The Banjo Project is a documentary film, a live stage/multi-media performance, and a web site that chronicles the musical odyssey of America’s instrument—the banjo—from its African roots to the 21st century. It’s a collaboration between Emmy-winning writer-producer Marc Fields and banjo virtuoso Tony Trischka (the Project’s Music Director), whose World Turning CD on Rounder was the inspiration. The Banjo Project brings together contemporary players in all styles—in performances and interviews—with folklorists, historians, instrument makers and passionate amateurs to tell the story of America’s instrument in all its richness and diversity.
PRODUCTION UPDATES
DECEMBER 2007—GRAMMY NOMINATIONS FOR BANJO PROJECT ADVISORS TONY TRISCHKA AND BOB CARLIN
This year's Grammy nominees include Tony Trischka's Double Banjo Bluegrass Spectacular, in the category of “Best Bluegrass Album,” and Bob Carlin and Cheick Hamala Diabate's From Mali to America, for “Best Traditional World Music Album.”
Tony is Music Director for The Banjo Project and Bob is a primary consultant, and both appear in the documentary's interviews and performances.
NOVEMBER 2007—10TH ANNUAL BANJO COLLECTORS GATHERING
The Banjo Project crew taped interviews, exhibits and performances in Philadelphia, including a special concert hosted by NPR's Paul Brown, featuring Bob Carlin, Cheick Hamala Diabate, Mike Seeger, Clarke Buehling, a banjo orchestra led by Eli Kauffman and Paul Brown. We were privileged to get an interview with Lowell Schreyer, multi-talented banjoist and author. Sadly for all who knew him, Lowell passed away barely a week after returning to his home in Minnesota.
OCTOBER 2007—THREE IBMA AWARDS FOR TONY TRISCHKA
At the annual meetings of the International Bluegrass Music Association, Tony won the award in all three categories in which he was nominated: Instrumental Album of the Year (Double Bluegrass Banjo Spectacular), Instrumental Performer (banjo) and Recorded Event. The Banjo Project features commentary and performances by several of Tony's colleagues on his Double Bluegrass CD, including Earl Scruggs, Bela Fleck and Steve Martin.
JUNE 2007—"Now I've been all around this whole wide world…" The Banjo Project spent a week in western North Carolina, recording performances and interviews around the Charlie Poole Music Festival in Eden, NC. Poole bio author Kinney Rorrer regaled us with stories and commentary, pristine 78s and a guided tour of Poole sites in the area. At the Spray Cotton Mill, where Poole and his buddy Posey Rorrer use to serenade workers on payday, New North Carolina Ramblers Jeremy Stephens (banjo) and Kirk Sutphin (fiddle) performed "Don't Let Your Deal Go Down" and "Southern Medley."
Performances taped at the Poole fest included some of the most talented and dynamic young string bands on the scene today: Uncle Earl, No Speed Limit and the Carolina Chocolate Drops. (Special thanks to Louise Price and Hank Sapoznik for their help with the festival). We also had the opportunity to hang out with the Carolina Chocolate Drops (Dom Flemons, Rhiannon Giddens, and Justin Robinson) during a rehearsal with their mentor Joe Thompson.
Hank Sapoznik provided us with a lively, insightful interview about the folk revival and Charlie Poole as a pivotal figure in banjo history… Noted banjoist, producer and music historian Bob Carlin made his Banjo Project debut with an extensive interview covering everything from Joe Sweeney to John Hartford and he's graciously agreed to become one of our primary consultants… And Peter Szego shared his incredible collection of minstrel-era banjos, illustrations and toys…
MAY 2007—Thanks to a generous production grant from The Tides Foundation, The Banjo Project was able to spend a week shooting on location in June (see above).
APRIL 2007—"They taught 'Dixie' to Dan Emmett…"
This provocative epitaph is sure to ruffle a few feathers across the cultural landscape. It appears on the grave of two African-American musicians, Ben and Lew Snowden, close neighbors of the great minstrel man Dan Emmett in Mt. Vernon, OH. The Banjo Project interviewed historians Drs. Howard and Judith Sacks, whose fascinating book, Way Up North in Dixie, documents the musical Snowden family as early pioneers and influential citizens in Knox County, OH before and after the Civil War. We were also fortunate enough to tape
several performances in the historic Woodward Opera House, an ante-bellum theater—now being restored in which the Snowdens and Emmett appeared.
JANUARY 2007—TONY TRISCHKA'S DOUBLE BANJO BLUEGRASS SPECTACULAR CD with Earl Scruggs, Bela Fleck, Steve Martin et al released by Rounder. Guest appearances for Tony on Ellen (with Steve Martin), NPR and Late Night with David Letterman (with Bela Fleck and Steve Martin) soon followed. (Check out Tony's new CD and his TV performances on his website, www.tonytrischka.com.) On Late Night, Letterman's interview with Steve Martin included the classic banjo dis, "Do you play other instruments besides the banjo?" Martin's reply "Would you ask Yo Yo Ma that about the cello?" also explains why we need The Banjo Project.
JANUARY 2007 Interviews with Betsy Siggins Schmidt, co-founder of Club 47 in Cambridge, MA, and rising star Noam Pikelny, who also performed an original solo for our cameras.
AUGUST 2006—Earl, Bela and Tony T
The long-awaited Banjo Project interview with Earl Scruggs blossomed into a wide-ranging conversation with two of his most accomplished disciples—Bela Fleck and Tony Trischka—in Earl's beautiful Nashville home. The man who re-defined the banjo and shaped the bluegrass sound talked on camera about his childhood, early musical influences, how he came up with his 3-finger style, Bill Monroe, the epochal "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" sessions and playing the melody. The three pickers kicked back for an extended jam on "Reuben," the standard that Earl was playing at age ten when he came up with his revolutionary style. Excerpts from the interview and the banjo trio performances of "Reuben," "Beaumont Rag" and "Pike County Breakdown" will be included in The Banjo Project documentary and transcripts appeared in the October and November Banjo Newsletter. Special thanks to Gary Scruggs for making it all possible.
On the way back from Nashville, The Banjo Project taped interviews and performances with Leroy Troy (excerpt to be posted soon), Stevie Barr of No Speed Limit in a duet with master guitar builder Wayne Henderson in Galax, Mac Snow with family and friends in their weekly music session in Low Gap, NC, a conversation with Joe Wilson, and the Friday night dance at Clark's Oldtime Music Center in Raphine, VA.
JULY 2006—Pickin' and Steppin': Making the dances for the live stage version of The Banjo Project.
Thanks to a planning grant from The New England Foundation for the Arts, Marc and Tony spent a week developing the dance elements with Sule Greg Wilson and three talented young dancers from the Summer Stages Dance program. With Tony playing the appropriate style of banjo, Sule choreographed "Jalidong," "Jump Jim Crow," and a ragtime cakewalk. Check back for video clips from the workshop to be posted here soon.
JAN 2006—STANDING "O" FOR "THE BANJO"
IN CONCORD, MA
Tony Trischka and producer Marc Fields collaborated on a live stage performance with programmed video projections to create
a compelling history of the banjo from its African roots to the present. Presented in the Performing Arts Center at Concord
Academy, this unique program combined Tony's virtuosic picking on gourd, minstrel, Victorian and bluegrass banjos with archival
footage, stills and narrative texts, graphics and clips from Marc's interviews with Pete Seeger, Mike Seeger and Bela Fleck.
The show is a pilot version of a full-scale evening—with five-piece ensemble, multiple video screens, actors reading narrative texts and dancers—currently in development.
SEPT. 2005—STEVE MARTIN HOSTS AN EVENING OF BANJO MUSIC WITH EARL SCRUGGS.
The Banjo Project had cameras rolling at the New Yorker Festival when Steve Martin presented "The Great American Banjo:
A Conversation with Music," featuring the legendary Earl Scruggs, Pete Wernick, Tony Ellis and an up-and-coming young
phenom named Charles Wood. Marc also had the chance to sit down the day before for interviews (and a few short performances)
with Martin, Wernick, Ellis and Wood that will be used for The Banjo Project documentary.