First Look: New Jack Rose (R.I.P.) Album

The prolific  finger-picking genius had just completed an album for Thrill Jockey at the time of his death. See a pretty amazing video, below.

By Jennifer Kelly

Jack Rose, who died last December at the age of 38, was one of America's leading acoustic guitar players, an heir to the finger-picking genius of John Fahey, the mystical orchestrations of Robbie Basho. His career, though short, was far from unproductive. He released more than 20 full-length albums over a two-decade period, both as a solo artist and in collaboration with others. Luck in the Valley (Thrill Jockey) is his last recording, recorded just months before his death.  

Rose was fascinated with the sounds of pre-war blues, gospel, ragtime and folk. Alongside lyrical raga-blues-flamenco odes like his lovely "Cathedral et Chartes" he would juxtapose jaunty old-time cake-walk tunes. He could astonish you with the pure luminous beauty of a guitar flurry left to hang in the air, but he could also make you tap your foot in time to a strong but archaic sense of swing. On this album, the third in his self-deprecatingly named Ditch Trilogy, recorded live and quickly with friends, Rose drew upon his arcane knowledge of early 20^th century blues. He resurrected classics like Dennis Crumpton and Robert Summers' "Everybody Ought to Pray Sometimes" and W.C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues". He composed new songs imbued with the rough country swagger, dedicating the gorgeous opener to "bones" player Percy Danforth, and distilling the backwoods like 40 proof liquor into "Lick Mountain Ramble." He brought friends - Fahey scholar and guitar player Glenn Jones, old-time picker Micah Blue Smalldone, Harmonica Dan and his frequent abetters the Black Twig Pickers - in to supplement his dazzling skill. As a result, Luck in the Valley has a lived-in, friendly feel, despite its considerable technical accomplishments.   Whether coaxing oil-slicked rainbows of ambiguous overtone, as on solo cuts like "Tree in the Valley" and "Blues for Percy Danforth", or bouncing along over all-hands hoe-downs like "Lick Mountain Ramble", Rose made the difficulty disappear into a texture of transporting beauty.

Jack Rose died far too young, in the very midst of turning into one of our best guitarists. His last record cannot help but be tinged by melancholy. And yet there's a joy here, too, that comes from hearing an extraordinarily gifted musician working over his craft, surrounded by well-loved fellow-travellers, and making the complex and difficult sound casually, unpremeditatedly wonderful.

[Photo Credit: Tim Bugbee/Tinnitus Photography]