Around 2005 or so, bluegrass friends of mine in Nashville started talking about the nation’s other hot spot for string band music - Boston. Whereas past generations had honed their skills on mandolin, fiddle, banjo and bass on the job, in touring bands and at regional clubs and festivals, a new wave was heading to the New England Conservatory and the Berklee College of Music, which launched an American Roots Music Program in 2009. In the scrum, getting a Berklee degree, participating in the never-ending jam sessions, and joining one of the scene’s many fascinating bands, was mandolinist Jacob Jolliff.
“There were an insane amount of great players when I was there, Jolliff says in Episode 345 of The String. “Sarah Jarosz, Dominic Leslie, Alex Hargraves, Mike Barnett, Sierra Hull were there. Molly Tuttle and (jazz guitar star) Julian Lage. And (bass player) Sam Grisman and Hannah Read, a great Scottish fiddler. I mean, it was just kind of endless.”
While most of these musicians were grounded in bluegrass and American folk traditions, the ethos of the place and time was to do something fresh and personal with the swirl of instruments and influences, something worthy of a new millennium. For Jolliff, who was invited into Berklee with a full ride scholarship based on his virtuosity and advanced musical understanding, that would take shape as cutting-edge, instrumental, improvisational string band music. He’s had a wide-ranging career, but for the past five years or so, he’s been focused on his own four-piece Jacob Jolliff Band. They make some of the most challenging and enthralling music in the jazz-grass space, and those who know me won’t be surprised that I love it.
In fact, last year, when I felt like updating The String’s opening music, I immediately thought of Jacob, and I scoured his catalog on Bandcamp and bought some recordings. I settled on the song “Vera,” which opens his 2024 album Instrumentals Vol. 2: Mandolin Mysteries with a smooth gliding feeling and selective use of dissonance that makes a lovely melody just a little bit dangerous. Jolliff’s music embodies the ethos of the show, which is what creative and progressive musicians can do with heritage instruments, an improvising spirit, and a feeling for how we’re tied to the American story.
I asked Jacob then if he’d visit with me for the show when he was next in town, and while that took some time, last Fall, he sent word he’d be coming through Nashville in part to play a gig at Rudy’s Jazz Room, which proved really interesting. Jolliff came of age playing both bluegrass and jazz on the mandolin, and through his Berklee schooling he was studying the masters and learning the standards. That’s what this set was about. With his old friend Jeff Picker on bass and Nashville go-to Mark Raudabaugh on drums, Jolliff held down rhythm and lead roles with what is essentially a four-string instrument, playing tunes by Charlie Parker, Cole Porter, and Steve Swallow.
The next day, Jolliff told me it was a bit ironic that he tends to play his own progressive string band music in New York but he had to come to Nashville to wind up playing standards, like he used to as a growing musician. In his home state of Oregon, his family had a gospel bluegrass band, but he took jazz lessons from a renowned pianist who adapted his pedagogy for the talented young string player. Jake reflects on those years, telling me the style was more of a vehicle for an ambitious mind.
“(Jazz) was a language I wasn't used to hearing on the mandolin,” he says. “And so honestly, it didn't even really start with a love of jazz. It kind of started with wanting to figure out a new language, and then jazz seemed like the logical place to go. I wanted to work on a different idiom.”
He’s found multiple vehicles for doing so. During his Boston years, he joined up with the indie-folk band Joy Kills Sorrow, which included lead vocalist Emma Beaton and banjo whiz Wes Corbett (now with the Sam Bush Band). They were part of a Boston new acoustic wave that included Crooked Still, Della Mae, and The Bee Eaters. After a few years and albums with them, Jake got a call from the hard-touring Yonder Mountain String Band and stepped into the world of jamgrass. His remarks on the opportunities and limits of that idiom are interesting.
Since going his own way around the time of the pandemic, Jake has mixed leading his own group with sessions and select projects. He’s part of a “genre busting” string band called EZRA. You’ll hear me play a selection from an album I dearly love, the duo project Our Delight with guitarist Grant Gordy, as well as cuts from Jake’s own jazz Standards album, which evokes the night of music I saw at Rudy’s. Mostly though, he plays dozens of dates a year with his sophisticated quartet, and it sounds like he’s worked through a lot to achieve a place of authentic freedom.
“We literally just do whatever we want,” he says. “I don't make any decision based on what I think will be popular. And it’s hilarious to even use that language, because it's mandolin instrumental music. But for me, it's like, it's so much work to go do it. If I'm also not getting to play the music I want, what is the point?”
