I was really happy this weekend to get to play some music with Art Rosenbaum, an artist, musician, and field recorder of incredible stature both for me and for all people who love old time music. You can check out his page detailing his many projects here.
When I first got into old time music I checked every record I could out of the public library, one of which was Art's banjo records which I listened to a lot and was hugely inspired by. I still have a tape of it somewhere. (Yup, even have a means of playing said tape still).
I've know Art for a few years ever since we were in a really fun and interesting symposium in Buffalo together, but I've never had the chance to play tunes with him. He was in town for an exhibit at a gallery in Williamsburg called the Linda Matney Gallery. The exhibit was the work of several Southern artists, the work in it was quite good.
So the Gallery was snapping pictures and I've been informed that a few were of me, and then posted on Facebook. Not being on Facebook, it took some doing for me to get them. But here is one:
Art is playing a fiddle made by the great John W. Summers, who Art recorded (a podcast on Summers is here). I guess Mike Seeger owned this particular fiddle for awhile and now it has made its way to Art. So a double honor for me, to play with Art and to play with Summers' fiddle (and, of course, Art played some of Summers' tunes) And through it all I got to play Art's sweet custom Wildwood banjo, too. A nice day.
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