Saturday, April 29, 2023

Jake Blount, Laurel Premo, Nic Gariess 4/25/23 Cafe 9

A good lead in to this post is my viewing of Jake Blount in the summer of 2022. Blount, an ethnomusicologist (read “nerd”) is a banjo ambassador and American roots music scholar. He plays banjo, fiddle, some backgroundy synth and sings. He is joined on this evening by Michigan-based guitarist and fiddler Premo and traditional step dancer Gariess. I’m fascinated by this music and how young people are drawn to it. These three can’t be over 30. The addition of the dancer brings the old timey feel full circle, Nic shuffled and tapped and was concerned with the placement and efficacy of his floor mic. He was billed as an ethnochoreographer (read “nerd”). He spoke of Celtic step dance, Appalachian stomp, and African dancing as instrumentless percussion. Premo was excellent, reminding me of the young roots guitarist Marisa Anderson. She played Jericho and Hop High from her awesome recent release. I notice that she is peeling off from this crew in support of a Bonnie Prince Billy tour. The songs were mined from the traditional pantheon and bent to a modern offering. Premo took some shrapnel from some 1800s Michigan hymn book and Blount synthesized lyrics from an obscure African-Scandinavian text from which his heritage lies. I urge readers to seek out these artists as they are torch bearers of music that deserves recognition, one might even dub them ethnomusicarchaeologists.

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