Bach >> Beatles >> Bluegrass

Nashville Mandolin Trio (Artist), Butch Baldassari (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 1, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Soundart Recordings
• ASIN: B0001Z232C
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #88,184 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

The Nashville Mandolin Ensemble, described by critics as ''one of the most un-Nashville acts'', enhances its eclectic reputation with a new album, Bach, Beatles, Bluegrass. The NAMMIE Award-winning instrumental group redefines the Three B's of music as it wraps its unique sound around works from a wide array of composers, including Hoagy Carmichael, Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli, Dickey Betts, J.S. Bach, and Lennon & McCartney. The group also introduces new music from composers Charlie Provenza and Roger Hudson, along with fresh, engaging arrangements of traditional music from the bluegrass repertoire.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Monstrously good!, May 25, 2005

By 

J. Ross "a-music_fan" (Roseburg, OR USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bach >> Beatles >> Bluegrass (Audio CD)

Playing Time - 50:51 -- With over a decade under their belts, The Nashville Mandolin Ensemble has now trimmed down to a tight-knit and lean sextet for their fourth album, a presentation of 15 numbers recorded live at Vanderbilt University. The group features mando-family instruments (mandolins, mandola, mandocello) supplemented with 5-string viola, guitar and bass. The artists include Butch Baldassari, Stephan Dudash, Walter Carter, John Hedgecoth, Van Manakas, and David Spicher. In keeping with the program and album's title ("Bach, Beatles, Bluegrass"), the album opens with three neat classical Bach compositions, followed by three meaty selections from John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

The "bluegrass" is much more than just that with tunes from the genres of jazz, Gypsy, swing, Dawg, new acoustic and old-time music. Contempoary compositions from mandolinist Charlie Provenza and guitarist Roger Hudson are first-rate-and-a-half. It's amazing to hear what these hot pickers do with a number like "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed," written by Dickey Betts, who was lead guitarist with the Allman Brothers in the sixties and seventies. Then, they can also evoke images of a moonlit evening at a café in Paris with their simply dee-lish appeteaser, "Nuages" from Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli. It's a joy to hear musicians of this caliber take on a wide range of material from "Stardust" to "Happy Birthday, Bill Monroe." Ensemble member Butch Baldassari contributes a bouncy original "Jack Rabbit Trail," which provides some icing for this mandocake. Not losing sight of their roots, two traditional numbers close out the album. Walter Carter, mandola player, is deserving of special recognition for his quality and classy arranging of seven of the songs. For a live recording, the sound quality is excellent and fortunately no annoying audience applause is included. This album is monstrously good, and it is further proof that Nashville currently sports one of the finest mandolin ensembles in the world. (Joe Ross, staff writer, Bluegrass Now)

3.0 out of 5 stars Selectively Worthwhile, January 21, 2006

By 

Kevin L. Nenstiel "omnivore" (Kearney, Nebraska) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bach >> Beatles >> Bluegrass (Audio CD)

This chestnut from Butch Baldassari's Nashville Mandolin Ensemble is a mixed bag. Parts of it are very much worth a listen. I particularly like their rendition of the Allman Brothers classic "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed," and while their take on Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust" isn't transcendent, it's pretty sharp. It's especially noteworthy how much sound the ensemble is able to get out of only six instruments with a fairly narrow range of sound.

But not all of it bears up to repeated listening. The "Bluegrass" section of the album is worthwhile, but the "Bach>>Beatles" part is awkward. The renditions of "Sleepers Awake" and "With a Little Help From My Friends" sound really thin, and the "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring," one of the more enduringly moving pieces from Bach's body of work, comes across as kind of sleepy. The sound the ensemble gets out of their instruments is big, but not varied, and especially on the three classical pieces that kick of the album, the effect is an unearned sense of being almost tepid.

Because it's fairly inexpensive, this album is probably worth getting for the second half of the playlist, which is very much listenable. But if you're going to play the album more than once you need to be selective in your listening. Worthwhile but spotty, this album is a valiant addition to the canon of mandolin music, but not something that will rest permanently in your CD changer.