Jam Session

Mark O'Connor | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 13, 2010)
• Original Release Date: 2010
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Omac
• ASIN: B0039TD7XQ
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #44,787 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great stuff, but actually a partial reissue, April 26, 2010

By 

M. D. Royko (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Jam Session (Audio CD)

Extraordinary improvising from O'Connor, Thile and the rest, but I'm a little surprised that nowhere is it mentioned that the five cuts with the quartet of MO, Thile, Sutton and House are the same performances issued 7 years ago on O'Connor's double disc "30 Year Retrospective." The four new tracks add up to 35 minutes, and they are as tasty as you'd expect.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bluegrass/Jazz doesn't get ANY better than this!, March 12, 2010

By 

Steven I. Ramm "Steve Ramm "Anything Phon... (Phila, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Jam Session (MP3 Download)

The actual CD of this album doesn't appear to be available until July but the MP3 download is listed here so it must be ready! I received an advance of the Cd and have been playing it all day. With the exception of bass player Jon Burr, all the other musicians on this album are well known to the Folk/Jazz/Bluegrass community and are superstars in their own right. The common thread here is violinist/fiddler Mark O'Connor, on whose own label this album is released.

The nine tracks were recorded at four different "jam sessions" between 2000 and 2004. On five of them O'Connor is joined by Chris Thile (former Nickel Creek mandolin player extraordinaire), guitarist Bryan Sutton and bass player Byron House. For two other tracks jazz guitarist (with lightning speed fingers) Frank Vignola joins then and Burr replaces House on bass. The other two sessions feature just O'Connor and Vignola plus Burr. These are all "live jams:" and there's lots of fast playing here. There's time on every track for the musicians to stretch out and "Soft Gyrations: - which goes beyond the 12-minute mark builds to a crescendo with O'Connor and Thile playing off of each other. And, "In The Cluster Blues" - one of the seven tunes written or -co-written by O'Connor, - runs for over 15 minutes! Listen to Thile's mandolin runs at about the three-minute mark on this blues tune.

If you are familiar with any of the musicians on this album you need to hear it! This is - hands down - the best album I've played all week!

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars the best yet, March 28, 2010

By 

K. Knox (Boulder, CO USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Jam Session (MP3 Download)

This is a wonderful follow-up to O'Connor's "Thirty Year Retrospective" set, which also featured Sutton and Thile. As a non-musician but avid fan it would have seemed impossible to me for these musicians to just keep getting better, but they do. On the earlier recording I had the sense that O'Connor might have been holding back, or perhaps been a bit in awe of young guns Thile and Sutton, but he's absolutely on fire here, threatening to just run away with the show on several solos even though his companions are playing better than ever. Thrilling, goose-bump-inducing stuff from genius-level players.