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Tony Trischka is widely credited as being the
creator of progressive blue grass, or nu-grass..Since his debut album, "Bluegrass Light," came out in 1973, banjo legend Tony Trischka has been a few ideas ahead of the rest of the world. That album and the three that followed it, "Heartlands" (1975), "Banjoland" (1976) and "A Robot Plane Flies Over Arkansas" (1982), have been widely credited with creating progressive bluegrass. Nu-grass, as it's also called, is a world where banjos and bluegrass theory can coexist with electric amplifiers, synthesizers and sequencing. Trischka even mentored Bela Fleck, another giant in the nu-grass kingdom.
Also interesting about Trischka, though, is he's equally versed in the roots of bluegrass. He's studied banjo songs back to the 17th century. And his recent shows with Jawbone, this year's guest artist at the Alaska Folk Festival, include songs by Ed Haley, a old-time fiddler who likely would have been lost to Ohio River Valley oblivion if not home-recorded by his family in 1946. Jawbone - Trischka (banjo), Bruce Molksy (fiddle) and Paula Bradley (guitar) - make their first of many folk fest appearances at 8 p.m. Thursday night at Centennial Hall. The trio's been playing intermittently since October, and hard to believe, it's something of a first for Trischka.
"I decided I wanted to have a trio," he said by phone from his home in New York. "I've always been in these five-piece bands, and when you're traveling, you get three hotel rooms and there's all the logistical aspects of five personalities trying to get everything right. With a three-piece band, everybody gets more of a voice. There's more responsiblity, which I like.
"Even though I'm a banjo player, I've only played in a couple real traditional bands in my life," he said. "I love the music. It's a little more old-time than bluegrass, and it's a chance for me to get inside that. Bluegrass is a very specific thing, and there's such diversity in the old-time style."
Trischka was born in Syracuse in 1949 and picked up the banjo in 1963, according to his biography, after first hearing the Kingston Trio's "Charlie and the MTA." In his hometown two years later, he heard the Down City Ramblers, an experience which piqued his interest in old-time. He began exploring old-time more deeply in the mid-1970s, thanks to some fiddle-playing friends from Brooklyn.
Since then, he's had a hand in both camps - bluegrass and old-time. And a handful of purists still find that unacceptable, as Jawbone found out during a gig a few months ago.
"Some folks showed up and didn't really care for the fact that a bluegrass banjo was in the mix among the old-time instruments, but I think the line is blurring a little bit," Trischka said.
"In some ways 'O' Brother Where Art Thou?' helped do it," he said. "I don't even know that there are so many things you would call bluegrass, except for (John Hartford's) 'I Am a Man of Constant Sorrow.' 'O' Death' is kind of old-time, even though Ralph Stanley sings it. I think that album helped blur the lines between bluegrass and old-time, and so did the soundtrack to 'Cold Mountain.'" Jawbone formed soon after Trischka had a chance to play with Molsky, a legendary fiddler who also wanted to explore the similarities between bluegrass and old-time.
"I really wanted to do something with Bruce," Trischka said. "His timing is ridiculous. He has such a great feel. He's a consummate old-time fiddler, and he can stretch and do the other things."
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"Since we started (Jawbone), we've all been really busy with other projects," he said. "It's not going to be a full-time band, but we're looking forward to next year, when we can all dig into it and really experience it. There's so many directions it can go."
Jawbone covers Haley's "Cuckoo's Nest" and "Poplar Bluff," as well as Flat and Scrugg's "Down The Road. They have a song called "One Mountain," which Trischka first heard when he was 14. And Trischka has also written a few old-time "lonesome time" songs for the group.
Trischka writes regularly and is an advocate of letting the creative process flow. But six or seven years ago, he suffered through his own compositional drought.
"When I'm giving banjo lessons and I'm talking about composition, my main piece of advice is to not censor yourself," Trischka said. "Just let it come out, and if you're not happy with it, the next thing you might be happy with. That period of time when I was dry, I was censoring myself needlessly. I had to get out of the way of myself and just let the flow happen."
In January, Trischka wrote four songs for a National Public Radio show called "Next Big Thing," chronicling artists' works-in-progress. He wrote a song on four different types of banjos - his traditional bluegrass Stelling, his nylong-strung Deering with its open back, his one-of-a-kind National and his five-string Banza gourd banjo, an African instrument. He plays the Stelling most often.
Right now, he's working on a double banjo project for Rounder Records that's due out in October. Up next, is a "lifetime statement" record for Smithsonan - an album the label hopes will tell Trischka's chapter in the story of the banjo. The record will include songs with frequent collaborator Van Dyke Parks, most famous for his work on Brian Wilson's "Smile" album; a version of the "Lord's Prayer" with jazz vocalist Jane Monheit; and some recordings with Mike Marshall, Daryl Anger and Rushad Eggleston.
"If I have made contributions, it's just to stretch the boundaries and open up other possibilities that might not have been there before," Trischka said. "I write these tunes that aren't necessarily bluegrass, although they could be bluegrass. It was a way to get some of that music down on zeroes and ones, and just fill that function of a life statement, whatever that means."
• Korry Keeker can be reached at korry.keeker@juneauempire.com.