Album Notes

JMP REISSUES - THE JAZZ MANDOLIN PROJECT
WITH LIVE BONUS TRACKS RECORDED AT BONNAROO!!
JMP is excited to announce, the national re-release of our first album,The Jazz Mandolin Project, on our label Lenapee Records. The release date is November 16, 2004. This debut album features Jamie Masefield, Stacey Starkweather and Gabriel Jarrett, the original JMP lineup that took the country by surprise with its revolutionary live shows. This historic release provides many of JMP's fans favorite songs and now we have added 2 new bonus tracks that were recorded LIVE at Bonnaroo 2004, to the re-release! These tracks, The Country Open and Nozani na, feature Jamie Masefield on mandolin, Jon Fishman on drums, Danton Boller on Bass, and Michael "Mad Dog" Mavridoglou on trumpet and keys. The bonus tracks provide valuable insight into the progress and depth the band has had over 8 years (original release was 96). Compare the original tracks with the live ones in front of 8,000 fans at the largest music festival in the country!

The Jazz Mandolin Project, which began as a group of jazz players that would get together at a local coffeehouse in Burlington, VT in 1993, has become one of the hardest touring live acts out there today. Jamie Masefield formed the group of ever-changing musicians to give himself the opportunity to do what he loved, to play jazz on the mandolin. The premise was that it wouldn't be looked at as a strict jazz gig but a session where the musicians would play whatever moved them, no matter what genre it took them to. "The whole concept of JMP," says Masefield "has been one of experimentation. Not everything we play could be considered jazz. We've always just played what interested us, so, often that has taken us far afield from what a typical person might consider jazz. The hope is that we sound like now rather than then."

To this day, to keep the flow of new ideas and creativity, JMP is found touring the country with different musicians. Some of the family of musicians who have played with JMP include such artists as Jon Fishman (Phish) on drums, Ari Hoenig (Kenny Werner, Joshua Redman) on drums, Chris Dahlgren (Anthony Braxton) on bass, Chris Lovejoy (Charlie Hunter) on percussion, and Danton Boller (Roy Hargrove, Benny Wallace) on bass. With an extraordinary ability to captivate all audiences, JMP has shared the stage with diverse artists such as members of Phish, MOE, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Ratdog, Rusted Root, Marc Ribot, String Cheese Incident, John Scofield and Soulive.