RiverCity Bluegrass Festival Friday-Sunday, Jan. 4-6

[January 2nd, 2008]

[BLUEGRASS, ETC.] Now in its fourth year, the RiverCity Bluegrass Festival bills itself as the area’s “largest and most significant” music event. While Musicfest NW organizers might take issue with that description, the bluegrass fest does reside on two stages at the gargantuan Convention Center, and it’s headlined this year by national names such as hitmaker and hair legend Marty Stuart and longtime Jerry Garcia collaborator David Grisman. But there’s more to be heard here than just gitbox picking and strained harmonies. Two new releases—from gypsy-jazz Portland expats TAARKA and new Portland fiddler Darol Anger—make that loud and clear.

TAARKA, fueled by husband-wife duo David Tiller and Enion Pelta-Tiller, left Portland because, as Enion puts it, “The winters were too dark and wet.” And the couple—which produces much of the band’s string-heavy sound on The Martian Picture Soundtrack—makes music more geographically suited to its new home at the foot of the Rocky Mountains than Portland’s dreary waterfront. “Tu Tu Tango,” driven by a roaming gypsy violin and tight, frenetic bass, could well serve as the opening theme to an upper-crust BBC drama. In contrast, “50 Miles” features sparse and calming cello, hand-drums and lyrics that, though shrouded in mystery, hint at a feeling of freedom. So long as one isn’t bothered by the Alberta neighborhood-style funkiness of The Martian Picture Soundtrack (and if you’re considering going to a bluegrass festival, you ought not be), the group is a joy. And TAARKA’s folksy, understated interplay on tracks like “Lonely Woman”” suggests an even finer live show.

Darol Anger’s group, Republic of Strings, serves as an ensemble and teaching device for him and his primary collaborator, acoustic guitarist Scott Nygaard. Don’t be surprised, then, to see a few very young faces on stage alongside the duo. On Republic of Strings’ latest, the unfortunately titled Generation Nation, the group tackles everything from Aretha Franklin to early American folk and Buffalo Springfield. The covers are experiments that don’t entirely succeed, but that’s mostly due to their lack of vocal harmonies—the very feature that makes the album’s other non-instrumentals so dang purty. There’s a smoothness to tunes like the sweet, harmony-heavy “Farther Adieu” that could use a bit of roughing up, but the down and dirty bluegrass-jazz fusion of more traditional tracks like “Lady Hamilton” and “The Ramblin’ Barber” earns Anger and company some serious back-porch cred.

Among a veritable sea of strings and long-grown fingernails, TAARKA and Anger are two good reasons to check out the fest. And, perhaps most thankfully, they prove the weekend won’t be all death and Jesus.