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Alison Brown.
Alison Brown puts her case simply: "If you can't have fun playing banjo music, you're doing something wrong!" What needs to be added to this straightforward but true statement is that the style Brown plays - a unique mix of bluegrass, jazz and Celtic music - is also very technically challenging and a long way from the clichˇd notions some might hold about her instrument of choice.
A former member of Alison Krauss' band, Brown is bringing her own Quartet to Australia for her first visit since 1992. Actually, we will see a slightly expanded version of her band this time. "We're coming down with the quartet - or the quartet-plus-one, this trip. Andrea Zonn, who's a great fiddle player and singer, is going to be with us and instead of our usual piano player John R.Berr who just had a baby last week, we're going to have Philip Aaberg with us on piano."
The addition of a singer is unusual for the Alison Brown Quartet,
which usually focuses on original instrumental music. This is
heard to great effect on their current CD 'Replay,' an excellent
introduction to the music she describes as "eclectic but accessible
at the same time". The music ranges from straight bluegrass
to a jazzy version of the 'Spiderman' theme to a tune such as
The Wonderful Sea Voyage of Holy St Brendan ("I was really
trying to write music that would try to recreate the feel of
fourteen monks in 550AD in a leather boat travelling from Ireland
to Newfoundland"). I couldn't help but note it was a bit of
a revelation to hear such apparently disparate types of music
come together so naturally.
"Well, thank you. You know, it's all music that I wrote on the banjo and I think that's kind of the underlying thread of the whole thing, that whether it's jazz tinged or bluegrassy or Celtic, it's banjo music first and foremost so it sort of makes it hang together. I started off playing bluegrass banjo and really never thought of the banjo outside a bluegrass context. It's been a revelation to me too to write music and find that the instrument can go in a lot of different directions."
An interest in bluegrass was maybe not a predictable choice with her family history - both parents being lawyers in southern California - but it did develop via various means, obvious and otherwise.
"It was Earl Scruggs, his music. I heard the 'Foggy Mountain Banjo' album when I was ten years old and it just really inspired me. I had to learn how to make that sound. And right around that time, seeing the Beverley Hillbillies and Hee Haw and the theme song from 'Deliverance' and all. I mean, all those things made me like the instrument too, but the first thing was Earl Scruggs."
Brown describes her music as "grassroots," although US radio stations prefer the term "non-commercial" so airplay tends to come from public and college stations. However, the latter is a term with which she is comfortable. Indeed, in 1995 she co-founded the "artist friendly" label Compass Records to release just such music in America, and now boasts such names as Paul Brady, Kate Rusby and The Waifs in the label's roster.
Concerning the upcoming Alison Brown Quartet gig in Adelaide however, she offers the following description - "We like to do a little bit of something for everybody. We like to make a really fun, entertaining show. For people who think that they couldn't possibly sit through a night of banjo music, what we do is really accessible. It's very melodic, the music we play is very song-form oriented and we have some great musicians coming with us, so it's going to be a really hot band."
Michael Hunter
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The Alison Brown Quartet play at the Regal on Tues 9 March. See Prize Frenzy for giveaways.
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