At Soundcheck for the Banjo Summit

Saturday, October 27th about 4 pm

I'm sitting in the front of the house (what theater people call it - I think of it as in the back) watching an amazing group of talent onstage going through their soundcheck. It's for the "Banjo Summit: A Gathering of 5-String Masters," tonight at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank. One of the masters, new to me, is Richie Stearns. He just finished playing and singing a song with that high lonesome sound, so roots it's pre-bluegrass. Béla Fleck, probably the best known contemporary banjo player in the world, is the artistic director. Earlier I passed by him in a dressing room, playing scales incredibly fast and precisely.

Before the soundcheck started, I interviewed Noam Pikelny, of the Punch Brothers. One of his partners in the progressive classical-bluegrass quartet Punch Brothers is the mandolinist Chris Thile, who got a MacArthur Genius Award a couple of weeks ago. Noam, who's in his early thirties, is the third banjo generation on stage. He is definitely steeped in the love and lore of this mysterious American instrument. Noam recounted the history of his banjo to me - a very heavy mostly metal 1941 Gibson that he found in Nashville, after it had spent years in South Africa.

In a few minutes, when sound check is over, I'm talking to Tony Trischka. He came up during the 1960s, and was one of the first to play genres other than bluegrass on the banjo. Since then, he's become a mentor of sorts to players looking to expand their sounds. He taught a 16 year old Béla Fleck, although he says it didn't take long to show him everything he could (Béla was so good already). Noam played with Tony when he was a kid, too, only 9 or 10. Noam says Tony was always very generous with his time, giving him lessons on the bus before a concert. As one of the greatest players and historians of the instrument, Tony is the co-producer of Give Me the Banjo, an award-winning documentary by my friend and former State of the Arts colleague Marc Fields.

Sitting in an empty theater, this is that rare off moment, inside the space of one of those different worlds that I find myself in sometimes. I'll think, how did I get here? It really is a privilege, to hear these artists discuss how to end a piece, how to balance the levels of their various instruments, to see in action their total dedication to fine tuning.


Monday, November 5th

A week later, an eternity has passed! Superstorm Sandy came and went, cancelling three of the Banjo Summit concerts amid the rest of the devastation. Power outages and the east coast's slow recovery, plus a bad cold, and I'm just getting to look at the footage we shot at the Count Basie. Here's a clip of Noam Pikelny playing "The Broken Drought" off his latest solo album Beat the Devil and Carry a Rail. It has that minor key sound I love.