on a tangent. I'd rather urge you to listen to a few tracks we weren't able to spotlight, chiefly the beguiling opener "Run Away" and SJ's cover of "Ring Them Bells" by Bob Dylan, one of the most delicious and melodic songs I've heard this year. And more generally I'd rather point to and celebrate the remarkable flowering of important, timeless music inspired by bluegrass, because it's a scene that does what art is supposed to do - make something new out of something familiar and beloved.
