Mandolin (and clarinet) monster Andy Staman will be a featured guest on this afternoon’s Blue Plate on WDVX. The show will feature live performance and discussion, and is broadcast from Knoxville, TN at 89.9 FM.

The station’s feed is also streamed live online, in a variety of audio formats, so you can hear the show from anywhere. Listen in at noon, eastern US time.

It’s not clear whether Statman will be featured doing mandolin music, or whether me might have his klezmer outfit in tow. Either way, it should be an hour of inspiring and viruosic instrumental music.

David Royko had a nice feature on Andy Statman in yesterday’s edition of The Chicago Tribune. It was written primarily to preview and promote a Statman show in Chicago on February 5, but includes an overview of his music career, and highlights the two disparate styles of music that pull at his heartstrings.

Statman first came to prominence as a mandolinist who, while schooled in bluegrass, was pushing the envelope of the music’s outer edges in the 1970s. At the same time, he was immersed in the study of klezmer music on the clarinet. It is a rare combination, and rarer still to find a musician who can be widely recognized as a virtuoso in both styles, and on both instruments.

“Andy Statman is one of the greatest mandolinists of this–or any–era, and has been a hero of mine for decades,” says jazz mandolinist Don Stiernberg. “He thinks at the speed of light and can play whatever he thinks of. As an improviser he is fearless, and his musical vocabulary has no limitations. Andy really pulls everything together–technical mastery in service of spirit-driven music, highly personal musical statements stemming from thorough knowledge of traditions. Everyone should hear him play, not just those interested in the mandolin or various styles of music he’s associated with. There’s no one else like him and his depth and unique approach are something to behold.”

Read the full article on the Tribune site.

Rounder Records is bringing a number of instrumental classics out on CD this fall, starting with the release today of Bela Flecks’ debut solo project from 1980, Crossing The Tracks.

When this album first hit, the groans of anguish from banjo players could be heard all over the world. Those of us active at the time had been hearing about this young banjo phenom up in Boston for as much as two years before this record came out, and it seemed impossible that he could really be as good as the few who had seen him live had reported.

I’ll never forget the “reality check” I got from listening to Crossing The Tracks that first time. Any pretense I had as a young banjo player of “rewriting the book on banjo” were torn to bits by Bela’s obvious mastery of the instrument, not to mention his vision as a soloist and his obvious skill as a composer. Wow.

Of course, those “groans” from banjo players were only metaphorical, and we all recognized that a major voice had emerged on the instrument. His promise seemed limitless, and it has been a pure joy to follow his career since. I might liken it to the way the mandolin world reacted when Chris Thile hit in earnest - a mix of awe and disbelief, with just a touch of embarrassment.

Some of the material from this release had appeared on Fleck collections already, but I urge anyone interested in Bela’s music, or the modern history of the banjo, to get this reissue.

Also due to be reissued on CD this fall on Rounder:

The four CDs highlighted above are described as Online Exclusives, which seems to mean that they will only be available from the Rounder web site.

In what will be very welcome news for mandolin aficionados, virtuoso multi-instrumentalist Andy Statman is poised to release his first mandolin recording in more than ten years. East Flatbush Blues is due for release in the near future, and there is an email notification link on Andy’s web site for anyone who would like to receive a note when the CD is shipping.

Statman was a product of the folk and acoustic music flowering in the 1960s, coming of age in the active cultural environment of the Greenwich Village musical scene. He was raised in a family of professional musicians and cantors, and became fascinated in his teens with the sounds of bluegrass music - and the mandolin. A chance meeting with David Grisman turned into a opportunity for intense instruction on the instrument, and Grisman quickly recognized that he had a true prodigy on his hands.

Andy made a number of recordings with progressive New York area acoustic groups in the 1970s, including jaw dropping solos on projects for Tony Trischka and Russ Barrenburg which brought him to the attention of critics and fellow mandolinists alike. In recent years, Statman has dedicated more and more of his professional life to his other musical love, traditional klezmer music, which he performs brilliantly on the clarinet. Most of his recordings and performances have had that focus of late, and it is terrific news that he is offering his mandolin music again after so many years.

You can preview a few audio snippets from the new CD on Andy’s web site.