#jeff picker

Song Review: Sarah Jarosz with Jeff Picker - “The Way You Look Tonight”

Can Sarah Jarosz be Frank?

She loves you and “The Way You Look Tonight.”

Accompanied by a walking and soloing Jeff Picker on stand-up bass, Jarosz took complete ownership of this Sinatra standard. Playing a sprightly melody on mandocello, singing with passion and cuing Picker, Jarosz put a new spin on an old classic without wiping away what makes it classic in the first place.

Not only can Jarosz be Frank. She can be perfectly Frank.

Grade card: Sarah Jarosz with Jeff Picker - “The Way You Look Tonight” - A+

Travis Book to Miss Infamous Stringdusters’ Winter Tour after Bicycle Accident

- Barry Bales and Jeff Picker to fill in

Travis Book will miss the Infamous Stringdusters’ Ski Dust tour after fracturing multiple bones in a bicycle accident.

Book will miss the band’s Feb. 7-16 run through Colorado and Utah; Barry Bales (Alison Krauss & Union Station) and Jeff Picker will fill in.

“This is truly heartbreaking, as I’ve been looking forward to these shows (and the skiing) for almost a year,” Book said in a statement.

The bassist was injured Jan. 27 near his home in North Carolina.

“I’m in good hands, and have good meds and the prognosis for recovery is good,” Book said, adding he hopes to be able to return in six to eight weeks.

The ’Dusters begin an East Coast tour March 13 in New York.

Album Review: Jeff Picker - With the Bass in Mind

While the bass is always in Jeff Picker’s mind, With the Bass in Mind is first and foremost about collaborative music-making.

Picker, who lays down rhythm for Ricky Skaggs, Sarah Jarosz and others, wrote the 10 instrumentals that comprise his solo debut. And while he could have easily dominated the proceedings, he does not, taking only a few, short, well-placed solos.

A gregarious and accommodating frontman, Picker leaves the spotlight to his compatriots - fiddler Mark Barnett (Skaggs), mandolinist Dominick Leslie (Hawktail) and guitarist Jake Stargel (Sierra Hull), plus banjoist Cory Walker (Hull) on two numbers - as the amalgamated string band plays melody-rich jazz (“Disturbance in the Kitchen,” “Rooster in the Tire Well”), night music (“Lullaby”) and straight ’grass (“Ricky’s Run”).

The result is an instrumental LP that’s assertive enough to work as foreground music, yet unobtrusive enough to work just as well in the background.

Grade card: Jeff Picker - With the Bass in Mind - A-

Song Review: Sarah Jarosz with Jeff Picker - “Sign on the Window”

Sarah Jarosz dug deep into the Bob Dylan songbook for her cover of “Sign on the Window.”

Playing octave mandolin and accompanied by Jeff Picker on upright bass, Jarosz transformed the 1970 New Morning piano ballad into something else entirely. It’s a testament to her her gift that the transformation was not an erasure of Dylan’s original yearning dream.

Dylan’s 79 now and the song no longer suits him. Jarosz, however, is 29 and “Sign on the Window” is right in her stage of life - and musical wheelhouse - pronouns be damned.

Grade card: Sarah Jarosz with Jeff Picker - “Sign on the Window” - B

Jarosz releases World on the Ground June 5; Sound Bites will have a review after adequate listenings.

Song Review: Sarah Jarosz with Jeff Picker - “Land on Shore”

Octave mandolin and acoustic guitar fill the air and intertwine in the ether as Sarah Jarosz and Jeff Picker perform “Land on Shore.”

We will land on shore and be safe for evermore, the duo sing in harmony on the traditional number, recorded at home for the New England Conservatory of Music‘s “Healing Music” series.

“It struck me as an appropriate lyric for the current circumstances in our world,” Jarosz said in a statement accompanying the release.

But it’s the instrumentation that makes this rendition so impactful. Trading lead and rhythm duties on their respective instruments, Jarosz and Picker work seamlessly, two musicians forming a single unit in a time when banding together will prove more successful than going it alone.

Grade card: Sarah Jarosz with Jeff Picker - “Land on Shore” - A