First rate bluegrass fusion
David R Usher | St. Louis, MO | 11/06/1998
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Of all living musicians, Tony is my favorite. He is one of the great living composers of our time - most of his tunes are brilliantly original, no two refrains are ever the same. I call his work "bluegrass fusion", a combination of jazz and bluegrass often done in eastern modal structures. Tony is a math professor, who certainly applies the highest of mathematical principles in creating his multilayered compositions. If one could imagine putting a fractal to music, this is it.This CD contains a superb collection of his best works, "The Only Way" and "Serving Mankind" are but a couple of the best tunes you can enjoy thousands of times and still not hear everything going on in there.Tony's banjo style is truly enchanted. There is no such thing as a standard bluegrass riff to be found in his style (except perhaps as an artistic joke on traditional bluegrassers). His riffs are absolutely stunning, setting a still-unbeaten standard for playing both chromatic-style and arpeggio-style "blugrass" banjo. He has some original tricks - one I call "double clutching [as in truck driving]. He will be sailing along at full tilt, and then all of a sudden it seems he is playing backwards for a while, beats dissapearing into thin air, whereupon everything meshes back up perfectly.Andy Statman and Russ Barenburg are the finest living mandolin and guitar players, who combined with Tony's incredible drive and talent, offer up a style of "jazzgrass" that is so advanced that most bluegrassers cannot nearly play it.Statman really goes nuts on the mandolin, becoming so involved that he occasionally groans while he plays - adding an unusual dimension to his solo work that regularly goes off both ends of the neck of his mandolin at the same time.If you cant imagine what this CD is like, imagine combining the rich, powerful melodic textures and creativity of Chick Corea, the smooth banjo style of Flatt & Scruggs, with an ounce of Ravi Shankar thrown in representing a zesty modal scale. Banjo, guitar, mandolin, rich double fiddles, bass, saxaphone, and an occasional synthesizer set this amazing soundscape.I have met both Tony and Andy on their [unfortunately] rare trips to the heartland. It is unusual to find such incredibly honed musicians who are also such kind and humble everyday folks in person. Thanks to Amazon for offering this highly unusual collectable, and hard to find CD."
Track Listings (26) - Disc #1