This Saturday (9/15), Radio Bluegrass International (RBI), an online radio service of the International Bluegrass Music Museum, will feature portions of their interviews with Jake Quesenberry, an important figure in west coast bluegrass, and a co-founder of the California Bluegrass Association.

Jake passed away on July 3 of this year, but his reminiscences had been recorded by the IBMM as a part of their Video Oral History project. This is the museum’s crucially important mission to capture audio interviews with the early generation of bluegrass pioneers before their first hand reportage is lost to us.

Jake’s contributions to bluegrass music are fondly remembered on the Pleasant Valley Music blog site.

You can catch the RBI program on Saturday at 10:00 a.m. eastern time on the IBMM site. For now, there is no charge to access the online audio feed at RBI, but a $4/month subscription will be required starting on October 1.

California photographer Tom Tworek has recently posted a gallery of images he shot at SuperGrass, the California Bluegrass Association’s annual indoor winter festival, which ran February 1-4.

These were taken from the stage, and are mostly close up, portrait shots of bluegrass artists like JD Crowe & The New South, Kenny & Amanda Smith, The Grascals, Michael Cleveland & Flamekeeper, The Isaacs and others.

You can find these images on Tom’s site, Gold Coast galleries, where he has also posted photos taken at a number of bluegrass events, and where you can purchase his portraits online.

From Ronnie Reno, via J.D. Rhynes, who posted on the California Bluegrass Association web site, comes word that Merle Haggard is working on a bluegrass project.

That CBA news posting elicited a response from Elida Ickes on the CBA message board that her son, Rob, was playing dobro on the Haggard bluegrass sessions.

Rob said initially they all sat in a circle and just jammed on a few tunes that Merle was interested in doing. (Other players are: Aubrie Haynie, Marty Stuart, Ben Isaacs, and Charlie Cushman) Hope I spelled everyone’s name correctly and remembered everyone that was there. Then Merle said he liked this and suggested that they record just sitting in a circle jamming!!! That is what they did so it will be mostly live taping!! Rob said the first song they did was “I Wonder Where You Are Tonight.”

Another song Rob really liked is a new one that Merle wrote called, “Pray.” Rob said the whole time he could not believe he was sitting in the circle “jamming” with Merle Haggard. Again, it was the highlight of Rob’s life. He goes into the studio again today to finish up. They did 8 songs yesterday and hope to do 4 or 5 more today.

You can read the news posting on CBA’s site, and the follow-up bulletin board discussion there as well. We will try to contact some of the players and find out more about this project, which I am certainly eager to hear.

Thanks to Megan Lynch who first alerted us to this story, and Rick Cornish and Craig Wilson with CBA for their help finding the original post in their archives.

Pacific Ocean Bluegrass is the brainchild of Scott Gates, a 14 year old mandolin player from California’s High Desert region. He assembled a band composed entirely of other California teens, and they take their bluegrass seriously. They also take exposing the music to their contemporaries seriously, playing for school assemblies around the state.

Mimi Gates, who represents the band, tells us that the school assemblies are a big hit, and that seeing young folks their age playing bluegrass has an even more dramatic impact on the young audiences than even seeing a professional band perform.

There is no gimmick, no hyping CD sales. Just pure, simple exposure to this good music. The children go home, tell their parents about the assembly, and many have asked to be taken to bluegrass festivals.

She also shared a bit of background on the members of the group.

Scott Gates, age 14, began playing mandolin at 8 years old. Angelica Grim, age 17, from Modesto, was exposed to bluegrass music at a very early age by her father. She is now an excellent bluegrass singer. Scott asked Angelica to be the lead singer in his band at the first annual Supergrass Festival in Bakersfield, CA in 2006. She accepted, and with that they fleshed out the band with banjo player Victor Skidanenko, 16, from San Jose, Paul Davis, 17, on flatpick guitar from Santa Cruz, and Julian Conn Busch, 14, from Scotts Valley on bass.

Two more young up-and-coming musicians from California perform with Pacific Ocean Bluegrass when the occasion allows. They are Katie Nakamura, 11,fiddle, from Long Beach, and Aissa Lee, 8, from Tracy, who sings brilliantly. Keep a close eye on her. She also backs herself up with a baby Martin guitar, baby banjo, baby fiddle or baby bass or mandolin. She’s just GOT IT, but her vocals are AMAZING.

Pacific Ocean Bluegrass is currently running a fundraiser to benefit the California Bluegrass Association’s Music Camp Scholarship Fund. Any sales of their Festival Kids CD between September 1-15 will generate a donation of $3.00 so that a child who would otherwise be unable to attend Music Camp, can have the opportunity to do so.

Mimi mentioned that these young folks all have supportive families, and understand that being serious about music doesn’t mean they can neglect their education. Good grades are a requirement to remaining with the band, as is treating each other (and their respective families) with courtesy and respect.

You can find some audio and video clips of these exceptional young musicians on the Pacific Ocean Bluegrass web site.