DAWG TALK | A DAVID GRISMAN INTERVIEW

This month the David Grisman Quintet released Dawgnation, its first album in seven years. True to the nature of the kind beast that is the DGQ, and clearly not bound by commercial forces, this group set out to capture their latest incarnation of "dawg music" - an acoustic genre-in-itself that pointedly and playfully defies categorization.

In a recent conversation from his Acoustic Disc studio David Grisman talked about the newest DGQ release, reflected upon his 40-year "career" as an artist, revealed the names of musicians - both past and present - whom he recognizes as innovators, and discussed the difficulty of reconciling aesthetics with commerce. In speaking with the Dawg it dawned on me that not only is his knowledge relevant for aspiring mandolin students, musicians and music lovers: his words are a welcome relief for anyone who needs an anecdote to the stale commercialism that seems to pervade our music and culture.

MP: About the new album, how long has this project been in development?

MP: You started from scratch?

DG: Yeah, essentially.

MP: How do you compose the songs? Do you actually write out the parts for the different instruments, say the bass or even the bass flute?

DG: I write a melody and chords and whatever else occurs to me. Usually the different guys play solos, whatever they want to, over those chord changes. They play whatever parts I give them and then I’ll say “play a solo,” and they’ll play over the structure.

Several of them, past and present. Springer spaniels.

This one black and white spaniel has graced a previous album cover.

Yeah, that’s Max. He’s gone on to the great beyond, but he’s been replaced by Harley who’s also on the new album. We solicited dogs from our fans via our website, so all the dog pictures are from friends and fans.

It’s quite a crew.

Yeah, well, I’ve had this dog thing going on for some time so I thought I might as well take it to the limit.

You’ve been running your label for more than a decade, and supporting yourself as an artist for several years...

About forty years.

How do you make that work?

Well, I have help of course, and I like doing a lot of different things. For instance I spent the last three days editing an album with Carlo Aonzo. He’s Italy’s greatest mandolin player and recently recorded the music of Rafaelle Calace [Cah-lah-chee: Italian mandolin master; died in 1937]. He recorded it last October and now we’re editing it. I’m probably a better tape editor than almost anything else.

Is that right?

Well, I would say so. I like doing a lot of different things.

You know, when you first get interested in music you don’t really think about a "career" as a musician, whatever that means. Well, I didn’t. I was interested in music, the mandolin, playing bluegrass; I devoured that. The result is that you end up in a band and playing gigs and that opens up another whole world. It doesn’t have that much to do with learning your instrument or learning how to play music—ending up in a bar on a stage, or in a concert hall, where people expect to be entertained. That’s different than what you sign up for. But at some point arts meets commerce. Some people have a problem with that, it’s always a built-in problem in that it’s hard to reconcile aesthetic values with, essentially, greed. Or rather a “business.”

The key is to support yourself as an artist without losing integrity.

Right, and that’s confusing to a lot of people. You start out with the passion of a musician; that’s what happened to me, and I just kept my focus on aesthetics. That’s what got me interested, that’s what I was passionate about and what I thought was important. I still do. I basically navigate around the bullshit, which I’ve been doing for almost 40 years now, but I’ve figured out how to reinvent the game to suit my own needs.

It wasn’t really a planned thing. At certain points I came to certain crossroads where I had an opportunity to do something else. I basically made certain decisions and certain things came about. But it wasn’t really according to any kind of plan: having my own band, having my own record label, all of that was more or less accidental. It wasn’t intentional. But at certain points guys were showing up at my back porch wanting to play my music and so I said, “OK, I’ll do this.” It wasn’t like, “I’m gonna start a band that plays my instrumentals,” because I didn’t think that was possible. It wasn’t really done before.

The result being “dawg music.”

That’s what I’ve always called it. It’s really a lot of different things. At one point I had, and still probably do, a rider in my contract saying they couldn’t use the word “bluegrass” in reference to my music.

That’s still in effect?

Now it’s more true than ever. To me “dawg music” is an anti-name name. I think nearly all of these categories were invented by people who are selling music, or writing about music, and they’ve become too general. They don’t really mean anything anymore. What does jazz mean? There’s so much different music that comes under the blanket of jazz, it’s ludicrous.

Basically musicians like to be known as themselves: Beethoven was Beethoven, Charlie Parker was Charlie Parker. By creating these general categories you’re doing a disservice to all those musicians because it doesn’t really describe anything; it doesn’t really clarify anything unless you get a little more specific. By now if I say “bluegrass” to you, or if you say it to me, we’re probably talking about two entirely different things. What I think bluegrass is, what you think bluegrass is, let along what Bill Monroe thought bluegrass was... I guarantee you it will be totally different. It’s relatively meaningless to call something bluegrass. Anyway, chances are a lot of “bluegrass” bands don’t even play bluegrass.

What newer bands are carrying the bluegrass torch, so to speak?

The best bluegrass band on the planet is the Del McCoury Band. As for a lot newer bands, I don’t see them doing anything too new. They’re copying something that happened 30 years ago called the New Grass Revival. Sam Bush was doing all of this stuff 30 years ago; and better, I might add. He and New Grass Revival invented the kind of music these guys are trying to play, as far as I can hear. So what’s a guy like me to conclude? It’s nice that the young guys are trying to play this stuff, but I haven’t heard... Well, one group that is making an innovation is Nickel Creek and Chris Thile. I take my hat off to them.

That’s saying a lot.

Well, they’re saying a lot. I’m not saying anything! I’m just recognizing something that exists. I do think Nickel Creek is making more of a contribution to pop music than bluegrass. I see their music as a very tasteful, defined form of pop music.

I’m a firm believer that there’s nothing new under the sun, and they [Nickel Creek] are great musicians, particularly Chris Thile. That I concede as “innovation” and taking something a step further. You don’t hear that very often. I recognized that in Bela Fleck 20 years ago. Great musicians don’t come around that often. There are plenty of good, adequate musicians doing good, adequate things. But if you’re asking a guy like me to call something innovative or great, I have high standards for that.

To me music is timeless. It doesn’t have to be new to be great. It almost can’t be new because music is a product of time spent, and it takes a long time to develop something great. On the other hand, a musical genius has got it - I mean, I met Chris Thile when he was nine years old and I knew he had it then. You don’t run across something like that more than a couple of times in a generation.

I’m very sparing in calling something... in acknowledging that something is making progress. There are too many great innovators who have created this stuff. They might be unknown to most people but they’re known to me. If something happens to be more popular now than it was thirty years ago, that’s of no concern to me. I know the history of this music, and I know who’s made the contributions and where it comes from ‘cause I’ve studied it and I’ve lived it.

You don’t just show up and have an easy passport to greatness in this or any other music, and I hold anybody to the same standards that have been set—in jazz, bluegrass or whatever. If you’re a classical composer then you gotta be up against Mozart and Bela Bartok and Igor Stravinksky and they don’t come along very often. Same with jazz: you gotta be up against Charlie Parker and John Coltrane and Miles Davis and Ben Webster and Bill Evans, and they don’t come along very often. Or bluegrass: you gotta be up against Earl Scruggs, Bill Monroe, Jimmy Martin, Ralph Stanley and, more recently, Sam and Bela. These are giant fortresses that little houses don’t compare to. A guy once told me, “There are rocks, and then there are pebbles.” There are a lot of pebbles out there, and not a lot of rocks.

Perhaps people are anxious to identify the next big thing, but in essence a lot of musicians are recreating what’s already been done.

And there’s nothing wrong with that, but to me it’s much more: the credit has got to go to the creators. A lot of people can copy and imitate and learn, but there are very few that create anything new.

Yeah, but I wasn’t out to create anything new. I was trying to copy Bill Monroe and all the people I thought were great. At some point my personality came out. I wasn’t really trying to do it; it was a natural progression. It got reinforced because, for one thing, the world didn’t need somebody out there copying Bill Monroe’s every note or trying to think like Bill Monroe. At the same time I noticed that people wanted to hear something that I had that was my own. So I went with that. It wasn’t what I was really... I didn’t have the ambition to do that. I was trying to study and play like my favorite players, and at some point whatever was inside took over.

This ties back to having passion as opposed to ambition, and not deliberately thinking “I’m gonna create this whole new style..."

Right. I don’t think there is a new style, but I think that if you work hard at something and have talent and keep your focus on something long enough, it will develop and you might have a new style – or a different style or different approach - without trying to do that. Everyone’s unique, so it’s within every musician to develop their own uniqueness. But you have to learn from somewhere.

For example, there’s a Salvador Dali museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. Very interesting: it’s one big huge room with his work in chronological order. Looking at some of his earliest paintings you can see, “Here he’s imitating Manet, here he’s imitating Picasso, now he’s imitating some other guy.” And then you see Salvador Dali emerge out of that. But he started by copying other painters, and he’s one of the most original painters ever. But you have to learn technique, you have to learn the art from somewhere. You don’t start off being an innovator.

You have to be technically proficient first.

To innovate something, you have to be thoroughly familiar with where it comes from. I firmly believe that.

In essence, you have to know the rules before you can start bending or breaking them.

Right. I’m sure Dizzy Gillespie learned a lot of Louis Armstrong solos, and I’m sure John Coltrane learned a lot of Coleman Hawkins solos. You can’t build a house unless you start with a foundation. So I think everyone who is a great innovator is also a great student of the past. I could sit for two hours playing note for note the Bill Monroe solos that I learned 30 years ago (or forty years ago, almost). And so can Sam Bush. And I’m sure that Bela Fleck can play tons of Earl Scruggs tunes note for note that he’d learned.

That knowledge stays with you.

And sooner or later it transforms itself. I would hope that these younger guys are doing that, but there’s more and more paths for them to absorb. You can’t just start by learning my solos, you have to start at the beginning. I think there’s a danger for younger musicians. They think the world starts with Sam Bush in regard to mandolin playing, but they really need to go back further than that. They need to be informed. The other ingredient is your natural talent that you’re born with, and that’s really hard to suppress.

Earlier you mentioned certain innovators who are familiar to you, but obscure to most. Who are the great mandolin innovators?

Rafaelle Calace is very obscure and very amazing. Dave Apollon, from Russia, is a great, great mandolin player and a pioneer. I produced a double-CD of all of his great recordings, which is out on my Acoustic Disc label, and I produced an album of his in 1979 for Yazoo Records, which has since been reissued. And Jethro Burns is the guy who turned me on to Dave Apollon and he’s a great master - he’s like the original jazz mandolin player. There’s a guy named Jacob do Bandolim [Yah-cohb doh Ban-doh-leen; “Jacob of the Mandolin” in Portugese] from Brazil. I put together two CDs of all his great recordings from the 50s and 60s.

There are also a lot of lesser known (to a certain degree) bluegrass masters: Jesse McReynolds, Hershel Sizemore, Bobby Osbourne. And then there are obscure early mandolin players that made recordings in the early part of the 20th century, like Bernardo Dapace [Dah-pah-chay] and Samuel Siegal and a guy named Giovanni Giovale. Unfortunately these guys made 78 records that are hard to find, although I’ve made some collections available on my label.

For anyone studying any art form, it’s always good to get a historical perspective. Studying painting you have to study Van Gogh, Rembrandt, and all the great ones, the whole nine yards.

You need that historical perspective to have a better grasp of the art form, and where you want to go with it.

Right. Mandolin playing, unfortunately, has very little documented, at least when I started. You have to really search out this stuff.

Now you’re making it more widely available through your label.

I’m doing a certain amount of it, and others too. There’s more available now than when I started. Now you can buy the complete recordings of Bill Monroe on Bear Family. You’re familiar with the Bear Family label? It’s a West German company that puts out the complete everything, largely bluegrass and country music, for instance the Carter Family.

It’s ironic that a German label is capturing so much American music.

See, that’s the problem with the United States. There’s no appreciation of our own culture. I think there are very few record companies that have an aesthetic purpose, which to me is the only purpose of art. Our culture is so polluted by commercialism that it’s lost site of what it is to begin with.

We lose focus because it’s always what a certain company wants to put in front of us...

Well, these companies, their whole interest is economics. That is the basis of their business. And the basis of my business is artistic, it’s aesthetics. I don’t really look at the business in terms of “This is why I’m gonna do something.” I mean, I do that in a secondary fashion: i.e., “We’re not gonna ruin ourselves doing this, are we?” but not in terms of “Is this what I want to do?” There’s that component, but everything I do has got an aesthetic reason.

That’s your primary drive.

And fortunately some of that has been very successful, mostly due to Jerry Garcia’s participation in aesthetically-driven projects. But the fact that he had that kind of drawing power, that sales power, enabled this stuff to be successful.

And it doesn’t seem that this was what he, and the Grateful Dead, set out to do. They didn’t set out to fill arenas, it just so happened that people tuned into what they were doing. All the better for them – and us.

Right. So how do you make it work, getting back to your original question... You've got to stick with your passion, because sooner or later it will pay off. Hopefully. At least if is doesn’t, you’ll still feel good about it.

I’ve turned down lots of projects. Of course, with my label it’s about my making the records. I enjoy making records and I’ve been a record producer since 1963; that’s part of what I do and this record company’s an outlet for that. I’m not really trying to be a packager of music. So a lot of people send me their CDs, they want me to put it out, and very few of them... Well, that’s not my concept, to simply put something out, because almost always I’ll have some kind of issue with it: i.e, this isn’t well enough recorded, etc. The exception being high art, something that really does it for me I’d consider, for instance archival material that I think is important and neglected and needs to be out. But I pretty much end up passing on a lot of stuff that could make money but is throwing me off-course. And nobody in my company really wants to get bigger. We just shipped number 50 – 50 CDs in about twelve years, which means 4-5 a year, that’s it. And nobody’s trying to up that. And in a way that’s good, because it keeps it small but I make every record and can keep the standards where I want them.

You’re not compromising the integrity of the label.

Well yeah, plus I’m enjoying making records and I have an approach that’s recognizable. I think our records are the best sounding acoustic records on the marketplace, almost record for record, and that’s something that people can recognize. They might not recognize it the same way that a recording engineer would, but I think it’s part of the appeal.

I might end up passing on a lot of stuff, but I never liked plugged-in bluegrass with bass and drums; I’m an old-fashioned guy. Notwithstanding that, I appreciate their energy, and it’s good that people who are exploring things outside of the mainstream are making a mark. On the other hand I’m aware of the prototype for a lot of this stuff, and it’s the New Grass Revival that my friend Sam Bush started around 1970. So when somebody blows that away, I’ll let you know.

The David Grisman Quintet is performing this Summer with JamGrass, a strong lineup that features Sam Bush, Peter Rowan, Tony Rice and other fine performers.

• DGQ and JamGrass Tour Dates
• JamGrass Website

Interviewed by Margaret Pitcher
JamBase | San Francisco
Go See Live Music!