Day 2 of A New York State of Mind... Surprising Blue Grass!

New York is known for so many things, but most of all for its Broadway shows and musicals.  But for a handful of native New Yorkers, the city is also home to an interesting and curious music genre, known as Blue Grass.

Blue Grass music is Appalachian music, and a sub genre of American country music, tracing some of its origins to its Scottish, Irish, and Welsh music.  Because people then were so poor, yet so musical, they used songs as a medium for telling stories, and used everyday tools for making music, such as the wash board, and the saw.

Today Blue Grass is performed by classically trained musicians, who feel that the genre is liberating for them from their traditionally trained work.

A place in Brooklyn called Jalopy is known to be a venue for blue grass music performers and musicians.  It could almost be a speakeasy, it's so casual.  When you walk in, there are refreshments on the right, and on the left, a display of musical instruments that are used in blue grass music.  Banjo's, mandolins, fiddles, galore!!!!

On the night we went, the stage was set for MShanghai Strings Band, a hodgepodge, rag tag group of classically trained musicians committed to expressing their other selves through the magic and music of blue grass.

It was so informal, that guests in the audience, some of whom were also well trained singers, joined in and jammed with the band.  There was also a birthday song celebration for one of the long time guests.  The 6-year old daughter of the lead singer sang chorus with the band.  It felt like a family band....

I had never heard of blue grass before, but what I discovered that night was an eyeopener.  Music that tells a story, yes, like country music, yet in a rhythm that  brought about knee slapping excitement, with lyrics that evoked everyday sentiments from the heart.

Blue grass is poignant, and wailfull, and unique unto itself.  It expressed sentiments of the soul, from the joy to the pain of love, betrayal, and even recovery.

Blue grass was a novel way to experience yet another side of New York, a more homespun flavor, so different from the cosmopolitan razzmatazz one usually associated with the city of cities.

Day 2. Surprising.