This One Time, at Jam Camp...

I just spent the last week at a 4 day "Jam Camp" followed by a 3 day Bluegrass and Roots music festival in Hotchkiss, Colorado. It was exactly what I needed right now in my musical education, a solid immersion in Bluegrass jamming, the etiquette of the jam, leading a jam in a song, taking a "break" or lead and a ton of other things. I learned so much that I'm not really sure how much I learned, I expect I'll be having "aha!" moments for months down the line. It was a fire hose of musical goodness.

The bluegrass jam is the People's orchestra. It's the most democratic of all group art forms that I can think of. If you've got the chops and you know the songs any jam circle will welcome you in and the music that comes out of the instruments (guitar, mandolin, fiddle, banjo and bass) can match the most beautiful classical string quartets. This is musical art as it has been for hundreds of years.

The camp was hosted by a band called Chele's Kitchen out of Bainbridge Island, Washington. They are a nice mellow patient group of pickers who hosted slow jams, helped run the camp and instruct. Another band, the Hickory Project, provided the instrument and other instruction. There were 25 students and 9 instructors so there was plenty of one on one time and good hands on education.

The first two days were mainly instrument classes, and some group jamming. The second two days they split us up into bands and had each band pick a couple of songs out and learn them with the help of instructors. We named our band "Hotchgrass" and in it was a fiddle player, a mando/fiddle player, two guitars and a banjo. The first song we learned together was an old classic, Tom Dooley. The second one was the Swallowtail Jig, a traditional Irish tune. On the last day there was a concert held for the local Hotchkiss folks ahead of the music festival and each band got on stage and performed their numbers as a warm up for the "real" bands that came on later. I took a small solo and nailed it which was good 'cause I was kinda nervous.

After the Jam camp the music festival started and campers filled up the campground, jam circles formed and much fun was experienced. I made my way back to my tent Friday after jamming in a slow beginner's circle somewhere around 3 am, and as I dozed off the most beautiful fiddle music was softly being played just 30 feet away or so and as I laid there I thought that I couldn't remember the last time I fell asleep this happy.

The venue for the festival is small and intimate, and not crowded at all. You could go right up to the stage and sit down front row. It was the same with the camping, not too crowded. It was also a pretty family friendly environment, with little kids running around having a blast.

Saturday night I jammed for a bit but my fingers were pretty sore and we ended up just listening to some world class musicians that had set up where the fiddle players were the night before. It was a tight jam, as good as anything I've heard. These folks all played really really well together and they sounded great. I passed out in my tent somewhere around 3 again and they were still playing. I don't think I got more than 12 hours of sleep total the last several days, I'm pretty tired.

I got totally turned on to a new artist for me, Diana Jones. She's just this awesome singer/songwriter and her performances were incredible. One of her songs, "Pony", brought a tear to my eye when I was listening and I ended up buying all three of her CDs she was selling. The headliners for Friday night was the Hickory Project, and Saturday night it was the Krueger brothers - and awesome 3 person band out of Switzerland. Uwe Krueger ran the guitar workshop Saturday morning and I was impressed by his practical advice and down to earth style. I went to a song writing workshop on Sunday before driving home and got my creative juices flowing. I'm looking forward to writing some songs in the future.

I look back and this last week and it was one of the best weeks that I can remember. About the only thing I can think of was my 35th birthday floating down the San Juan a few years ago but I think this one was better if that's even possible. Life is damn good. I took tons of pictures and I'll be trickling them out onto my flickr page over the next week or so.