I hope this finds y’all well.  It’s been a crazy-busy rollercoaster ride of late. Lots of fiddling, jazzing, composing, traveling around this ol’ hemisphere… We all had a ball @ the amazing Celtic Connections festival last month in Glasgow, Scotland.  Met up and jammed til the “wee hours” with many longstanding folk heroes of mine like Alasdair Fraser, Phil Cunningham, Darrell Scott… Just a ridiculous outpouring of heartfelt music there. Rock!

Speaking of folk heroes, here’s a fun video I just found from last summer, jamming with my friend Hanneke Cassel on fiddle, duo-Scottish style.  Starts meditatively, but really gets going later on…  She totally rips, doesn’t she?

The Jeremy Kittel Band hits the road for much of March and April, and we’d love to see you. I’ll be joined by Josh Pinkham (mandolin), Simon Chrisman (hammered dulcimer), and Nathaniel Smith (cello), and if you join us too it’ll be that much more fun.

My friend Abigail Washburn has been commissioned by the Public Theater in New York to write some kind of a stage piece / musical story drawing on her adventures as an American in China. She’s asked me to write & arrange some music for a small group of American and Chinese musicians for the show, which will premier as a work-in-progress in late March. Check back for more info soon – shadow puppets are promised!

The end of January I had a great time working with strings students out at the Buckley School in Los Angeles. I spent a week helping them connect their ears to their instruments (not literally), getting them into grooves on their fearsome four-stringed fiddles, and coaxing them to jump into improvising. It’s also well-known that there’s a big disconnect these days between the music strings-playing kids listen to (mostly American pop) and the music they learn in orchestra; so we spent some time learning music they knew – Queen, Daft Punk, and Kanye West, etc – and had some fun improvising too. The end of the week saw us lending our talents to a fundraiser to provide instruments to schools that can’t afford them. George Thorogood (bad to the bone) & the Destroyers even played at the end, and we all danced our butts off.

In between settling into Brooklyn and going out on the road for JK Band gigs, I’ve had the great pleasure of heading out to Portland, OR to compose and record strings for a couple new upcoming records recently, by Aoife O’Donovan and Camera Obscura.

Aoife, whom you might’ve heard in the Goat Rodeo Project or Crooked Still, has a gorgeous solo album coming out soon; it sounded way killer before I added sounds to it, so hopefully it at least still sounds way killer ☺ if not a touch more exciting.  Aoife and I go way back to early fiddle camp days in northern California, and it’s so great to keep making music together.

Camera Obscura is an indie band >:-| you may know from Glasgow, Scotland, and I worked up some big-sounding strings for a couple songs…  Their album is sounding a bit like a combination of 80’s synths, 50′s early rock, and 30’s swing, all put together into one festive, simmering pot of Sco’ish goodness.  They’re really pretty rad.  Here’s a rather bitterwsweet video from their last record:

Lots of new original music brewing in my head as well, these days.  Hope you find yourself humming sometime soon.  ☺

It’s not every day that you get to work a few of your childhood heroes, and this last month has not been every day.  Or rather… every month…?  Jars of Clay -  the platinum-selling, multi-Grammy-winning band that derives their name from 2 Corinthians 4:7 – is a band I first encountered when I was ten years old, just before I became very serious about music, and long before I’d developed the analytical, hip (??  ;) ears of a musician.  I remember playing Nintendo in a friend’s room and listening to their music, which resonated with me so much – their acoustic, open-sounding blend of guitars, percussion, strings, oboe…

This last month I’ve been composing, arranging, and recording strings for their next album.  It’s been a very rewarding project so far, centered around a great collection of songs written and performed by band members Dan, Matt, Steve, and Charlie & the rest of the band as well as legendary drummer Matt Chamberlain, with the singular Tucker Martine at the producing helm.

I’ve been recording violin and viola on the road and in Jars’ home of Nashville, TN as well.  It’s been challenging, rewarding arranging/recording work, as I try to flesh out the intangible possibilities in my head onto notation/multi-track recording.  Some of my biggest composer heroes are Samuel Barber and Vince Mendoza (heard Bjork’s Vespertine?) who can both rip your heart out with their orchestral writing.  You can get a pretty big sound when you record dozens of string parts, and this time I was grateful to have a few new additions to the JK recording team:

1) a pair of vintage KM84 condenser microphones, which are my favorite kind to record on strings, and the story is that these were used by the Grateful Dead, amongst many others…

2) Bernard, my new viola.  That’s BER-nard, pronunciation-wise, BTW (no, that’s not Bernard below).  Bernard helps with the depth of the sound of the string arrangements, and with a little computer magic he sounds like a cello – awesome (a special thank-you to the anonymous benefactor who helped me get Bernard on the team :)

Jars of Clay also spearhead blood:water mission – a dynamic initiative to provide clean drinking water and community-building tools to people in west Africa.  From what I gather it seems to be a VERY inspiring and results-oriented program I know – check it out here.

Onwards!  :)

-JK

Have you heard singer-songwriter-cellist Ben Sollee? Ben is one of my favorite musicians out there these days. Fighting a good fight, he is, to my eyes, ears, and soul.  We first got to jam a few years back when I was performing with fantastic Winnipeg-based band the Duhks, and we first worked together professionally on the sessions for the latest My Morning Jacket record, Circuital.  Ben makes music that can reach you deep down, which is my favorite “kind” – whatever that is to each of us. And he kicks tail live, full of spirit and channeling of cosmic heart – at least, that’s my practical impression of what often goes down at his shows.

So I was completely stoked to record violin/viola for his new record, “Half-Made Man,” which is being released in a week or so. Also on the session were bassist Alana Rockland (Nanci Griffith, Jeff Coffin), guitarist Carl Broemel (My Morning Jacket), and Ben’s killer bandmate and drummer Jordon Ellis. Good company, indeed. We recorded in Louisville, KT, probably overdosed on local Heine Brother’s Coffee, and tracked almost everything live, to tape, with no click-track – just searching together for the right feel at that moment for each song.

I think the songs are wonderful and authentic, and I’d recommend this record far and wide. The release date is September 25. Spread the word and listen to it at bensollee.com.

Slainte,

-JK

Can’t wait to get to New York!

My sister and I are cruising through the grasslands of Nebraska, all of my physical possessions in tow, destined towards Brooklyn, USA. Spirits are high and possibilities are endless and exciting. At least, that’s usually been the vibe, though there’s a touch of the bittersweet as well. It’s difficult to say goodbye to a cozy home, a state – California – and a band, even when your intuition and reasoning both point the same direction.

May 18, 2012 will be my last performance with the famous Turtle Island [String] Quartet. It’s been an amazing four ½, nearly five years that I’ve been a full-time member.  I’m fortunate enough to have seen forty-foot ice owls in Alaska; jammed with master choro musicians in Sao Paulo; performed astride glimmering glass Austrian furnaces; surfed with violin masters in Porto, Portugal; jumped from the greatest heights in Las Vegas; and last – but absolutely not least – contributed to a number of meaningful collaborations and projects, with such artists as Cyrus Chestnut, Stefon Harris, Sergio & Odair Assad, Paquito D’Rivera, Luna Negra Dance Company and more. I’ve also recorded on two full-length albums with the group – “Have You Ever Been,” featuring our interpretations of the music of Jimi Hendrix, and a collaboration with mandolin master Mike Marshall, to be released later this year. All the while during my time on the Island, I’ve been working and recording with my own band as well, featuring amazing acoustic musicians from all around the US; arranging and collaborating with other artists such as Abigail Washburn and My Morning Jacket; and doing studio work for Sony, Disney & the like.  It’s been hard work, but it’s been great.  The San Francisco Bay has been my home, and Turtle Island has been my main band; I’m so grateful to have lived among such beautiful, inspiring communities, and to have contributed to a group with such a rich legacy of innovative music!

And now, I’m being drawn to a different path. New opportunities and musical energies are calling me eastward, so I’ve decided to leave the quartet and embark on a new adventure. I land in Brooklyn next Wednesday. I love NYC dearly – I lived there for two years during my grad work at Manhattan School of Music – and I’m looking forward to returning. I want to make time for developing some of the sounds I’m hearing and for new collaborations there; I’d like to see how much I can learn, & how much I can give; ideally a balance of stability and flexibility is what I’m hoping for. I have so many ideas and directions in mind that it’s turning out to be more a question of what not to do than what to do!  :-D  One thing’s for sure – I will be touring more with my own band (and as a soloist too), and we hope to see you when we roll through your community.  As always, thank you so much for your support!

I’m so excited for this next chapter; hope to see you along the journey.

Happy flyin’.

It chronicles many of Jeremy’s adventures of the past few years.  Jeremy also discusses many of the joys and challenges related to being a diverse and ambitious musician these days.

A gripping tale, indeed!

Scroll down past the cover to read the article; just click on those pages.

You can subscribe to Strings Magazine by visiting http://allthingsstrings.com

Happy holidays, and holy-days, from brisk northern California, where you’ll be happy to know I’m still vying to catch a good sunburn or two before the solstice.  I hope you are all more than tip-top and maintaining a sense of peace and clarity as we together ramble through the befuddling commercial hecticism that is December in the USA.

That said sincerely, there is a *sale* (woohoo!) on my very first album, the oh-so-mysteriously-named Celtic Fiddle, completed when I was but a lad of sixteen.  I’ve been told it has touched a heart, or two, and it’s only $10 plus shipping for now.  What’s more, if you order three or more CDs from my website at one time, we will refund your shipping entirely (when we fill the order).  Just visit the shop by clicking here to easily order some music for your friends and loved ones.

It was so great to see many of y’all at concerts recently.   I’ve been bopping all over the country the last couple months, touring mostly with the Turtle Island Quartet and some as the Jeremy Kittel Band.  I’ve been everywhere, man (Johnny Cash, anyone?).  Indiana, North Carolina, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Wisconsin, California, NYC, Virginia, many states in the northeast, not to mention an intense tour through the sand hills of Nebraska!   … Which is where we encountered the fabled, mystical Carhenge; take a look.  Surprisingly low in kitsch; high in heart.  Better than the orig?

The coming new year promises to bring much excitement and opportunity.  In early January, I’ll be out performing in Virginia and North Carolina with my own band for a weekend, featuring the fantastic musicians Josh Pinkham (mandolin), Nathaniel Smith (cello), and Simon Chrisman (dulcimer).  I expect to see all of you there (no excuses, Alaskans!)  Shortly afterward, I’m looking forward to spending some time in Kentucky doing some recording for friend and cellist/songwriter extraordinaire Ben Sollee’s next album.  Definitely check out Ben’s music if you haven’t heard him yet.  Last but not least, Turtle Island will be swinging through LA, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Deutschland early in the new year, so come hear some great music and say hello.

For now; wishing all the best to you and yours!  Stay well,

-Jeremy