A carnival of music, joy and danceable tunes with host Toni Basanta. www.cubanbridge.wordpress.com Featuring Vermont bluegrass Band Beg Steal or Borrow in the LCATV studio.
Havana Fairfax Connection presents: Bluegrass Band Beg Steal or Borrow: Episode 71.
One of the pleasures of hosting music program is the ability to meet the players with whom one feels a musical connection. Beg Steal or Borrow is the best example, and they brought me deep into their songs.
I have not changed my love of jazz, but just took the opportunity to bring my TV show into a new direction: Bluegrass Sounds in America !
For me, hosting a radio and a TV show in Vermont, has been an endless journey, and every once in a while, it's good to take a side detour, as you never know where it might lead you.
The concept of Blue Grass, as a process, means a collective creation rather than a set of specific rhythms or riffs from the soloists. It is a genre of American roots music that developed in the 1940s in the Appalachian region. The genre derives its name from the band Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys, and it was further developed by musicians who played with Monroe.
This encounter with Beg Steal or Borrow will keep viewers, music programmers and impresarios, alert, as Blue Grass keeps gaining track in the 21st century.
Musicians like Fran Forim (bass), Geoff Goodhue (mandolin), Jeremy Sicely (guitar), Luke Auriemmo (banjo), and Roland Clark (fiddle and violin) are a major reason why.
Their journey began 7 years ago, and their main goal was resurrecting the music of Old & in The Way, a band that included Grateful Dead front man Jerry Garcia on banjo and vocals, Peter Rowan on lead vocals, Vassar Clements (fiddle), John Kahn (bass) and David Grissman (mandolin and vocals).
Beg Steal or Borrow are grateful for the places their mission has taken them, and to the people they have met along the way. Inspired by their travels and time together, they began to broaden their own musical branch, borrowing from the Roots, and by stealing a few licks, that finally came to populate their debut album "Old Mountain Time" with 10 compositions of its own members.
How I found Beg Steal or Borrow ?
It was in the Artists' Mediums Art Shop in Cambridge, Vermont, talking to owner and curator Chelsea, a very nice lady, with whom I had exchanged some Havana Fairfax Connection episodes to be promoted with her customers. artshopAM.com
Some of her customers and artists were delighted when they watched Ruy Lopez-Nussa y La Academia on Chelsea's computer, and that was the path for the beginning of this new episode.
Old Mountain Time was on a shelf "For Sale", and Chelsea, inspired by the episodes she saw, gifted it to me, so I could connect with their bandleader, and so I did.
My first real experiences with Blue Grass sounds began at WRUV 90.1 FM Burlington, the University of Vermont Campus Radio, in 2007, and also in some Concerts for students with bands coming from Massachusetts and Canada, especially singer and songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, whose show I attended at the Flynn Theater.
Later on, in the Valley Stage Festivals, hosted by musician and impresario Don Sheldon in the backyard of his home in Huntington, Vt. I discovered Collin McCaffrey with his impressive voice, leading his Cold Stone Roosters.
Coming from Milton and Starksboro, banjoist Rick Ceballos and multi-instrumentalist Lausanne Allen, graciously came to my radio show The Cuban Bridge at St. Michael's College and then to my former show on TV in Richmond's MMCTV.
I had met Rick Ceballos at VCAM, responding to an invitation of media personality and musician Rik Palieri. At the Vermont International Festival, I discovered Rowan.
Always curious about the Sounds of Music, I once discovered Bluegrass Underground on PBS, a program taped deep within the subterranean amphitheater of The Caverns in Tennessee's majestic Cumberland Mountains, 333 feet below, South of Nashville, TN.
This "musical adventure" series featured both long-established and emerging artists within a broad spectrum of genres to include roots-rock, jamband, r&b, soul, folk and Americana.
After this new episode with Beg Steal or Borrow, I have discovered a lot more about each one of their members. For instance, fiddler and violinist Roland Clark has played Duets with jazz guitar master and composer, Bill FriselI, but that will be a new story for a next meeting.
I hope the crowds go wild and fall in love with this new episode @ LCATV, it can help bring Bluegrass' spirit to life even more, especially for those who would have found it unreachable before.
Peace is all we need
-Toni
