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Blueground Undergrass
Live at the Variety Playhouse
Rev. Jeff Mosier is downright doubtful as a man of the cloth, although its damn hard not to be swept up by his musical sermons. As the banjo picker for Aquarium Rescue Unit, Mosier singlehandedly forced that bunch of eclectic jazzbos to grapple with the complexities of bluegrass music, severely underappreciated by everyone except for those who play it. Like Bela Fleck, Mosier is opening a forum for hillbilly jazz, adding the banjo's unusually blunt tone into a jam band/improv groove framework. Mosier's latest project moves a bit closer to the traditional (with a fiddle, mandolin, and pedal steel in BGUG's fold), all the while spacing out to chestnuts like "Orange Blossom Spatial" (nice title!). This release caught the band, undubbed and unedited, on a hot July night just as it went down. The network of String Cheese Incident and Jazz Is Dead folks are obligated here. -peter moore (Phoenix Rising)
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