Evergreen is a Christmas album by American banjoist Alison Brown, released in 2008. Arranged in a jazzy style, the album features fiddler/mandolinists Joe Craven and is often compared with similar Christmas album effort by Béla Fleck and the Flecktones, Jingle All the Way. Album review

Personnel

* Alison Brown – banjo, guitar

* Larry Atamanuik - drums

* John Burr - piano

* Joe Craven - fiddle, mandolin, percussion

* Gary West - bass

References

Category:Alison Brown albums

Category:2008 Christmas albums

Category:Compass Records albums

Artist/Band Information

Alison Brown (born August 7, 1962) is an American banjo player and guitarist known for a soft nylon-string banjo sound. She has won and has been nominated on several Grammy awards and is often compared to another banjo prodigy, Béla Fleck for her unique style of playing. In her music, she blends jazz, bluegrass, rock, blues as well as other styles of music.

Early life

Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Brown learned to play guitar at eight and banjo at ten. When she was twelve, she met fiddler Stuart Duncan. In the summer of 1978, Brown traveled across the country with Duncan and his father, playing at festivals and contests. She won first place at the Canadian National Banjo Championship, which helped her land a one-night gig at the Grand Ole Opry.

Harvard University and Northern Lights

In 1980, Brown went to Harvard university, where she studied history and literature. After graduating from Harvard, she earned an MBA from UCLA.

In 1982, while still at Harvard, Brown helped to reunite the Northern Lights band after 5 years of their hiatus, as she become their full member until 1984, when she moved back to California. Brown worked for two years with Smith Barney in San Francisco, and then took a break to pursue her music interests.

Union Station and other collaborations

In 1987, Alison Krauss asked Brown to join her band, Union Station. Brown spent three years with Krauss. In 1990, she moved to Tennessee, and was named International Bluegrass Music Association Banjo Player of the Year in 1991. The 1990 album I've Got That Old Feeling, which Brown played banjo on, won a Grammy award.

In 1992, Brown became the band leader for Michelle Shocked. This experience led Brown to merge bluegrass with jazz and folk idioms, in a manner similar to those of Béla Fleck and David Grisman.

Compass Records

In the early 1990s, Brown and her husband, bass player Garry West, started their own record label, Small World Music. This company eventually led to the launch of Compass Records in 1995, an internationally recognized label, which has such artists as Victor Wooten, Colin Hay, Catie Curtis, Lúnasa, Martin Hayes, Jeff Coffin, Russ Barenberg, Darol Anger and others.

Grammy awards

In collaboration with Béla Fleck, she won the 2000 Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance. She participated in Alison Krauss’s Grammy-winning album I've Got That Old Feeling, and received a Grammy nomination for her own recording, Simple Pleasures (1990). And in 2001 she won a Grammy, in the Best Country Instrumental category, for her 2000' album Fair Weather.

Alison Brown and Quartet today

Stolen Moments, 2005, in Brown’s estimation, is her most musically successful record to date. "For the first time, I feel like I’ve created a true hybrid sound that suggests its influences – bluegrass, jazz, celtic music – but when taken as a whole isn’t any one of these things." – Brown's words about the album on the group's official webpage. In 2007, Brown was honored as one of Irish America magazine's Stars of the South.

Alison Brown continues touring with her band, Quartet internationally. As a famous Harvard university alumnus, she was invited to play at the inauguration of Harvard's new president, Dew Faust.

Discography

Recorded under Vanguard Records:

*Simple Pleasures (1990)

*Twilight Motel (1992)

*Look Left (1994)

*Quartet (1996)

*Best of the Vanguard Years (2002)

*Vanguard Visionaries (2007)

Recorded under Compass Records:

*Out of the Blue (1998)

*Fair Weather (2000)

*Replay (2002)

*Stolen Moments (2005)

*Evergreen (2008)

*The Company You Keep (2009)

Reference