“Salt Spring” is a modern instrumental composed by mandolinist John Reischman and first recorded by John Reischman & The Jaybirds on their self-titled debut album in 2001. Reischman wrote the tune for and named it after Salt Spring Island in British Columbia, where he has lived for years and where the Jaybirds occasionally rehearsed.
The tune’s musical character — modal, contemplative, with melodic phrasing that suggests both old-time and Celtic ancestry — has led many players to mistake it for a traditional fiddle tune. That is a sign of how cleanly the tune fits the older idiom rather than evidence of older origins; Reischman composed it in the late 1990s and the 2001 recording is the first published version. The mistake is now part of the tune’s reputation among contemporary players.
“Salt Spring” has become a workshop and jam-session standard among mandolin and fiddle players of the post-2000 generation, particularly along the West Coast of North America where Reischman teaches and tours. It is most often heard played slowly enough to bring out its modal color rather than driven hard, and it has been re-recorded by Reischman in various contexts including arrangements with Molly Tuttle, Alex Hargreaves, Allison de Groot, and Max Schwartz.
