Eight Strings Is Enough

Eight Strings Is Enough

Jamie Masefield and the Jazz Mandolin Project bring Tolstoy to the stage in a multimedia piece.

by James Heflin

April 26 2007

Mandolin has never really been considered one of the great jazz instruments--break one out at the wrong session, and you'll catch stares like a ukulelist at an autoharp convention. But these skillets with strings, in the right hands, convey a tremendous range of expression, and serve well as rhythm or lead instruments--even if it is impossible to keep all eight strings in tune.

David Grisman is largely responsible for restoring respect for the mandolin in settings outside of bluegrass, but pre-eminent among Grisman's musical descendants is Jamie Masefield of the Jazz Mandolin Project. In a recent interview, Masefield discussed his career and his new multimedia piece based on a Tolstoy short story.

"I gew up in a musical family where people my parents' age were playing at family functions--they were playing typical old-school jazz and Dixieland, and I just thought that was the coolest thing ever," says Masefield. "I started taking [tenor banjo] lessons from this fellow in my hometown, and I learned all of that old jazz idiom. I got interested in mandolin--it's tuned similarly to the tenor. When I got to college, I started hearing modern jazz guitarists--Frisell, Metheny, etcetera--a lightbulb went off and I wondered if I might be able to contribute to mandolin in a modern way."

Masefield can offer plenty of technical dazzle, but his playing seems far more focused on how a melody unspools over time. When asked about his melodicism, Masefield explains, "I'm also a big fan of the Beatles and Wilco and groups where the song and the melody are the most important thing. I spent a bit of time studying compositon and listening to classical music, and I remember when I was younger listening to modern jazz and feeling really excluded. I didn't know what awas going on. I've always tried to remember what it was like for me when I wasn't in the club. Once you fall in love with the genre, you can go wherever you want you want. JMP has been playing for a pretty young audience, and I like to lure people into the genre with strong melodies and arrangements."

The Project began in 1993 in Burlington, Vermont, where Masefield and musician friends hosted a regular jazz session with no musical boundaries. The result was a band that offered Masefield a context for his mandolin envelope-pushing. The project quickly became a hard-touring act. Masefield has also played with an ever-evolving roster of musicians in the project, including Jon Fishman (of Phish) and Ari Hoenig on drums, Chris Dahlgren and Danton Boller on bass and Chris Lovejoy on percussion. The current lineup includes Masefield on mandolin, Michael "Mad Dog" Mavridoglou on flugelhorn and keyboard, Michael O'Brien on bass and Sean Dixon on drums.

The current Project project is called How Much Land Does A Man Need?, and it's a multimedia effort combining video and music. Masefield took a camera on tour and collected images to project to mostly scored music and narration from Leo Tolstoy's short story of the same title.

"The JMP has been touring about 13 years, and after that time, I asked myself what other contributions we could be making, what other kinds of performances we could do that would put me in new creative situations. At the same time, for a number of years now I've been trying to brainstorm on how to combine music with other mediums. I also wanted to make up a new performance that was thought-provoking. I wanted to connect with people in a new way with something more literal--literal in terms of meaning-- and I wanted to connect in terms of values and ethics.

"I talked to some people I really respect, and one said if you want to find a message, read the short fiction of Tolstoy. We always think of Anna Karenina and War and Peace, so I found the name daunting, but when I came across this story, I thought, 'That's it-- I gotta think of a way to connect my music with this story.'"

The Tolstoy story deals with just what it says, land, and that connected for Masefield, who has a keen interest in land-use issues. I graduated from UVM with a degree in geography and environmental studies. I'm interested in land use, regional planning, historical preservation. I became a musician, but I've enjoyed my interest in geography. I 've enjoyed seeing how people are farming in Iowa, what's going on all over the country. I got a camera, and set out to collect landscapes, observations. I wanted to connect with this old Russian story. I had no experience with video. It's not an ongoing interest, but it was the best vehicle I could think of for connecting."

To go with the visuals for How Much Land Does A Man Need?, Masefield composed a different kind of music from the band's usual. "There are different compositions throughout, but I consider it program music--they're not pieces that would stand on their own. They're designed to be supportive of that place in the story, like a soundtrack, so they vary in style and stuff based on what's happening in the story at the time, and I try to have just a few themes and to keep working off those themes throughout the whole piece."

"I love this. That was another reason for trying to drum up a new performance. I found it a real pleasure to have a specific thing to have to write music about. You know how Chopin wrote Nocturne, that depicts the night--I enjoyed having that kind of literal need put right in front of me. It was helpful to have a more exact need rather than, 'The band needs a new tune.' There's all the freedom in the world, but this was really refreshing. It came easy. I'm not trying to suggest that I'm good at it, but it was a new thing that I really went at with enthusiasm."

Masefield is looking forward to hearing more about Northampton's own preservation struggles. And following the show, he'll participate in a Q&A session where those struggles might well be a major topic. He hopes that will be a trend everywhere he takes the show. "I can't think of a better place for us to put on the show and get people's take on it. The Q&A is the most fascinating part of the show for me. It's really insightful to me. It's great to connect with the audience.

"It would be my pipe dream to get paid for this performance but use it as a drawing-together of people to get them pumped up for their local land-use struggles. I would love to meet those people and hear about those issues."

For more of the interview, see www.valleyadvocate.com. The Jazz Mandolin Project, (plus Jeff D’Antona Trio), plays April 27, $15-50, 7:30 p.m., John M. Greene Hall, Smith College, Northampton, (413) 545-2511 or (800) 999-UMASS. Proceeds benefit The Academy at Charlemont.
Copyright © 2007, Valley Advocate