The Magic of Jamie Masefield
By Alan Lewis, The Vermont Guardian
February 16, 2006

Jamie Masefield of Vermont’s Jazz Mandolin Project is a versatile musician with diverse interests. One cannot miss it when listening back-to-back to the latest JMP albums: the warm and lovely Deep Forbidden Lake and the assertive, frisky Jungle Tango.

His versatility will follow yet another path when he takes the Higher Ground stage on Feb. 28 in his duo act with Doug Perkins of Smokin’ Grass fame.

“The duo with Doug Perkins is very different from JMP,” explained Masefield. “It’s straight up acoustic pickin’. ‘Perk’ and I have been playing together for so long — 15 years — that we have our own vocabulary for playing through a bluegrass tune, jazz tune, or some open-ended jam. It’s certainly far from orthodox bluegrass, but Perk has been showing me a lot about the rudiments of bluegrass over the years.

“Jungle Tango was the culmination of a drum and bass, groove thing that we had been developing on the road. When that was done, I felt like we had said our piece in that area and I wanted to focus on melodies, arrangements, and music without drums, thus The Deep Forbidden Lake, which is quiet versions of favorite cover tunes.

“The next mission I would like to accomplish is to make a DVD of our new performance, How Much Land Does a Man Need. But I don’t want to undertake it until the show has really matured through performances. So that’s where we are now.”

How Much Land is something new for Masefield: the multimedia telling of a literary tale by Tolstoy. Asked if the show is evolving or pretty much set in its form, he said, “It’s evolving very much. In fact, if any one has seen the two-night debut at the FlynnSpace in April, I really hope they’ll see it again because it’s already so different.

“There has been a lot of music added and I’m continuing to edit the video, replacing bits and pieces with stronger material. On the video side this has been a real amateur effort. That, I eagerly admit. But I’m getting better! The more we perform it, the more we discover new musical opportunities and ways to merge the three mediums of narration (literature), visuals (video), and music.”

This actually is some of what makes How Much Land so intriguing, as Masefield experiments and learns.

“People are generally quite curious,” he said. “It’s kind of an odd concept to drum up. I admit that. It’s so different from a regular JMP show that I think some younger people have been a little bewildered. But I’m getting so much great response from people that I never would have heard from, that I’m quite excited. The show has really been opening some intriguing doors for me.

“In some ways How Much Land is trying to connect with a larger audience. One doesn’t have to be a music fan to get something out of this. I would like to think that this is a much more universal show than a standard concert because it addresses so many different topics and disciplines. It actually was designed to put music in the back seat as opposed to front and center. The mission was to tell a meaningful old story in a modern way that live music contributes toward.

“We recently performed it at Middlebury College and in Rochester, New York. We have upcoming shows at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, and in New York city at a venue called the Highline Ballroom that will be opening soon. We’re busy turning over stones, looking for the right environments to stage it.”

Vermont Symphony Orchestra programming can be quite innovative. So the Vermont Guardian asked whether Masefield has ever played with the VSO; and if not, in a more abstract but fun sense, what he would think of such an idea. “I would love to perform with the VSO,” he declared. “I’ve been to many of their shows over the years. It would be a fascinating and terrifying experience.”

The Higher Ground booking features the California Guitar Trio, and this will be Masefield’s first time hearing that ensemble.

Asked for a past era dear to his heart, Masefield said, “I have a CD called Italian String Virtuosi [Rounder Records, 1995] that I listen to much more than I ever would have thought when I purchased it. It’s a compilation of Italian-American recordings from the 20s and 30s. It continually reminds me of how many ‘bad ass’ musicians have preceded us. It changed my priority list of what I need to practice the most. Listening to old recordings is, more often than not, a humbling experience. Some Django Reinhardt anyone?

“When it comes to acoustic music, every area of the country has something that makes it strangely unique. When established players get together to pick in Austin, Seattle, Nashville, or New York city, there are differences that are even hard to verbalize but nonetheless the aesthetics are unique to each area. This has always fascinated me. Somehow, the music absorbs the geographic surroundings. I would like to think that the sound we create speaks of Vermont and its aesthetic. Of course, this is all very abstract but nonetheless, our interests in jazz, bluegrass, rock, and classical music somehow get tempered by the artistic and physical environment we live in.”

Listen and learn at Higher Ground.

Who: Jamie Masefield (l) and Doug Perkins (r) with the California Guitar Trio
Where: Higher Ground, South Burlington
When: Feb. 28, 7:30 p.m.
For more information: www.highergroundmusic.com