What's New

Preorder new JazzMando "Getting Into Jazz Mandolin" Shirt

We thought the cover art of the "Getting Into Jazz Mandolin" book was cool enough to actually wear, and decided to offer something a little different in the Merchandise Center in a new signature shirt. With the winter season at hand in the northern lattitudes, a long-sleeve shirt seemed more appropriate, and since we've never done a black shirt before, why not now?

Of course black is a "slimming" color, and the contour of the sleeves flatters (or distracts) those afflicted with a middle-aged spread. It makes for a little more expensive shirt, but these are very comfortable, and the cover artwork chic.

$24.95 each, but very much worth the extra bucks.

We will likely offer less expensive short-sleeve versions in the spring, but for now, we've printed an exclusive limited run of these, available for shipment in the next two weeks. We'd suggest preordering now, however. They're likely to go fast, and Christmas is just around the corner.

More information: GiJM JazzMando Shirt
Don't have the book yet? For shame!

JazzMando exclusive Eastman/Giacomel DG1 mandolin review

It's a rough job, but somebody has to do it. We've had the assignment of auditioning the new Eastman/Giacomel DG1 Mandolin, a project closely captained by world renown mandolin pioneer David Grisman. A far, far cry from the Lloyd Loar Florentine tobacco-burst template, the DG1 is a horse of a completely different color, from its cutting edge Cubist outline to its resounding aural sweetness.

Street priced in the low $3K's, the model offers much a better opportunity at acquisition than the $12K original Italian model. Eastman's reputation for affordability has been taken into a new level of quality, having captured the hearts (and fingers) of many enthusiastic but budget-minded hobbyists and professionals.

Read exclusive review: Eastman/Giacomel DG1 Mandolin

Check out other revolutionary mandolin builders: JazzMando Reviews

New at Clark Mandolins

We're proud to bring you some exclusive pics of the happenings on the workbench of Idaho builder, and perennial JazzMando fave, Austin Clark. The world class luthier (and designer of the famous Clark JM mandolin) is full-throttle in gear preparing for this February's Wintergrass Festival in Tacoma, Washington, February 19-22, 2009. He and his magic elves are preparing for a massive "Shock and Awe" exhibit, including this dandy Dola prototype, a Two-point oval.

Click for close-ups:

Also from the drawing board to the saw, a prototype Guitar-body Octave Mandolin.

We are looking into flight schedules, and hope to send a research team ourselves for the Winter festival. Join us?

Event details: Wintergrass
Builder's Website: Clark Mandolins
Get a free Clark JM T-shirt while they last: SW Cloth/Shirt special

Better Navigation at JazzMando

With the hundreds of pages of resources here at the JazzMando site (and growing!), you can spend literally hours uncovering some of the pedagogical treasures and mando-trivia. Accompanying the opportunities for prolific discoveries comes the Administrator's daunting challenge, maintaining order and accessibility to a myriad of relevant topics.

We just made some subtle structural changes we hope will assist in your quest for knowledge. In particular, we've revised some of the menu subheadings to make them more consistent with newly added content. Mouse over the headings at the top of the page and you'll experience quicker access to support materials for the GiJM book, Mandolin Cafe News, Artist CD and Builder Reviews, and a breakdown of pedagogical archives.

If you have a sharp eye, you'll also notice the new Flash Header. We've changed our slogan from "For the curious jazz mandolinist" to reflect our revised, broader charter, "Playing better mandolin." We're certainly not abandoning jazz, we just feel the vocabularies and playing techniques you uncover here will be a stepping stone to a wide variety of other music as well.

Take your mouse to the top of the page and enjoy the tour!

Books at Djangobooks

We like to bring you the latest offerings from Michael Horowitz in his video archive, two entries out of the more than 250 already posted in the astonishing Djangobook Video Archive, a performance by the individual brothers of the famous Rosenberg Trio:

Stochelo and Nous'che Rosenberg - La Gitane
Mozes Rosenberg - Stella by Starlight

Michael's site offers a terrific service and educational resources. In addition to the vast Django jazz guitar instruction books, his online store offers breakout jazz mandolin books by Dix Bruce, Andy Statman, and ebook versions of hard to find celebrated classic method books of Bickford (all 4 volumes) and Christofaro.

Of course, the one we're selfishly interested in is his most recent offering: Ted Eschliman - GETTING INTO JAZZ MANDOLIN

If you haven't already acquired your copy of GiJM; view the videos and support the DjangoBooks site with a purchase today!

Will Patton Ensemble Live at VPR

Wicked cool live recording of the Will Patton Ensemble available for you to download and enjoy from the Vermont Public Radio website! Consummate professionals, the boys are in rare form, and the energy from this live gig is palpable, especially within the laidback FM community radio environment. Will shares some interesting experiences and spontaneous liner notes between songs from his most recent album, "6th Street Runaround," as well as some of our favorites from past CDs.

Take some time to listen, or do what we did and burn a personal copy CD for yourself:

Link: Will Patton Ensemble Live at VPR
Will Patton-Mandolin; Steve Blair-Guitar; David Gusakov-Violin; Clyde Stats-Bass; Skeeter Camera-Drums

Artist website
Recent JazzMando Review: 6th St. Runaround
Will Patton's GiJM PROFESSIONALS SOUND LAB entry: Lydia O'Lydia

Buy four Silk Weave Cloths, get free JM T-Shirt!

We just listed a limited special purchase in the Mandolin Cafe Classifieds you mandolin hygienists will be interested in, especially if you're attacking the post-summer festival grime on your instruments, now that you're migrating indoors for the new (northern lattitudes) season.

Since summer is behind us, we're shifting our inventory of shirts to a new long-sleeve design (featuring the cover of the new GiJM book!) and clearing out all the short sleeves. We're offering a special bonus free Tee with the purchase of four of the Jupiter Silkweave Cleaning Cloth. Buy four at $5.00 each, we'll throw in a free Large Clark JM T-shirt (Ex-Large available in very short supply). Clean your mandos well, get a free shirt. ($15.00 value!)

About the popular Jupiter Silkweave Cleaning Cloth, the Micro Filament is woven ten times finer than the finest silk. Its microscopic pores actually pick up oil from fingers as well as lubricant residue and dust. Like a fine silk cleaning cloth it does so without any abrasion. It protects the most delicate finish including gold, silver and platinum. In fact it is the cloth trusted by owners of rare violins. If you have more than one instrument, multiple mandos, guitars, basses, fiddles, even a silver flute, these are the cat's pajamas for instrument finish hygiene.

The design on the shirts is cool, and even if you already have one, consider buying the cloths for your axes and give the shirt to your significant other so you can admire the pretty Clark JM mandolin graphic from a distance. (Or better, keep it yourself as a spare for next festival season.)

The four cloths, shirts, and domestic shipping are $22.50 total. Check with us before purchase, as we have a very limited supply, and have to cut off the deal when we run out. At this point, available only in mostly in L as of this morning. (Almost out of XL!) Payment taken through Paypal, mandohack@aol.com, but let us know first.

Read more about the limited commerative shirts here

Eastman Giacomel coming to the JazzMando Lab

David Grisman and Eastman Strings have collaborated on a new mandolin line, "The Dawg Collection by Eastman." Eastman Strings has enjoyed unprecedented success with their mid-line professional instruments since their preliminary foray into mandolins five years ago, following up over a decade of established popularity with their orchestral string instruments.

This project is a unique blend of new and old. The recent addition to Grisman's personal stage gear, a contemporary design Giacomel J-5 by premier Italian builder Corrado Giacomel is the inspiration for the first release, its quirky Cubist design the talk of many musicians the past several months since the meeting of the two. The prestigious J3 and J5 originals sell from $9,025 to $12,500.

Mandolin pioneer David "Dawg" Grisman elucidates, "I don't think the world needs another attempted Lloyd Loar mandolin copy. I've always enjoyed the diversity of obtainable voices from many other worthy designs, past and present, like those I explored sonically (and historically) on the Tone Poems series of CDs for Acoustic Disc. I'm also very impressed with Eastman's commitment to both quality and value, in addition to their interest in producing some of these fabulous instrument designs."

The second entry, the DG2 ($2695 List Price, Street Price TBA) also based on a rare example from Grisman's personal collection, is inspired by classic instruments from the "Golden Age of American Luthiery," a Bacon Artist Model made in the 1920s. "These fine mandolins had labels signed by mandolin virtuoso William Place, Jr., several years before the idea was appropriated by Lloyd Loar," and available in January 2009.

The first model in the series, the DG1 (List Price $3495, Street Price TBA) will be available on November 1, 2008, through Eastman Mandolin Dealers. We are looking forward to a special sneak preview soon. JazzMando research assistants are standing by to personally test the DG1 and document our impressions online for you in our Builder's Spotlight.

We'll keep you posted!

Take the online Eastman Workshop Tour.

Pre-order from our favorite Eastman dealers (and JazzMando site sponsors):
Acoustic Vibes Music
Fiddler's Green Music Shop

GiJM Feedback

We've enjoyed the communications we've received since the September release of "Getting Into Jazz Mandolin." Some include questions "Can you diagram the related 2nd octave fingerings on page 5 & 7?" for example, or typos captured (page 38, 2nd exercise meas. 7 the finger cue should be 1, not 4), or just a simple glimpse into how the book is impacting personal playing. The following comments are the recent reflections of C. Shoreman:

"I was pleased to receive your email comfirming my delivery of "Getting Into Jazz". I have enjoyed your articles on the Mel Bay site and your jazzmando site has expanded my insight into the possibilities of our hand held circle of fifths. I love how logical the instrument is. You are the first one to open up the patterns of the mandolin and fiddle for me. I thank you for that and was delighted to see that you have placed your ideas into a sequential format. I love the jazz standards and always thought that the genre was beyond mere mortal comprehension. My favourite artist is Leon Redbone and I would love to perform that sort of material on mandolin.

"I am currently play mandolin, fiddle and sing in a local Celtic group. I am a retired high school teacher and promised myself that I would devote myself to one of my instruments and become a true student. Your site and insight helped me to chose the mandolin. Thanks. Keep up the good fight."

We're pleased to see the book resonate with fiddlers. Also, experienced guitarists who desire more immediate insight into the secrets and layout of the mandolin fretboard are weighing in positively. Though the book has been conceptualized to gently introduce the folk mandolinist into a greater understanding of more complex harmonic possibilities, many experience musicians are finding some gems to move them more rapidly into mandolin "multi-instrumentalism" as well!

We'd like to continue to chronicle other reader's experiences with these materials. Ultimately, this is fodder for future articles, as well as the chance to better explain concepts that aren't quite hitting home yet. Chances are if you have a question, someone else on the globe has that same one.

More about the book: Getting Into Jazz Mandolin
Feedback: Contact Us
Enjoy the latest addition to our PROFESSIONAL'S SOUND LAB

The Absynth Quintet: Indigo Shoes

Introducing "Indigo Shoes" from a fabulous Trinidad, California Gypsy "Jamgrass" band, "The Absynth Quintet." We've been following mandolinist Bird Jowaisis now for several years since their sophomore 2004 release "Kevlar Mariachi Pants." Bird and the band have matured and solidified their unique signature sound, a blend of Eastern European Gypsy, Americana, and Jam band. Rich with energy and finesse, they produce a fierce acoustic energy that never betrays a carefully crafted sophistication. In addition to the quintet of banjo, upright bass, mandolin, drums, and guitar, the CD features special guest appearances by Zebulon Bowles and Rob Diggins on violin, Drie Roberts on vocals, and Steve Porter on musical saw!

From their website: "The Absynth Quintet melds the familiar and the avant-gard with a unique and provocative palette of tone and texture. This is streetcorner swing with a sense of humor, bluegrass with footstomping danceability, intertwined with playful forays into the depths of sophisticated musical experimentation. The Eugene Weekly places the sound 'somewhere along the spectrum of acoustic-improvisational-gypsy-jazz... plucky and tight a la David Grisman' with 'a dash of Eastern European exoticism that puts you in a smoky, understated hash bar kind of mood.' And desptite the fact that 'The subtle interplay of various harmonic layers is also deserving of a close and contemplative listen' the band makes it clear that this is not meant to be hyper-organized, candlelit jazz. They make music that is equally appropriate for sit down shows at theatres or rocking friday night danceclub parties, 'we work where the visceral and the cerebral meet' is how Mandolinist Chris 'Bird' Jowaisas put it. The Arcata Eye said '...listening to KMP is akin to being served an exotic meal (or mind altering beverage) one could never hope to replicate at home. You have to go out for this kind of stuff. Delicious.' The CD is out now on Sidenote records and available at music stores and itunes."

Recent performances had the band sharing the stage with such acts as Vince Herman, Thamusement, Sam Bush, Devil Makes Three, Joe Craven, David Grisman Quintet, Peter Rowan and Hot Buttered Rum.

Instrumentation:
Ian Davidson: Banjo
Rudy Luera: Upright Bass
Chris "bird" Jowaisas: Mandolin
Ryan Roberts: Guitar
Michael Schwartz: Drums and Percussion

Sample Audio

Purchase CD: Indigo Shoes
Band Myspace Page
Band Website: Absynth Quintet

Times Argus Review: Will Patton

Perennial JazzMando favorite, Will Patton continues to get rave reviews and attention for his recently released CD, "6th St Runaround." The latest of accolades can be found in a Times Argos (Montpelier, Vermont) Art Edelstein arts review. "Patton is a fine musician who also plays guitar and bass on the CD. His well-worn Gibson A model mandolin (also the choice for klezmer/bluegrass mandolinist Andy Statman) has a warm rich sound, and his chops are impeccable. But, with players like Gusakov, Blair and Anna Patton contributing, there is plenty of space for each musician to take a lead. Thus we have a program of soft, non-jarring jazz presented by some of the best musicians found in this state."

We have to agree, and were recently privileged with a submission from the veteran musician in our PROFESSIONAL'S SOUND LAB with an interpretation of Lydia O'Lydia, one of our five concept songs from the book, "Getting Into Jazz Mandolin."

Read Times Argus article: Will Patton: Vermont, mandolin & jazz

Read recent JazzMando review: 6th St. Runaround
Hear Will's SOUND LAB entry: Will Patton: Lydia O' Lydia
Artist website

Other JazzMando Reviews: Spotlight; New Release Artist Recordings

JP Charles BSA 4 Jazz Mandolin

New from veteran Brazilian luthier, Jean Paul Charles, a magnificent electric archtop "jazz" 4-string (available in 5 and 8) mandolin. This recent model features a Florentine cutaway design, and follows the construction and sound specifications of a jazz-blues guitar with magnetic or piezo onboard system pickups. The basic design is also available in 8 string acoustic version.

BSA 4 Jazz Mandolin Tidbits: The violin style hand carved top is made of Brazilian Cedro, a Mahogany hand carved back and neck (or Ivorywood), adorned with a Brazilian rosewood head plate and pickguard. Rosewood fretboard is a comfortable 15" radius with mother of pearl dots, medium fret wire, bone nut, and bone/rosewood bridge. ABS bindings available in beige or caramel, chrome tuning machines and tailpiece. Electronics include humbucker pickup with volume, tone, and mini-switch selector. Its US base price of $1920 includes clear natural nitrocellulose finish, and a rectangular hard case. BSA 5 (five string version) base-priced U$ 2180, and F holes 8 string acoustic version BSA-F model, based at U$ 1790.

BSA 4 with Dual Blade pickup
onboard preamp equalizer

English Website information: BSA 4 string jazz mandolin

Builder's website: JP Charles, Luthier

JazzMando site author's personally owned JP Charles: 4-string prototype

Lawrence Road Trip

Time for a quick trip to Lawrence, Kansas to see Mandolin Cafe site administrator Scott Tichenor play with his long time friends in the Thomas/DeLancey Band at the Tuesday Night Signs of Life Concert Series in downtown Lawrence, 722 Massachusetts Street at 8:00 p.m. (free admission). Some of the JazzMando staff are packing the bags and heading south.

Signs of Life is a coffee shop, bookstore & art gallery on the east side of the street between 7th and 8th on Massachusetts Street--a venue known for supporting live acoustic music in Lawrence.

Thomas/DeLancey Band is out of Kansas City and includes the region's premier flatpicker Dan DeLancey acoustic guitar, Linda Thomas on piano and hammered dulcimer, Ronnie DeLancey on bass, and Scott on mandolin, performing everything from traditional and contemporary acoustic music to early swing, old-time and Celtic.

Come meet us there!

More concerts in your area? View the Cafe Calendar of Events

Michael Lampert in November performance

Here's one you won't want to miss if you're in the New Jersey area, JazzMando mentor and Los Angeles electric mandolin pioneer Michael Lampert returns to his boyhood stomping ground for a rare east coast performance at the Concert Hall at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.

From a recent JazzMando review of Michael's second CD release, "Blue Gardenia," "Breakthrough electric mandolin artist, Lampert permanently resides in that magnificent musical intersection where intellect and intuition meet. His music is both passionate and precise, a soothing, primal "groove" that satisfies the soul, yet never abandons his well-trained pedigree."

Electric Jazz Mandolin
Michael Lampert
Friday November 7th
8:00 PM
36 Madison Avenue
Madision, New Jersey

Featuring:
Jim Saltzman, Tenor Sax
Jack Breslin, Bass
Sam Scribner, Drums

For Ticket information 973-408-3889
Email: Ellis Hilton
Website: The Concert Hall at Drew
Artist Website: Sojourner Records

More Tim Ware

We mentioned earlier in the month, the incredible opportunity to download for free, two albums of West Coast visionary multi-instrumentalist/composer, Tim Ware (see JazzMando News Archive The Tim Ware Group). Since then, Tim has tweaked and remastered some of the music, as well as brought to our attention a third and equally intriguing collection from his jazz fusion/electronica phase:

Tim Ware Group: Mach II Playlist, 1985-1992. (Guitar/violin/soprano sax/electric bass/drums)

We're also looking forward to a future release of some film music he recorded in the past several years, for the Oregon Public Broadcasting.

Still to come; we'll keep you posted!