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Individual Album Reviews & Information:
Pioneer Nights
New Traditions
Reflections
American Dream

"Uncommon it is. . .An uncommonly good combination. It's really nice to have someone put a little gem like this in your lap."

"[Weissman's] interplay between guitar, banjo, and flute is especially appealing,"

"New Traditions features lots of new territory for the banjo...and it's those unconventional combinations of sounds and forms that make this CD so interesting."

"[New Traditions] made me want to sit again in a coffeehouse and listen to you play through the night."

What does one arrive at by crossing old-time music with Django Reinhardt and jazz-grass? Well, basically a beautifully strange album like Pioneer Nights. Banjoist/12-string guitarist Dick Weissman and violinist/guitarist Gary Keiski team up in various combinations to play 18 originals that, genre-wise, defy category. "Mr. Banjeaurine Man" is a lovely banjo piece that lazily twists and turns toward no particular destination, while "Wolfgang's Banjo" glides along like a lullaby. The opening "Django's Dilemma," featuring banjo and fiddle, is one of the most intriguing, addicting pieces on the album. This is the type of instrumental that Reinhardt and Stephane Grapelli would have played had they been born in Appalachia instead of Paris. Although known as a banjo player, Weissman's guitar work is equally impressive. There is a lovely, bossa nova-flavored piece titled "Breeze-il," and a dusty, Far East meets Wild West piece called "Superstition Mountain." His guitar work has an open quality that may remind some of John Fahey or the
later work of Leo Kottke, but Weissman's compositions and phrasings are more distinct, more attention-grabbing. Critics often fall backon the old cliche of "this eartist isn't as well-known as he should be," mostly due to the frustration felt when a wonderful artist isn't given proper recognition. At least one can be thankful that labels like Wind River put artists like Weissman and Keiski in the studio and let their eccentric geniuses run wild. The liner notes by Weissman provide lots of nice tidbits on individual pieces, and on his inspiration for the album. Pioneer Nights is a beautiful album and should be warmly welcomed by everyone who loves original acoustic instrumentals. Don't miss it.

New Traditions by Dick Weissman, stretches the boundaries of the folk as it is defined today. With the help of Bob Rebholz on tenor saxophone, Dick has created a completely new style and sound of banjo playing with twinges of New Age, Folk, Bluegrass, Jazz and Easy Listening combined as one.

The album is primarily instrumental, but in trying to create the feel of country/ bluegrass music, Bluegrass Legends Tim and Mollie O'Brien lend vocals on one cut. On New Traditions, Dick was also joined by Bob Rebholz, as well as western artist Sid Hausman. New Traditions features the country inspired "Soon You Will Be Coming Back To Me," where the O'Brein's provide vocals and instrumentation, as well as the "After Kentucky" suite which Dick calls, "Sort of an answer to "A Day In The Kentucky Mountains." "After Kentucky" features Hausman singing "The Light Behind the Foothills." Perhaps the most unusual track on New Traditions is "Two Nights in Tamerza," where Dick evoked Tunisian music by playing slide banjo on a banjo in altered tuning, and used fingerpicks on the banjo's head to achieve a unique drum sound. All of the music on the album was composed and arranged by Weissman, with Bob Rebholz on the tenor sax and Dick himself on piano and guitar.

REFLECTIONS, the third album by Dick Weissman, is a great addition to fans with collections of cultivated, avant-garde music that speaks from the soul. Some of the tracks on this album to some, evoke pictures of simplicity and retired customs. Churning butter in a wodden barrel, dragging horses through rugged mountains, and harvesting wholesome crops suddenly spring to life, as music illustrates their rigorous movement. Mellow jazz enthusiasts will admire saxophone interludes and soaring flute melodies. And for those fans of bluegrass, folk, world, ragtime, and banjo music, this album will at the very least, perk your curiousity. The music is a story in itself.

REFLECTIONS
Album Summary by Dick Weissman

This is my third album for Folk Era. I think it is the most representative sampling of my musical tastes, interests and talents. I've tried to use the banjo as an expressive tool, and not be concerned with musical boundaries or the supposed limitations of the banjo.

Almost all of this music was written while sitting on a hidden, second story porch of a 104-year old house in Astoria, Oregon. It's only about three blocks from the Columbia River, and I can watch the boats traveling from the ocean up the river to Portland, and back again. From the porch the music floats into the air and the people walking on the street can hear the music but they don't know who is playing. I think that's what music should be about - a gift to be carried freely through the air to as many places as possible.

The title track of the album, "Reflections," is a song based on a true story. Two of my good friends were on TWA flight 800, that crashed near New York in the summer of 1996. This is a three part piece dedicated to Arthur and Joan Bauer Benjamin and their children Caleb, Rachel and Sarah. The first movement is a sort of personal recollection. The second section, Art's Tunes, reflects Art's love of Irish music, and the third part is a new version of the traditional song, "Little Birdie."

I used a number of newly acquired instruments for this album. The banjeaurine neck was made by Leonard Coulson of Intermountain Banjo & Guitar in Salt Lake City, and the wodden give string banjo was made by Edward Dick in Denver. The bizarre and wonderful hub-cap guitar is a resonator guitar with a '55 Oldsmobile hubcap acting as the resonator. It was built by Larry Pogreba in Lyons, Colorado.

Dick Weissman returns with an album displaying a level of sensitivity and emotion not normally found on the five-string banjo. Classical guitarist Alex Komodore and saxophone/flute artist Bob Rebholz combine with Weissman to create new categories of acoustic music. This three man group evolved when Weissman was requested to compose and perform a concert of original music for the University of Colorado, Denver. The piece the trio performed that night was a series of portraits illustrating the northern Oregon coast called, "Something About the Rain." This concert section, which was then re-recorded in the studio, is heard in the movements "Clouds", "New House", "The Rues", "Every Time It Rains", and "Brush Fire."

To this program, Weissman added a number of both relaxing and inspiring tunes. "Colita," with Bob on soprano sax and Alex on classical guitar, is a mellow song of sensitive saxophone. "Kindred Spirits," with Dick on banjo-lute and Bob on flute, is a slower song with visions of strolling paths and soul-searching contemplation. "Scirocco," a serious piece inspired by Bob, gives life to blowing clouds and the growing anticipation felt before a storm reaches ground. The closing of windows, the scrambling for umbrellas, and the dragging in of lawn furniture are the pictures evoked after listening to this ballad. "Rocky's Rag," the third track on the album, is a ragtime romp with Dick on banjo, nine-string guitar, and soprano sax. It brings a listener back to New Orleans in it's "underdeveloped" days. It is memories of Sunday drives, carefree conversations, and days of whittling away at scraps of white birch twigs.

In AMERICAN DREAMS, Dick Weissman plays the five-string banjo, banjo lute and guitar. The Uncommon Thread - Alex Komodore and Bob Rebholz, features Alex performing on both the classical and nine-string guitar and Rebholz on a variety of saxophones, flutes and EMI electronic woodwinds, and together they create a soothing, unique blending of genres and eclectic instruments that beautifully captures the concepts Weissman has set out to explore in his music.

Dick Weissman & The Uncommon Thread
AMERICAN DREAMS

Teaming up with classical guitarist Alex Komodore and saxophonist/flutist Bob Rebholz, banjo man extraordinaire, Dick Weissman assembled a trio that polishes off nearly a dozen diverse tunes, from folk to bluegrass to jazz to new age. The result is folk-jazz, a hybrid that's most closely associated, perhaps, with Bela Fleck.

Weissman, though, also likes to conceptualize while he picks, and serves up a marvelous suite of moody melodies about the Oregon coast that was first composed specifically for a concert. Weissman has come a long way from The Journey, the folk trio that included John Phillips and Scott McKenzie; he's truly a five-string master.

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