Chris Pandolfi

Chris Pandolfi can recall with precision the moment when what would become his career began. “I went to see Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, and I was blown away by this unbelievable creativity. It was inspiring to see these guys have these musical conversations on stage, and that was all it really took,” he says with a smile. “I bought this banjo from a guy, brought it home and opened the case—and just looked at it for half an hour, because I had no idea of what it was meant to do.”
Today, it’s a different story. Barely a decade since he first wondered what to do with a banjo, Chris Pandolfi has become one of its modern masters, touring the world with the award-winning Infamous Stringdusters—and now releasing Looking Glass, a tightly knit collection of tunes that’s sure to cement that reputation. Featuring his Stringdusters compadres and a small set of musical friends and heroes that includes fiddle genius Stuart Duncan, Punch Brothers guitarist (and former roommate) Chris “Critter” Eldridge, bassist Byron House (Sam Bush Band) and mandolin maestro Matt Flinner, the project presents eleven new tunes that mark Pandolfi as a player and composer to watch.
Ask the thoughtful young player about the inspiration for the album, and the answers come quickly. “First—and I talked about this in the liner notes—the exposure to other great musicians that I’ve gotten since I moved to Nashville has been an inspiring force like none other, balancing that joy you feel of just making music with the pressure of everyone that’s around, and trying to synthesize all these influences and ideas. And then getting to play with this band, the Stringdusters; these guys have influenced every aspect of my playing and writing—the way that they play so authoritatively, and how compelling that is musically, that was a lesson that I hadn’t really gotten before.”
But though the ‘dusters appear as a group on Looking Glass, and members Jesse Cobb (mandolin) and Andy Hall (dobro) are featured on other cuts as well, Pandolfi took the opportunity to cast a broader net—and those choices, too, shaped the album’s music. “I knew that I had a certain group of guys in mind that I wanted to hire, and I knew that it wouldn’t be feasible to have them rehearse this stuff to death,” he notes. “But I was really excited to work with Byron, Critter, Matt and Stuart; they’re some of my favorite players, and they’re amazing musicians. So I wanted to write right up to the time we started recording—I wanted this to be the latest and greatest—and then we worked up a lot of arrangements when we rehearsed. That meant things couldn’t be too complex, but it also meant not having things set in stone before the musicians came. And a big surprise turned out to be that so much of this record is dedicated to creating a platform for those guys to improvise over, and how they interpreted the tunes. Getting to play on a record with those guys is amazing, but having them be part of the creative process was part of the goal of the whole thing.”
Made at home during a break in the Stringdusters’ hectic touring schedule, Looking Glass is a rich tapestry of melodies and textures, from the nifty ensemble passages of the opening “Winnipeg” to the spare, evocative “Melancholy,” a banjo-bass duet with House that closes the album. And while there’s plenty of the same sophistication and progressive ideas that characterized Pandolfi’s 2003 debut, The Handoff, there’s more, too, of an approach that’s deeply rooted in the bluegrass past that every one of the players has mastered.
“When I started playing the banjo,” Chris says with a laugh, “I literally did not know what bluegrass was. And as I evolved as a player, my interests and perspective were very much on the progressive end of the spectrum. But when I moved to Nashville and started rooming with Chris Eldridge, I got to know his dad [Seldom Scene banjo picker Ben Eldridge], and he impressed on me that you’ve got to learn the Scruggs style, which was something that I didn’t really know how to do; I could play with some of the fundamental aspects, but not the real lexicon. But once I figured out what it’s all about—how much complexity there really is in his conception of music—I started to really work on that stuff, and I think that’s really colored a lot of what’s gone on, not just with this album but with all my music in the last 5 years.”
In short, then, Looking Glass is a bit of a surprise move—a suite that charts a path not toward greater complexity, but away from it, even as it looks forward far more than it looks back. Energetic, supple, sophisticated and yet full of the strength, drive and inspired interplay that have always been the hallmark of fine, satisfying music, Looking Glass is not only the perfect complement to the Infamous Stringdusters’ collective recordings and solo projects by his bandmates, but a compelling announcement that the future of the banjo is in good hands.
First 4 Installments of ISD Europe Tour Movie:
(More to Come!)
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Fox Theater, Boulder, CO 4.15.08