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Family-values "Cook's Tour"
Banjoist Tony Trishka in concert
Saturday, October 1, 2005
By John Hammel

Banjoist Tony Trishka in concert - Presented by the Unitarian Society of Ridgewood.

Tony Trishka's wonderful "Family-Values Cook's Tour" of the banjo (my title), with appropriate asides, information, and masterfully first class technique, began with this wonderful quote by Mark Twain: "When you want genuine music - music that will come right home to you like a bad quarter, suffuse your system like strychnine whiskey, go right through you like Brandreth's pills, ramify your whole constitution like the measles, and break out on your hide like the pinfeather pimples on a picked goose - when you want all this, just smash your piano and invoke the glory-beaming banjo!"

The banjo has too often in the past been relegated to second class citizen status due to its unwarranted denigration as a "minstrel or novelty instrument, not so far removed in regard from the bassoon or grand bassoon, which is also thought of by some as a "joke" instrument, only suitable when you want to go slumming or need a "funny" sound to provide rustic or buffoonish coloring. Worse yet, there is the not too-subtle condescension of highbrows looking down elongated noses at the likes of bluegrass or Appalachian music. Well, thank heaven for practitioners like Tony Trishka and Bela Fleck, two extraordinary banjoists, who dispel such vile calumnies. Mr. Trishka's performance provided an insightful master class in the banjo's origins, stylistic diversity, and colorful possibilities with grace, wit and humor, not to mention a world class technical ability that is second to none, including the much and deservedly heralded Mr. Fleck. Where Mr. Fleck allows his sense of humor to filter primarily through his playing, Mr. Trishka, with a nearly nonstop verbal history lesson, constant witty asides, and a true showman's sense of timing, grabs his audience's attention and doesn't let go until the bitterly sweet end.

The modern banjo is derived from an early American variation of an even earlier stringed African instrument called an akonting. Some etymologists believe the name derives from a pronunciation of "bandore", though others consider it to come from a Senegalese-Gambian term representing the bamboo stick that was used for the African instrument's neck. In any case, it originally was a simple non-fretted, gourd-constructed stringed instrument with four strings and a fifth shorter string pegged in the middle of the neck to be utilized for a drone effect. It has evolved over the years into a variety of fretted four-stringed (plectrum and tenor), five-stringed, and even a six-stringed versions, which are tuned and played similarly to a guitar. There are numerous playing styles, including frailing (characterized by the thumb plucking a drone string), clawhammer (other strings may be plucked by the thumb), and finger picking (the thumb and first two fingers primarily). There are also numerous tunings utilized and various styles of playing. Three of the more famous are the Earl Scruggs style, a fast-paced, finger-picked style that rocketed the banjo from secondary to lead role status, the melodic or Keith style and the Reno style named after Don Reno. In all of these styles there is an added emphasis on *arpeggiated figurations played in continuous eighth note rhythms that provide a dramatically exhilarating effect. The banjo has also evolved into a variety of hybrid instruments that retain the body of the banjo but incorporate the neck of other stringed instruments (such as the guitar banjo, the banjo mandolin, and the banjo ukelele or "banjolele.")

Mr. Trishka didn't play all of the above instruments on this night. However he did play and explain the African originator, the "banza," also a banjo that evolved during the mid 1800's, and a few more modern instruments including a beautifully crafted and brilliant sounding National Resonator banjo. The National Company made and makes all metal stringed instruments with resonating holes in the body of the instrument giving a heightened sense of cleanly illuminated sound.

He entertained the assembled crowd with renditions of minstrel and folk tunes, Appalachian, bluegrass, African, Celtic, Bob Dylan songs, Earl Scruggs tunes, contemporary colleagues, (Norman Blake, a legendary flat top guitarist and banjo player), movie themes ("Dueling Banjos" with Mr. Trishka playing both parts but not simultaneously!), three original tunes written for his wife and two children, who were in attendance, and even a medley of Beatles songs, all expertly rendered with appropriate aplomb and élan. He even played an excerpt from Ludwig van Beethoven's Mandolin Sonata in C major, WoO 44a, composed in 1796 in Vienna.

Mr. Trishka explained and demonstrated all of the various playing techniques and styles with delightful insight, providing expert renderings in a lucid, affable manner. He is the perfect ambassador for the unlimited potential and appeal of the modern banjo and its ability to traverse any genre of music.

This was a wonderful journey into both the familiar and the arcane, elucidating, entertaining and educating along the way. And it is but one facet of Mr. Trishka's artistic expression. He also performs with a touring ensemble, The Tony Tirshka Band, which exemplifies the very best synthesis of musical languages such as world beat, jazz, folk, bluegrass, rock and classical.

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