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Erin McKeown with Greg Mahan
Sunday · The Taft Museum of Art
In much the same way that Rufus Wainwright has absorbed and translated a disparate number of musical genres into an oddly appropriate and completely original new entity, singer/songwriter Erin McKeown has created a delightfully unclassifiable brand of music out of familiar styles and structure. Perhaps more importantly, McKeown has consistently used the same standard building blocks of Folk, Pop, Jazz, Swing, Blues and Country on each of her five albums without ever using them in the same way on two consecutive albums.
Born in Massachusetts, raised in Virginia, McKeown launched her music career while studying ethnomusicology at Brown University, becoming a fixture in local Folk clubs and coffeehouses during the evenings. In the mid-'90s, McKeown finished as a semi-finalist in a song contest in Washington DC, and with that justification in mind, she began her own label, TVP Records, and self-released Monday Morning Cold, her debut album in 1999. The following year saw the release of her sophomore album Distillation and her signing with Signature Sounds, who re-released the album.
By 2003, McKeown had shifted to Nettwerk for her third album, Grand, followed two years later by the sparse yet sonically diverse We Will Become Like Birds, produced by contemporary experimentalist Tucker Martine. McKeown's most recent recording, Sing You Sinners, found her changing tactics once again as she presented an album full of Jazz standards from the '20s through the '50s.
With Sing You Sinners, McKeown — a multi-instrumentalist who also regularly performs with Beth Amsel, Jess Klein and Rose Polenzani in the quartet Voices on the Verge — has completed her transformation into a contemporary New Folk version of Joni Mitchell, deftly and beautifully mixing genres to fashion a unique musical construct. In the cookie cutter atmosphere of the industry today, that is an amazing accomplishment, and Erin McKeown is both accomplished and amazing.
McKeown's local show is a part of the Taft Museum's "Second Sundays" concert series.
The series presents different performers in the museum's garden area the second Sunday of each month. The events start at 2:30 p.m. and are free and open to the public. (Brian Baker)
Chris Thile and The How to Grow a Band
Sunday · Southgate House
Any grumpy old magoo that pisses around about youth being wasted on the young clearly hasn't met Chris Thile. At the age of 5, Thile began playing mandolin, and by age 8, Thile and his parents were regulars at a Carlsbad, Calif., pizza joint's weekly Bluegrass night where they became friends with the Watkins family, another group of regulars. Not long after, Thile and 12-year-old Sean Watkins began taking mandolin lessons from the same instructor, which ultimately led to the formation of Nickel Creek, featuring Thile and his father Scott, and Sean Watkins and his sister Sara.
The impossibly youthful group was a sensation at Bluegrass festivals and released their debut album, Little Cowpoke, in 1994. By then, Thile had already established his own impressive track record, having won a national mandolin championship the year before, followed by his first solo album, Leading Off. Thile was 12.
Nickel Creek continued to amaze Bluegrass fans everywhere. The trio (which has always been supported by a rotating bassist) released their sophomore album, Here to There, in 1997, followed shortly thereafter by Thile's next solo release, Stealing Second. The band then signed with Sugar Hill and their self-titled major label debut, produced by Bluegrass superstar Alison Krauss, was released in 2000 to wild acclaim and enormous commercial success; to date, the Grammy-nominated album has sold almost a million copies.
In 2001, Thile released his third solo album, Not All Who Wander Are Lost, which featured a veritable who's who of Bluegrass, including Jerry Douglas, Stuart Duncan and Bela Fleck. Nickel Creek's fortunes continued to rise with the release of the Grammy-nominated This Side in 2002 and Grammy-winning Why Should the Fire Die? in 2005, both of which reflected a shift to a more Indie Rock-blended form of Bluegrass, as the trio covered songs by Radiohead and Pavement, and stretched their original compositions into similar territory.
Thile has been equally ambitious in his solo work, collaborating with mandolinist Mike Marshall on Cauldron in 2003, and releasing the experimental and completely solo Deceiver in 2004. Last year saw the release of Thile's fifth solo album, How to Grow a Woman from the Ground, as well as the announced hiatus of Nickel Creek. Thile recently debuted his classically-based four movement suite, "The Blind Leaving the Blind" (which he wrote at least partially in response to his recent divorce), with his How to Grow a Band under their alternate name, the Tensions Mountain Boys, a month after his 26th birthday. (BB)
Page McConnell
Saturday · Bogart's
Every band experiences a watershed period where the members of the group realize they have to start down a different path in order to keep things fresh and exciting. Historically, one of two things happen as a result the band undergoes a drastic metamorphosis that radically redefines its style, or the members simply decide to cash it in and go their separate ways. In the spring of 2004, the members of Phish decided to choose the latter.
While the other members of the Vermont foursome wasted very little time finding other creative outlets, keyboardist Page McConnell remained relatively silent for the next two and a half years. After spending the better part of over two decades constantly performing and recording, McConnell decided it would be best to take a break and spend some time with his daughter. The "chairman of the boards" (as he is so lovingly referred to by Phish's fans) even considered changing career paths and going back to school.
Yet McConnell realized that his passion ultimately lay with music and set up a studio at his home in Vermont. Unlike his experiment with the group Vida Blue which acted as a side project during Phish's hiatus from 2000 to 2002 McConnell found himself completely on his own. By keeping the recording a strictly organic process, he was for the first time able to create an album that was truly his.
The resulting album, simply titled Page McConnell, is a rousing mixture of styles that is sure to both impress and intrigue anyone familiar with his body of work. While McConnell has not completely cut ties with his previous life (all of his Phish band mates make appearances on the album) he has taken it in a new direction. Page McConnell mixes his familiar McCartney-esque sensibility and Traffic-inspired piano jams with spiraling shades of Electronica. The result is an interesting one, the sound of the evolution of both an artist and an individual. (Jeff Kerscher)
