Feedback: A banjo

Winery, 5898 Free Union Rd., Free Union. glasshousewinery.com The Districts. The Philadelphia-based band confronts a constellation of problems eroding the American ideal on its new record, Great American Painting. $18-20, 8pm. The Southern Café & Music Hall, 103 S. First St. thesoutherncville.com The Pollocks. Performing on the outside stage. $15, 5pm. The Batesville Market, 6624 Plank Rd. batesvillemarket.com

dance

Paramount Presents: Pilobolus Big Five-

Oh! A mix of pieces ranging from the vintage and visionary to the fresh and electrifying. $44-64, 8pm. The Paramount Theater, 215 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. theparamount.net

stage

Love and Information. See listing for Friday, September 30. $22-27, 8pm. Live Arts, 123 E. Water St. livearts.org

words

Lesley Wheeler and Remica Bingham-

Risher. The authors read from their new memoirs. Free, 7pm. New Dominion Bookshop, 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. ndbookshop.com Storytime. Featuring recent storybooks and classics kids know and love. Free, 11am. New Dominion Bookshop, 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. ndbookshop.com

outside

Blue Ridge Mountain Maze & Fall Fes-

tival. Get lost in this five-acre corn maze. Free-$12, all day. Blue Ridge Mountain Maze, 165 Old Ridge Rd., Lovingston. blueridgemountainmaze.com Charlottesville City Market. Fresh produce, handmade gifts, homemade baked goods, and more. Free, 8am. Charlottesville City Market, 100 Water St E. charlottesville.gov Farmers Market at Ix. Over 60 local vendors with produce, prepared foods, artisan goods, and more. Free, 8am. Ix Art Park, 522 Second St. SE. ixartpark.org Playdates at the Playscape. See listing for Friday, September 30. $20, 9:30am. Wildrock, 6600 Blackwells Hollow Rd., Crozet. wildrock.org

etc.

Daily Tour of Indigenous Australian Art. See listing for Wednesday, September 28. Free, 10:30am and 1:30pm. Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of UVA, 400 Worrell Dr. kluge-ruhe.org Oktoberfest. Live oompah music from Willie Hayes & the Alpen Travelers, German beer on tap, brats, pretzels, and more. Free, noon. The Batesville Market, 6624 Plank Rd. batesvillemarket.com

Sunday 10/2

music

WTJU Jazz Marathon: Hard Swimmin’

Fish. Live jazz and blues. Free, 8pm. WTJU, 2244 Ivy Rd. wtju.net The Wavelength. Blues and more. Free, 2pm. Brewing Tree Beer Company, 9278 Rockfish Valley Hwy., Afton. brewingtree beer.com

classes

Paint & Sip. Paint a perfect pumpkin patch. $35, 2pm. Hazy Mountain Vineyards & Brewery, 8736 Dick Woods Rd., Afton. catelyn kelseydesigns.com

Bringing banjo back

Bill Evans leads an all-star bluegrass band

By Jedd Ferris

arts@c-ville.com

Bill Evans left a lasting impression on the Charlottesville music scene. After graduating from the University of Virginia in 1978, the innovative banjo player stuck around town and started a concert series at C&O Restaurant with Cloud Valley, his bluegrass outfit.

The group, which also featured award- winning bassist Missy Raines, would also host guest bands and recruit premier string acts, including Peter Rowan, Hot Rize, and Sam Bush and Bela Fleck’s Newgrass Revival, to share the bill.

The series of gigs had an intimate grassroots vibe—with capacity at around 140 people—but it helped put Charlottesville on the map as a friendly stop on the national acoustic music circuit, and set Evans on a path toward a four-decade-plus career as a performer, composer, author, and teacher. Now, he returns to Charlottesville on September 28 to play The Southern Café & Music Hall with a six-piece group touring as the California Bluegrass Reunion.

“We ran the sound, put posters up around town, and got to meet our heroes,” Evans says about his early career, during a phone interview from his current home in New Mexico. “And we had a great local audience. There was a really supportive environment for music in Charlottesville at that time.”

While booking the C&O shows, Evans often found himself hanging out with the instrumental masters he admired, gathering knowledge during his formative years as a musician from banjo aces like Tony Trischka and J.D. Crowe. “These folks would oftentimes spend a few days with us, and that’s where musical associations really blossomed,” he says. “The bluegrass community, across generations, is really welcoming, so it moved us all forward professionally.”

Cloud Valley toured nationally and earned slots at some of the top bluegrass festivals in the country. Evans says one of his favorite gigs with the group was opening for Doc Watson at Old Cabell Hall.

After the band members parted ways in 1985, Evans eventually moved west to attend graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. Music education and academic study have since remained big parts of his work. He’s written multiple books on banjo instruction and given lessons to younger successful players including Greg Liszt of Crooked Still and Chris Pandolfi of the Infamous Stringdusters.

Evans’ long-running solo show, The Banjo in America, offers a historical tour of the instrument, tracing its roots in Africa to current styles of playing. A CD/DVD set of the performance, which covers 250 years of the banjo’s sonic evolution, came out earlier this year.

PUBLICITY PHOTO

Banjo aficionado Bill Evans brings the California Bluegrass Reunion to the Southern Café & Music Hall on September 28. “We ran the sound, put posters up around town and got to meet our

heroes.” BILL EVANS

The release adds to his lengthy discography, which includes a handful of solo albums and credits as a member of Due West and Dry Branch Fire Squad.

During his time in California, Evans became embedded in the Bay Area’s progressive string scene, collaborating with some of the genre’s biggest boundary pushers, including mandolin whiz Mike Marshall and dynamic fiddler Darol Anger.

Both appear on Evans’ guest-heavy 2012 album In Good Company, perhaps the most well-rounded look at his fleet-fingered prowess. On the record, winding instrumental compositions mix acrobatic fret work with nuanced, jazz-minded explorations. It features the multi-dimensional acoustic style that Evans will showcase in his return to Charlottesville with the California Bluegrass Reunion.

The lineup came together as an offshoot of the California Banjo Extravaganza—another one of Evans’ creative touring projects—and features an all-star lineup of Golden State pickers who boast stacked resumés. In addition to Anger, who’s spent time in the David Grisman Quintet and Republic of Strings, the show will feature renowned mandolin player John Reischman, a founding member of the Tony Rice Unit. Bass duties will be handled by Sharon Gilchrist, a versatile player who toured for many years in Rowan’s band, and additional fiddle power will come from Chad Manning, another Grisman alum.

“It’s a superpowered bluegrass jetliner, especially with the double fiddles,” Evans says of the group, which is currently on an extremely rare East Coast tour. “It has a really big sound. We’ve all been around the block and most of us are bandleaders. The focus is on original material.”

The show at the Southern is being presented by local radio station WTJU, where Evans hosted a bluegrass show for more than a decade. It’s another callback to his early roots.

“When I return to Charlottesville it doesn’t feel like things have changed all that much,” Evans said. “For me, the landmarks are still there.”