Too often the lines drawn between different genres of music are used as walls. And surely a jazz show can’t play country music, right? We disagree, and a record like this one shows why. Just as in jazz, truly great bluegrass musicians are almost always truly great improvisers – a song is just a starting point for infinite directions. This 1975 LP on Chicago’s too-short-lived label Flying Fish Records was recorded in Nashville with some of the great players of the time: Norman Blake, Tut Taylor, Vassar Clements – who often collaborated with Jerry Garcia, and of course, the standout name here to any jazzhead, Dave Holland on bass. Sam spun the Holland-led improvisational workout “Sauerkraut ‘n Solar Energy,” a long, improvised cut that builds on Holland’s thumping, swinging blues walk.
