David Grisman

David Grisman

BARKING UP THE RIGHT TREE

The David Grisman Quintet Is Back With Dawgnation
Decades before the millennial bluegrass renaissance began to blossom, mandolinist extraordinaire David Grisman was already playing "Dawg" music --a hybrid genre of his own devising that brought together bluegrass, jazz, and world music in a strictly acoustic setting. A bluegrass fan from way back, Grisman first gained wide recognition as a key member of Old and In the Way with Jerry Garcia in the early 1970s. (The Grisman-Garcia partnership can also be heard on the series of albums that these two eclectic musicians produced during the '90s.) Leading the David Grisman Quintet since 1976, the brilliant instrumentalist and composer has championed acoustic music, even going so far as to launch his own label, Acoustic Disc. Barnes & Noble's Roberta Penn spoke with the top dog about the quintet's latest album, Dawgnation.

Question: When I put Dawgnation in the CD player my dog started barking and running around the house looking for that pack of howling dogs that opens the set. Are those your dogs?

David Grisman: They are now.

Q: Do the pictures of hundreds of dogs in the CD booklet to Dawgnation come from fans?

DG: We ran a thing on our web site -- acousticdisc.com -- for our fans to send in pictures of their favorite dogs. We thanked them all, the dogs, by putting their names in the liner notes.

Q: How did the term "dawg music" come about?

DG: Dawg is a nickname that Jerry Garcia gave me. And when I started my band people asked me what I called the music, and I figured if I had a name for it people wouldn't ask me about it, but that kinda of backfired.

Q: This is your first quintet studio release of original material in seven years -- why the wait?

DG: Two of the tunes I've recorded before, but it took me this long to get a new bunch of tunes together. I had started, but then my bass player lost his wife to cancer almost three years ago, and he was out of the band for 13 months. So I had to put everything on hold.

Q: How long has Argentinian guitarist Enrique Coria been with your quintet? He seems to have a strong influence on the music. Especially on tunes like "Cha Cha Chihauahua" and "Slade," which at first has the feel of reggae then moves into Latin and then bluegrass.

DG: He's been around for eight or nine years. I always have had a Latin side to dawg music, but having an authentic Latin guitar player is a big influence. Doganova is the first album we made with Enrique, and it's all Latin influenced.

Q: The title cut has been in your repetoire since your work with Jerry Garcia. Did you write it with him in mind?

DG: I guess. I wrote it with him sitting there. He was over one day. And we recorded it that day. Then I started playing it in the band. I thought it was a good title for this CD. I was gonna make it in 2000 and call it Y2K9. But then we had to wait and that was outdated.

Q: You wrote all the tunes on Dawgnation. Do you write with these specific players in mind?

DG: Pretty much, yeah, subconsciously and consciously. I certainly arranged them for the band. The duets were aimed at each individual guy.

Q: You have several duet selections in the set. Is the quintet about showcasing the virtuosity of the players?

DG: Yeah. Any team likes to feature its individual players. I thought having duets would be interesting. I do a lot of projects with duets with other people. Thought it would be good to break up the tunes that way.

Q: What led you to start your own record label, Acoustic Disc?

DG: I was ready to make a record and had been kicked off of MCA records due to a contractual loophole. I was building my own studio, and two friends, Artie and Harriet Rose, moved to California and were looking to start a business. They do everything with the label, and I just put the aesthetic values in. Jerry Garcia is really responsible for its success. The recordings we made together are the bestsellers and allow other projects to happen.

Q: You've had a large impact on bluegrass, expanding its spheres over the past three decades. What do you hear out there that you like from young artists?

DG: On the traditional end of things Del McCoury is the finest bluegrass band in the world. Nickel Creek are truly an innovation, in pop music more than bluegrass, but it's related to traditional music. I don't hear a lot of new music. I don't listen to the radio. To me music is something that benefits from time spent. For me most of the greats are either dead or older. I also don't put a timeline on music. I'm still listening to Duke Ellington and Django Reinhardt, Flatt & Scruggs. You can't really beat the Stanley Brothers or Thelonious Monk or John Coltrane. I don't see things like that popping up every day.