sarah jarosz

while living in austin, texas, the self proclaimed "live music capital of the world," i enjoyed quite a wide variety of bands in the plentiful venues around town and also at loads of great festivals!

one musician who i really enjoyed listening to over the years is sarah jarosz. i first heard her play the mandolin when she was maybe 12 or 13 years old and i was absolutely blown away! she always played at the local bluegrass/folk/americana festivals, both big and small, and managed to play as a guest with the biggest names headlining!

one of my favorite musical memories was at the 2004 old settler's music festival when i weasled my way to the front of the david grisman quintet show. to my delight, they invited sarah to play with them - some of the bluegrass greats!! pictured below from L to R are billy bright, david grisman, 13-year-old sarah, vassar clements, joe craven, and tim o'brien.



i mention this now because sarah just turned 18, graduated from high school, and released her first album with 11 original songs! i'm glad people didnt pressure her to rush into creating albums, because from the tracks i've heard so far, she's really matured into a fantastic song writer! i remember that her vocals many years ago were a little course and sounded... well... young! but her sound on these songs is really fantastic and i cant wait to hear them all!

you can listen to a brief interview with some live music in this NPR interview that aired this week!

i chose to highlight the video below from last year's OSMF which shows a trio of youngins, all teenagers, and all amazing musicians!! sarah jarosz on the mandolin, alex hargreaves on the fiddle, and samson grisman on the stand up bass (yes, he's david's son)... they look like they're having so much fun! enjoy!