Folk Jazz Trio

Folk Jazz Trio is a studio album from David Grisman, Jim Hurst, and Lester Armistead, presenting the acoustic mandolin-guitar-bass format in a program that draws from both the bluegrass and jazz traditions that Grisman has spent his career bringing into conversation. Grisman plays mandolin; Jim Hurst plays guitar; and Lester Armistead holds the bass. The trio format — stripped of fiddle and banjo, organized around the rhythm section of bass and guitar with mandolin as both melodic and chordal voice — gives the three performers maximum improvisational freedom while maintaining the acoustic ensemble identity that Grisman has developed across multiple configurations since his work with the David Grisman Quintet. Hurst's clean flatpicking guitar and Armistead's bass provide the harmonic and rhythmic foundation that Grisman's mandolin improvisation requires in the small-group acoustic jazz setting.