Work in Project

Jazz Mandolin find a friend in Phish

by Don Fluckinger

It's a tough road to hoe, mandolin jazz. Marginalized by both the folk community (the people most familiar with the instrument) and the jazz community as something interesting but unfamiliar, Vermont virtuoso Jamie Masefield's trio, the Jazz Mandolin Project, will get a big boost from his buddy from college days, Jon Fishman (who, since sharing a dorm at University of Vermont with Masefield, went on to Phish fame) on their sophomore CD, Tour de Flux.

Fishman and Masefield have been friends for more than a decade and have played together in many different settings, including an impromptu group called Bad Hat. Last winter Fishman manned the drums for the Jazz Mandolin Project (who appear next Thursday at the Iron Horse) during their cross-country Tour de Flux, and, inspired by the gigs, the trio quickly cut a CD by the same name, recreating the tour's live sound. Scheduled for January release on Accurate Records, Tour de Flux will certainly bring more fan exposure to Jazz Mandolin Project, mostly because of Fishman's presence.

"I think it reveals a side of Fishman that people haven't really gotten to hear that much," Masefield says. "With [Jazz Mandolin Project] only being three pieces and no vocals at all, it allows all three of us to shine instrumentally; and so that kind of puts Fishman's playing in a new light. And [allowing] him to really get down into the jazz idiom is, I think, going to be an exciting thing for all Phish fans."

Make no mistake, though, the Jazz Mandolin Project are Masefield's band, and only by his sheer will have they stayed around. The first line-up featured Gabriel Jarrett (son of jazz legend Keith) on drums and electric bassist extraordinaire Stacey Starkweather, whose array of effects and techniques could carry a concert in itself. After heavily touring in 1997 behind the trio's self-titled debut, they were burnt out and disbanded. Later, Masefield put together the Tour de Flux with Fishman and bassist Chris Dahlgren, an upright bass player Masefield met on a New Year's Day jam in New York.

Fishman headed back to Phish after the tour and recording session. Scott Neumann -- who has performed and recorded with such popular jazz artists as Joshua Redman, Roy Hargrove, and Woody Herman -- took over on drums; and the Jazz Mandolin completed a metamorphosis from an electric, almost fusion-jazz group into their current acoustic incarnation that leans more toward bebop. There's a possibility that Fishman will rejoin the group on four gigs (New York, Washington, Burlington, and Boston) in February to celebrate the CD release, but Dahlgren, Neumann, and Masefield comprise the permanent line-up.

Masefield wanted to try an upright bass this go-around because it's "much more compatible" with his mandolin, he says: they're both stringed, wooden acoustic instruments, and their tonal ranges don't overlap. And though Dahlgren ("not only the most innovative upright bass player I've ever played with," he says, "but possibly the most innovative upright bass player I've ever heard") plays acoustic bass, like Starkweather, he uses some electronic helpers to vary his sound.

"Chris uses a fair amount of effects in his own unique way, so that it's not as if we've charged down the Charlie Parker bebop lane," Masefield says. "I'd say it's moved away from that rock fusion sound, but it's still able to hang in that alternative space that we've been developing."

So with a little help from his friends, Masefield continues to make jazz music with his unconventional instrument, plying its emotional spectrum from slow melancholy to rapid-strumming exuberance. If the new line-up jells, there will be lots of opportunity for the other two players to take center stage; Masefield tends to hand off frequent extended solos and to watch them just as intently as his audience does.

His "all-for-one" musical demeanor and very congenial personality is a little surprising in this business of highbrow jazz, unless of course you take into consideration the fact that he's got more in common with the folksy Vermont Phish fraternity than the cosmopolitan New York jazz clique. Masefield still lives on a farm -- complete with a cut-your-own-Christmas-tree business.

"It's way up here in the sticks, at the end of a little dirt road," Masefield says of his Starksboro, Vermont, home. "This is my little Thoreau camp up here. We go out on the road, and we go to a lot of cities and have a pretty crazy schedule; and then I get to come back to this beautiful place and chill out."

The Jazz Mandolin Project play at 10 p.m. on December 3 at the Iron Horse. Tickets are $10. Call (413) 586-8686.