The Jacob Jolliff Band

Jolliff was born in Newberg, Oregon, and started on the mandolin at seven under his father, with whom he played in a bluegrass gospel band at festivals and churches across the Northwest through middle and high school. In 2007 he went to the Berklee College of Music in Boston on a full scholarship and studied with John McGann. From 2008 to 2014 he played with the New England band Joy Kills Sorrow, graduating in 2011, and in 2012 he won the National Mandolin Championship at Winfield, Kansas. He joined the Yonder Mountain String Band on tour in June 2014, soon became a full member, and stayed until the end of 2019.

The band’s first album, Instrumentals Vol. 1, released in 2018, was a set of instrumentals played by Jolliff with Alex Hargreaves on violin, Stash Wyslouch on guitar and Jeff Picker on bass. The bassist Myles Sloniker joined in 2018, first on a tour he took on at a couple of weeks’ notice, and has been the band’s bassist since.

The Jacob Jolliff Band was recorded at Virtue and Vice Studio in Brooklyn on 8–11 March 2021 and released on 5 August 2022 by Adhyâropa Records, with Jolliff, Wyslouch and Sloniker joined by John Mailander on fiddle. Jolliff produced it with Dave Sinko and dedicated it to Mike Barnett. It sets his instrumentals “The Good, the Bad and the Home-Schooled,” “One Night in Glasgow,” “Old Dizzy Legs” and “Large Garbage Barge” beside “Columbus Stockade Blues,” the Easter Brothers’ “They’re Holding Up the Ladder,” Jo Dee Messina’s “Heads Carolina, Tails California,” Malcolm McKinney’s “Don’t Cry Blue,” Adam Sweeney’s “Middle of the Moon” and the Suzy Bogguss song “Outbound Plane,” with the band singing in harmony.

By 2023 the group had toured across the United States and had played in Scotland and Australia. In the summer of 2022 Jolliff also toured with Béla Fleck’s My Bluegrass Heart band. Instrumentals, Vol. 2: Mandolin Mysteries, released on 24 May 2024, is again all Jolliff’s writing, played by a new line-up of Jolliff, George Jackson on fiddle, Ross Martin on guitar and Sloniker on bass; Jolliff produced it, and it was recorded at Conveyor in Brooklyn.