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Darol Anger Fiddler

  • Home
    • DIARY OF A FIDDLER 2: The Sequel (empty nest syndrome)
    • BRUCE & DAROL"S GREAT BIG FIDDLE HANG !
  • Darol's News
  • Bio
  • Music
    • Diary Of A Fiddler: The Sequel ! New recording out in September 2025
  • Shows
  • Video
  • Store
  • EPK

This way to Darol's Online Fiddle School.

DIARY OF A FIDDLER 2: The Sequel

 

A new recording of fiddle duets with fantastic former fiddle students

Though I hope to record more projects for many years, I consider this project, Diary Of a Fiddler #2, to be the clearest expression of any musical legacy I might leave to society, and if it happens to be the last thing I release, I think I can consider my work on this Earth complete.

The first volume, produced in 1999, featured me, Darol, accompanying a wide range of brilliant contemporary fiddlers in many of the styles which were exploding into popularity at the turn of the new century, and demonstrating fiddling’s deep relevance to just about every style of music. The duet format enabled the Darol Anger Action Figure and his chosen duet partners to demonstrate a set of musical and fiddling skills that might have been unfamiliar to much of the music world prior to this release. If Diary #1 was an expression of the recent coalescing of an international multi-stylistic fiddling community, Diary # 2 is a celebration of my particular connection to that community and a shared musical ethos within the acoustic string world.

This second volume, made some 25 years after the first, celebrates the brilliance at least 3 generations of spectacularly skilled fiddlers with whom I’ve been privileged to work. This phenomenal bloom of talent shows no sign of slowing down and is directly attributable to the ongoing effect of fiddle camps created by Jay Ungar, Alasdair Fraser, Mark O’Connor and others, which sparked Diary #1. Each of my duet partners in Diary #2 is a former student or someone with whom I have worked at some level of mentorship, whether a shorter or longer period. I feel a deep connection and admiration for all of the players on this recording. In every instructional situation, my prime directive has been not to encourage copying or to cultivate a particular style but to amplify the joy of music and encourage deep, joyful engagement with the physical-emotional act of music-making, and especially, improvising together.

Each of the two volumes focus on duets with many great fiddlers and one large ensemble piece. 
In Volume 1, the unique all-fiddle ensemble consisted of Vassar Clements, Stuart Duncan, John Hartford, Sam Bush, Tim O’Brien, Matt Glaser and myself, playing the traditional tune “John Henry.”  

In Volume 2, the large ensemble consists of 22 fiddlers, all of whom I’m connected to in some sort of inspirational way. The idea for the project came about during the isolating days of the 2020 Pandemic. I hit upon the idea of having each fiddler improvise remotely on a track which I created at home. The tune is the traditional ”Liza Jane’, in New Orleans Second-Line style. 

Because each person had to record their part one at a time, it seemed unfair to the later over-dubbers who might feel like they had less options because of an ever more-crowded sound field. Therefore, each fiddler only played to my original track, á la Jaco Pastorius’ famous leadoff track on “Word Of Mouth.” The difference on my project was that there was an arrangement, and everyone knew the general plan and chord changes. They were all invited to express themselves freely within these parameters.
The list, which appears in the liner notes, includes many of the tremendous young fiddle players who have illuminated my life. The result is astonishing, uplifting, hilarious, and absolutely hair-raising.

The pandemic recording of Liza Jane overlapped many significant life changes. One of the most deeply felt changes occurred when the phenomenal Michael Barnett experienced a tragic brain aneurysm shortly after his overdub. This document may be one of the last recordings to feature a talent which may never be equaled. For this reason, I have extracted his individual part on Liza Jane and re-edited the tune with him as a soloist, with his frequent accomplice Alex Hargreaves and myself as the only accompanists. Mike plays gorgeously over the classic blowing section of Liza Jane in this joy-filled, yet unknowingly elegiac musical document.

*********
Backing up and setting it all in an even larger context:

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s famous remark that “there are no 2nd acts in American lives” evidently didn’t take into account fiddlers, or anyone who wasn’t a terminal partygoer. Plenty of fiddlers in that category, of course. Well, no matter. I suppose my musical life could be said to fall into 2 relevant phases.

The first phase was spent helping to create a whole new genre of music out of the powerful currents sweeping through the international folk music world, which had already begun undergoing an huge intensification in its never-ending re-absorption of other styles: Jazz, Pop, Latin and Western European Art Music. It makes sense to define this style, often referred to as the anti-label “Dawg Music” (after David Grisman’s nickname), by the instruments which largely were being played in my world: Acoustic string instruments, especially those mostly used in American Bluegrass music.

This “lifestyle choice” eventually expanded to include brilliant young players of piano, steel drums, electric bass, augmented guitars, and more within a creative community centered in on the West Coast of the US and mostly associated with the record label Windham Hill.  This first phase also included a ten-year run of expanding the technical capabilities of the String Quartet to include convincing adaptations of Jazz, Blues, Pop, and Latin styles by my ensemble, the Turtle Island String Quartet. Further expression in the acoustic string style has included my original explorations with long-time musical companion Mike Marshall, which include so many myriad sounds and concepts as to be indescribable here.

Phase #2, which was sparked by both jazz-oriented musical outreach with the TISQ and work at the Fiddle Camps, was made possible around 1995 by my maturation as a musician, producer, composer and most of all educator. I began building musical relationships with other string educators and with many preternaturally talented younger players. 

This mentorship process began to take form in the larger world as my band The Republic Of Strings, co-led by fellow educator/guitar genius Scott Nygaard and showcasing the incredible young talents Brittany Haas and Rushed Eggleston. That band went on to include, at various times, fiddlers Tristan Clarridge, Jeremy Kittel, Sara Watkins, Lauren Rioux, Gabe Witcher, Tashina Clarridge, Annie Staninec, and Tyler Andal. 

 As a bandleader, I could offer well-arranged original and traditional material, shows and touring, and a platform for solos and improvisation. In 2007, I was offered a professorship at the Berklee College Of Music in Boston, working in the String Department. This was an extraordinary opportunity which changed my life so radically as to be considered almost a Phase 3, but actually transformed Phase 2 into a legitimate thing.

 The professorship, concurrent with continuing teaching at as many as eight music camps per year, really clarified my approach to mentorship and I was fortunate to develop productive relationships with tremendous young string players on many different instruments.

 In this same time period, 2007-2018, I was developing a fiddling curriculum at my own online fiddle school, administrated by the innovative Artistworks platform. Ongoing touring opportunities enabled me to employ some of these students as band members for increasingly flexible and stylistically broad situations during this period. I had further expanded my musical palette to songs, with a fruitful partnership with an enormously talented singer-songwriter, Emy Phelps. Emy was a teacher, an actor, a mother, and  musical force the equal of anyone I’ve ever worked with, and we both learned much about music and life from each other. We made 4 recordings together and worked with many hugely talented musicians of all ages. Emy's untimely passing in 2020 was a shattering experience that has changed me in the deepest ways. 

After retiring from active professorship at Berklee, one could possibly say that my Phase #3 has begun: less ambition-oriented activity, some focus on composition for various-sized ensembles, performances with my touring group Mr Sun and other dear musical friends, and getting back to working out creative things to do with stringed instruments on an ad hoc basis, on up to impending civilizational collapse. I guess that I hope to fiddle while Rome burns.

So… this upcoming work, the sequel to Diary #1, is an aural document of sharing the utter joy of making music together with beloved former students re-creating some of my original compositions so beautifully. It feels like a culminating moment and a sufficient valedictory document for my incredibly fortunate life on this planet.

-D.A.

 

 

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  1. 1
    A Real Dragon 6:12
    A Real Dragon
    by Darol Anger & Mr Sun

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  2. 2
    The Coal Burnin' Grease Fire 5:43
    The Coal Burnin' Grease Fire
    by Darol Anger & Psychograss

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  3. 3
    The Crooked Road to Buffalo 2:25
    The Crooked Road to Buffalo
    by Darol Anger & the Berklee All-Stars

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