The Hideaway Cafe - St Petersburg's Original Listening Room! 1756 Central Ave, St Petersburg, FL 727.644.7895

Jack Rose

Posted Tue, 08/25/2009 - 1:13pm by nikikelly
Genre: 
Blues
Genre: 
Folk
Genre: 
Indie
Member profile(s): 
Jack Rose

In 1993 Jack Rose joined the noise/drone band Pelt, releasing a handful of albums and EPs. Rose further developed his acoustic guitar technique as the band slowly shifted from its electric roots. Although Pelt frequently went on and off hiatus during Rose's most involved periods in the band, he didn't begin to concentrate on his own recordings until the early 2000s. 2001 saw his first self-released CD-R of mostly blues and ragtime. In 2002, this new focus culminated in his public transformation from Pelt member to solo artist on his first proper full-length, Red Horse, White Mule, released by Eclipse Records.

Jack Rose has been a prolific recording artist in his relatively short career, with albums, EPs, and compilation tracks on no less than ten record labels. His major works are made up of the triad of consecutive full-length releases on Eclipse -- Red Horse, White Mule (2002), Opium Musick (2003), and Raag Manifestos (2004) -- in addition to his 2005 opus Kensington Blues, released by Tequila Sunrise.

His depth of knowledge in the traditions of blues, ragtime and Eastern music are complimented by the avant-garde and experimental spirit of Pelt. Comparisons to American primitive guitarist John Fahey are frequent, but Rose has been praised by reviewers, fans, and contemporaries alike for rising to the challenge of playing in a unique style despite his affection for music originating in decades past. As Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance said in reference to Rose's Opium Musick, "[f]inally, somebody has something to say on the acoustic guitar that hasn't been said before."[1]

In an interview with Foxy Digitalis, Rose expressed a dissatisfaction with some of his releases, explaining that new recordings are necessary to self-sustain as an internationally-touring musician. He further went on to modestly say that his Kensington Blues is a "really hard record to live up to." [2]

His recorded collaborations outside of Pelt have been infrequent but include Jason Bill of Charalambides, Donald Miller of Borbetomagus, Glenn Jones of Cul de Sac, Eric Carbonara, and Keenan Lawler. In 2008, he reunited with Pelt members and other musicians including Micah Blue Smaldone on his album Dr. Ragtime and His Pals.

Rose's seventh LP, The Black Dirt Sessions, is set for a Spring 2009 release by Three Lobed Recordings.

Mr. Rose's reception has largely been positive, earning high marks from such media outlets as Dusted Magazine, Allmusic and Pitchfork, where he is frequently described as an American Primitive guitarist, a term coined in the 1960's to describe John Fahey's music. He is often compared to the artists on Fahey's Takoma label and other guitarists from that time as well; his ragas have been compared to the work of Robbie Basho and recent touring partner Peter Walker, for example[3]. Although Rose is self-taught and his music is sometimes reminiscent of Fahey's (including covers of a number of Fahey's songs on his recordings and in his live performances), his rapid evolution as a guitarist, and prolific, diverse, genre-bending output have helped him to shed this common and narrow-sighted analogy. In fact, Rose's greatest link to John Fahey, perhaps, is his sharing of Fahey's half-joking belief that "the secret is always to steal from obscure sources." Rose cites artists as diverse as Blind Blake, William "Bill" Moore, and Oscar "Buddy" Woods as influences.

Supporting Sites
MySpace: 

http://www.myspace.com/jackrosekensington

Personal Website: 

http://www.vhfrecords.com/jackrose/

Comments

Review of Jack Rose

by nikikelly - 08/25/2009 - 1:18pm

Jack Rose is like a big ol' walking American Studies seminar, only a lot more fun to drink beer with and without all the boring chit-chat, and where Blind Willie Johnson hobnobs with Hart Crane. There's even
a cocktail called a Jack Rose - how great is that? Jake Barnes drinks one with the barman of the Crillon Hotel in "The Sun Also Rises".
It's got lime juice and grenadine, but mostly apple jack, the Ohio Valley's sauce of choice after Johnny Appleseed and before Carrie Nation.

So there ya go.

But it's not just American music, either. The threads in his music emanate from mystic zip codes like Baluchistan as well as Yazoo City, and Jack's as devoted to Zia M. Dagar as to Charlie Patton. Jack has stripped his influences down to essentials, packing with great care in order to travel light: Blind Blake, LaMonte Young, Willie McTell, Jimmy Reed, Link Wray, Tony Joe White, Norman Borlaug, John Pemberton, Helios Creed, and Adrian Street - from rags to ragas, sitars and stripes forever. Most notably, Rose has drawn from John Fahey's primitive minimalism, and to an even greater degree from Robbie Basho's explorations of carnatic and Hindustani modalities - powerful influences that Jack embraces. As A.K. Ramanujan described traditional Indian musicians, "they have all apprenticed
themselves... it is through imitation that you learn. It is through following in the master's line." The best model for artistic
production is the workshop, the deepest tradition is one of craftsmanship, and studying a scuola de Takoma provided Jack with the vocabulary with which to articulate his own musical vision.

For more than a decade Jack was a member of Pelt, the seminal drone-noise-folk-improv ensemble. In 2001 Jack struck out on his own,
getting rid of his electric guitar and going acoustic, throwing out his GPS and navigating by astrolabe. "For me, solo acoustic performance has become the final frontier," he told The Wire's David
Keenan in 2004. "It's just you, wrestling with an instrument." His solo turn also marked a shift from free improvisation towards a more structured approach, though Jack brings an improviser's flexibility
to his compositions and to his performance, and the result is rich in tension and elasticity, narrative drive, intensity of emotion, integritas, consonantia and claritas. It also sounds pretty damned
good. Along with the likes of Glenn Jones, Richard Bishop, Ben Chasny and Steffen Basho-Junghans, Jack is one of a constellation of artists guiding the lost tribes of the American sub-underground back to folk
and blues-based forms after a generation in the wilderness... there are no stars to-night but those of memory.

Jack might also be the hardest working man in New Weird America, touring Europe seven times and the US five and counting, whipping
that box from coast to coast.

He told me he played more than a 100 gigs in 2006, and almost as many in 2007. And his output is fairly prolific. He has released five records so far, for Eclipse, VHF, Beautiful Happiness and Tequila Sunrise Records: "Red Horse White Mule", "Opium Musick", "Raag Manifestos", the highly regarded "Kensington Blues", and his most
recent self-titled LP. In addition, Jack's appeared on countless compilations, including "Wooden Guitar" and "You Shall Know The Fruits By It's Roots". Then there's his old-timey alter-ego Doctor Ragtime, who has performed Ethiopian novelties, characteristic marches and parlor favorites - bittersweet slices of Methodist pie,
familiar tunes, at least in those sections where the square dance has not been supplanted by the fox-trot. As Dr. Ragtime, Jack's released a limited edition CDR, a 78 rpm 10" in an edition of six (just you
try and find one of those), and a tour-only 7", as well as the forthcoming Doc Ragtime and his Pals LP. This latter is a collection
of duets with Micah Blue Smaldone, Glenn Jones, the mysterious Harmonica Dan, and a slew of others. "I've been wanting to do this
one since Opium Musick," he says of his first release with other players. "It's been a long time coming."

Over the past six years, Jack has recorded morning ragas for Philadelphia row homes, and evening ragas for winter on the North
Fork of the Roanoke River. And he's taken listeners on the red-eye to Nineveh with reveries broadcast from the inside of Baudelaire's noggin, full of hash and voluptuous shimmering cascades of molten
light, swinging like a garden gate and grounded in a repetitive bass drone as fat as a Nile Perch, shining your shoes and lighting your fuse. Jack has an edge, and he's not interested in folkie delicacy -
and in spite of his emphatically acoustic sound, he plays loud, which is why his hard-picking solo act has been a credible opener for such heavyweights as Mogwai and Sun O))). Jack even rendered the loquacious Bull Tongue virtually speechless: "Jack Rose, man... fucking Jack Rose." Favete linguis.

Fred Noonan
Tequila Sunrise Records