John Reischman and the Jaybirds - Vintage & Unique (2011)

Tracklist

01. Shady Grove
02. The Girl I left Behind
03. The Cypress Hills
04. Hurry Up and Harvest
05. Last Chance
06. Consider Me Gone
07. Lancaster Sound
08. Gold Mountain (Gam Saan)
09. The Black Road
10. Goin' Across the Sea
11. The Old Grove
12. The First Whippoorwill
13. Gabriel's Call
14. Bitterroot Waltz

Now celebrating a decade together, the quintet of musicians comprising John Reischman & The Jaybirds demonstrate why familiarity breeds transcendence on this, their fifth album. Bluegrass, and bluegrass-tinged folk and country are the group’s calling cards, and though they certainly sparkle in romping through a joyous, fiddle-fired (courtesy Greg Spatz) celebration of the traditional “Shady Grove” to lead off the festivities and later in getting deep and foreboding on Bill Monroe’s breakup lament, “The First Whippoorwill” (with guitarist Jim Nunally contributing a pinched, nasally lead vocal that evokes Mr. Bill about as well as anyone has in recent memory, and both fiddler Spatz and mandolin master Reischman shining on to-the-point solos), the original tunes most recommend Vintage & Unique—always a central strength of this outfit, the various band members who contributed new songs went above and beyond the call of duty this time around.Bassist/vocalist Trisha Gagnon, outstanding in all respects throughout the album, has a couple of inspired originals to consider, including the frantic “Hurry Up and Harvest,” a fleet-fingered exercise for Reischman (mandolin), Spatz (fiddle) and Nick Hornbuckle (banjo) that is otherwise a happy, upbeat but cautionary tale advising a devoted fisherman to first bring in the crops before the possums do it for him, while leaving the fish to their habitats until the more important task is completed. Gagnon’s warm, bright voice effectively articulates the urgency of the moment as her fellow musicians evoke the frantic pace of activity her words describe. Singing in a clear, pure, mountain soul of a voice, Gagnon enhances the drama of her own “Cold Mountain,” a somber, reflective story of the pain, toil and toll a worker endures while laying the Canadian Railway, a sad chapter of history inspired by Gagnon’s reading about the Chinese laborers, lonely and alone, who constructed much of the rail line in question, leaving their families behind but harboring elusive dreams of doing well enough to bring their loved ones over from the mainland one day—despair Gagnon voices in the ache in her vocal, and which is further underscored with finality by Hornbuckle’s lonesome sounding banjo and Spatz’s weeping fiddle lines. Gagnon’s plaintive voice also leads a pulsating gospel quartet-style arrangement of Hazel Dickens’s bluegrass spiritual, “Gabriel’s Call,” a triumphant 2:39 celebration on the album’s penultimate track.

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