Long bio.
The mandolinist David Grisman, spiritual father of the most radical wing of American progressive folk, generated a current known as “dawg music” or also “newgrass” or “jazzgrass.”

Coming from the Greenwich Village folk circuit, where he had been playing bluegrass since the early ’60s, he approached folk and jazz in the Earth Opera (Elektra, 1968), initially as a saxophonist, a band formed with Peter Rowan in 1967. This ensemble stood out for the suite The Great American Eagle Tragedy (Elektra, 1969).

As soon as the California bands shed their lysergic-guru trappings for those of the ranchero, Grisman moved to San Francisco, offering his mandolin even to the Grateful Dead. From that period came, for example, a couple of short-lived bluegrass projects: the first, Old And In The Way (Rounder, 1975 – Rykodisc, 1986), with Jerry Garcia on banjo and Vassar Clements on fiddle; the second, the Great American Music Band, with Richard Greene on violin and Taj Mahal on bass; as well as the legendary session Muleskinner (Warner Brothers, 1974) with Rowan, Greene, and Clarence White. The album contains Rowan’s Runways Of The Moon and Grisman’s Opus 57 In G Minor. Greene and Rowan were already playing in the Seatrain, while Grisman formed his own Quintet, with two mandolins, guitar, bass, and violin. Grisman began running this ensemble in the manner of jazz orchestras, writing and arranging pieces according to the musicians.

On the first album, The David Grisman Rounder Album (Rounder, 1976), Vassar Clements plays fiddle, Bill Keith the banjo, Tony Rice the guitar, Jerry Douglas the dobro, Todd Phillips the double bass, and Ricky Skaggs sings. The style is still fairly traditional bluegrass, although Grisman focuses mainly on lesser-known pieces from the tradition. Grisman nonetheless sketches out his first instrumental compositions: Waiting For Vassar, a long, breakneck excursus; Bob's Brewin', steeped in ’40s swing; and Op. 38, which inaugurates the series of classical-style titles.

A completely different affair is the next album, titled The David Grisman Quintet (Kaleidoscope, 1977), almost entirely made of original material. That was the official birth of “dawg music” (from his nickname), a sort of bluegrass without banjo and enhanced with swing rhythm and occasional ethnic contributions. The quintet consisted of Grisman on mandolin, Rice on guitar, Phillips on second mandolin, Darol Anger on fiddle, and Bill Amatneek on double bass. From the jovial romp of E.M.D. one senses greater mastery and awareness. The strong doses of swing in Opus 57, the ballad-like flavor of Blue Midnite, and the humor and exoticism emanating from Pneumonia shift the center of gravity of his music entirely outside the tradition.
Towering over the album is the nine-minute Dawg's Rag, which would remain his masterpiece, as well as the manifesto of his bold—and frenetically so—picking style, and of the composed gallop of his Quintet, straddling bluegrass and jazz, with Anger, a major co-protagonist, at times echoing Jean-Luc Ponty, and a play of dynamics and chiaroscuro that exponentially increases the genre’s complexity.
The melodies are always simple and immediate, but the instrumental parts are often unpredictable, with the musicians free to inject whatever comes to mind. Above all, the purity of execution is worthy of classical chamber music. And this is the greatest novelty, as with Grisman, bluegrass sheds its connotations of rural dance for drunken farmers and becomes a salon art for sophisticated bourgeois audiences.

Stéphane Grappelli and Eddie Gomez took part in Hot Dawg (A&M, 1979), thereby legitimizing Grisman in the jazz world. The quintet, however, had now shrunk to a quartet, with Grisman, Rice, and Anger supported each time by different bassists (and Grappelli twice replacing Anger). In a handful of pieces, the young mandolinist Mike Marshall stands out. As usual, lively tracks such as Dawg's Bull abound, but the best may lie in the strumming of Dawgology, at times almost flamenco and at times nearly dissonant.

Quintet '80 (Warner Brothers, 1980) employs the classic configuration of the Quintet, the one that in retrospect can be considered the greatest supergroup in the history of country music: Grisman, Anger, Marshall, Mark O'Connor on guitar, and Rob Wasserman on double bass. The quality of execution now borders on mannerism—whether in the choice of timbres, the timing of the interventions, or the refinement of the counterpoint.
Pieces such as Bow Wow are played like Renaissance madrigals, with the same poised bearing and the same radiant picking. The heart of his work remains, however, the lively jazz of Dawgma and Sea Of Cortez. Between a ballad like Dawgmatism and a Leo Kottke-like vignette such as Barkley's Bug emerges the tour de force of the album—and perhaps of Grisman's entire career: Thailand. The piece is hardly exotic: it launches headlong into one of his most epileptic bluegrass runs, loses itself in an Anger solo, and then gradually rebuilds itself through the sparse strumming of the various instruments in a great display of class.

More relaxed is Mondo Mando (Warner Brothers, 1981), between the lanky Cedar Hill and Fanny Hill and the splendid melody of Japan (the catchiest of his career). The more ambitious tracks are Caliente, with the leader’s mandolin circling a South American theme, and the title track, a classical piece for a string septet (the Kronos Quartet, Grisman, Marshall, and Wasserman).

Grisman is by now a major name in both country and jazz music, as demonstrated by Here Today (Rounder, 1982), with Herb Pederson, Vince Grill, Jim Buchanan, and Dawg Grass/ Dawg Jazz (Warner Brothers, 1983), whose second half is a collaboration with Grappelli, and whose first half serves up a trio of feverish bluegrass tunes (14 Miles To Barstow, Dawggy Mountain Breakdown, Dawg Grass) and a syncopated Swamp Dawg, offering a break from his customary intellectualisms.

To make up for it, immediately afterward he released Mandolin Abstractions (Rounder, 1983), a collection of eight “spontaneous compositions” created in collaboration with his student Andy Statman.

Meanwhile, Darol Anger and Mike Marshall embarked on paths that would lead them to the highest honors in the field of acoustic ensemble music. Grisman, remaining in a quartet with Wasserman, Jim Buchanan (violin), and Jon Sholle (guitar), decided to go against the current: Acousticity (MCA, 1985) is his first album to incorporate a percussionist (the legendary veteran Hal Blaine). The material is first-rate, but the tone returns to that carefree style of the great entertainer. Passing through are the easy exotica of Dawglypso and Brazilian Breeze, reminiscent of the 1950s orchestras, and the orchestral funk of the title track and New Monia. The latter is also one of the few tracks rich in surprises.

Grisman recorded a number of albums with Jerry Garcia: David Grisman & Jerry Garcia (Acoustic, 1991), Not For Kids (Acoustic, 1993), Shady Grove (Acoustic, 1996). More material surfaced after Garcia's death: So What (Acoustic, 1998), The Teddy Bear's Picnic (1998), There Ain't No Bugs On Me (1999), The Pizza Tapes (Acoustic, 2000).

Grisman continued a prolific recording career, both alone and in collaborations: Svingin' With Svend (Zebra 42108, 1987), Home Is Where The Heart Is (Rounder, 1988), Dawg 90 (Acoustic, 1990), Dagwood (Acoustic, 1993), Songs Of Our Fathers (Acoustic, 1995), Dawganova (Acoustic, 1995). Also notable are his three volumes of Tone Poems (Acoustic, 1994), Tone Poems II (Acoustic, 1995), Tone Poems III (Acoustic, 2000).

DGQ 20 (1996) is an anthology of all the Quintet records.

Grisman spent the second half of the 1990s releasing collaborations: Common Chord (1995), with Daniel Kobialka; Doc & Dawg (1997), with Doc Watson; I'm Beginning to See the Light (1999), with guitarist Martin Taylor; Retrograss (1999), with John Hartford and Mike Seeger; New River (2001), with pianist Denny Zeitlin; and the Dawg Duos (1999).

Dawgnation (2002) marks the return of the David Grisman Quintet, which is now Grisman on mandolin, Joe Craven on percussion, James Kerwin on bass, Matt Eakle on flute, Enrique Coria on guitar.

Archival material of Old And In The Way was released on That High Lonesome Sound (1996), Breakdown (1997), Old & In The Gray (2002).