If one were to believe a friend of mine in Nashville, that the only true bluegrass music is that of Monroe, Flatt and Scruggs, the Stanleys, Osbornes, etc, then bluegrass is a reasonably limited vocabulary. But, I prefer to think if any art form as capable of evolution. Why not call a version of Jimi Hendrix' "Manic Depression" "bluegrass," if it is done with mandolin, fiddle, banjo, guitar and bass with a common bluegrass style rhythm of some sort? On the other hand, I've mentioned a fondness for the Punch Brothers and, while they can play bluegrass as well or better than anyone, I'm hesitant to call much of their wonderful music as "bluegrass", not out of disrespect, but because they are doing something very different that sometimes slips into a bluegrass syntax . . . then slips out.
However, to limit the definition of a style of music to a few artists or tunes is to limit the potential of the definition itself. Why not let a bluegrass tune evolve into free improvisation and then resurrect into a driving forward motion characteristic of the traditional style? Folks in the jazz tradition do it all the time, and it's still called jazz.
Attached is a recording of a tune titled "Jacqui's House" that I composed a few years ago and recorded with the Prairie Pranksters: Natalie Padilla, violin, and Sara Haefeli, cello. Danielle Jacqui is an artist in Southern France who decorated her entire house inside and out with broken pottery, painting, toys, etc; inside it's sometimes hard to discern where the art ends and a concrete form, such as a refrigerator, begins. She asked me to compose this song about her house.
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