Wes Corbett, Simon Chrisman and NOS will play Sunday.
Wes Corbett once heard that you can be certain a musical genre is dead when an academic institution names a department after it.
The comment was made by a classmate of Corbett’s sometime band mate Joe Walsh, who was among the first to join the acoustic string program at Boston’s Berklee College of Music.
While he doesn’t think formal training is required to be a great musician, neither does Corbett think academia necessarily squashes musical cred.
“I don’t think it’s true,” he said. “But I think it’s funny.”
Corbett himself has amassed plenty of formal training since starting Suzuki violin lessons at 4 years old on Bainbridge.
So have most of the members of New Old Stock, the close-knit but far-flung group of musicians who have come together for a Northwest spring tour that includes a Sunday performance at Island Music Guild Hall.
The band includes Corbett on banjo, long-time friend, collaborator and fellow islander Simon Chrisman on hammered dulcimer, Walsh on mandolin and Tristan and Trishina Clarridge on fiddle and cello.
Corbett took up the banjo in 2002, around the time that he and Chrisman met. Corbett saw Chrisman open for Bill Frisell at BPA and decided they had to play together. They started composing together nearly every day.
Chrisman got his first exposure to the hammered dulcimer at 10 years old at a Folklife Festival performance. His parents thought the instrument could offer an appropriate outlet.
“I’d basically spent my first 10 years tapping on things,” he said.
When Corbett and Chrisman play together, the music flows easily and their collaborative spirit comes through clearly.
“Simon is the only one who can do what he does,” Corbett said as he turned to Chrisman. “I’m really happy about your misfortune.”
Corbett possesses a wealth of contemporary musical knowledge and a strong sense of context when it comes to the type of music he likes to play. He cites Bela Fleck, David Grisman and Bill Frisell as influences, among others.
Corbett’s music is sometimes referred to as “Newgrass,” a genre that originated with David Grisman in the late 1970s as the first mixture of bluegrass and jazz.
Bela Fleck and New Grass Revival took the form further in the 1980s by adding pop elements, and the music has continued to evolve into a broad sound that Corbett says can incorporate any number of acoustic musical genres.
This constant evolution dates back even to the start of bluegrass itself, which Corbett says people often mistake for a “traditional” form when in fact, it’s an amalgam.
Bluegrass took hold in the 1930s and 1940s when Bill Monroe, commonly known as the father of bluegrass, synthesized multiple forms including mountain music, jazz and blues.
New Old Stock is an amalgam as well. Corbett met Walsh, “an incredible mandolin player,” on a visit to Boston two years ago, and he got to know the Clarridges at a bluegrass trade show in Nashville some years ago.
He’d heard of the California duo, classically trained award winning fiddlers and teachers who were well-known in the bluegrass community.
Corbett says that New Old Stock’s musical configuration isn’t something you see that often, but that the band tries to gather “when the moon and stars align” and everyone has a clear spot in their schedule.
Chrisman and Corbett both clearly love stepping out of their usual routines to tour with this band.
“Everyone’s there to have a musical conversation with each other,” Corbett said.
“It’s so cool to get the context we have here, to try someting that works and sounds good and is fun,” Chrisman added. “We’re always cracking up when we play.”
Once New Old Stock finishes its Northwest tour, Corbett will go back to Boston, his adopted home, to resume play with the Biscuit Burners. Corbett and Chrisman also recorded a CD with guitarist Jordan Tice, due out this summer.
In the spirit of change, Chrisman has learned how to play bass. He likes the sound, and he’s also looking to diversify.
That’s the spirit Corbett likes too, and part of what he thinks makes bluegrass musicians “some of the best musicians in the world.”
“Bluegrass was founded on innovation and has continued to grow from that foundation of change,” Corbett said. “That’s what keeps me playing this music. There’s so much change going on.”
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Easter grass
New Old Stock plays at 8 p.m. Sunday at Island Music Guild Hall. Tickets are $12/adults, $5/students; see www.islandmusic.org. The group will also hold a performance/workshop at 6:30 p.m. April 9 at Fremont Abbey. Donations accepted at the door. For information, see www.fremontabbey.org.
To hear Wes Corbett and Simon Chrisman’s music, see www.myspace.com/wesleycorbett.
