Jim Kerwin

He was born in San Francisco in 1952 and sang as a soloist in his grade-school choir. He took up the guitar in high school and soon moved to electric bass because it got him into more bands. His listening ran from Stravinsky and Captain Beefheart to the jazz of Bill Evans and Miles Davis, and after hearing the acoustic bassists Scott LaFaro, Eddie Gomez and Charlie Haden he set out to learn classical technique. At twenty-one he began five years of study at San Francisco State University with S. Charles Siani and graduated with a performance degree in solo double bass. He then spent several years touring Europe in an avant-garde jazz trio led by the vibraphonist Larry Blackshere.

He met Grisman at a jam session. In September 1985 the Quintet’s bassist left abruptly with a tour five days away, and Kerwin was called in to fill the chair; after the first show Grisman told him the job was his for as long as he wanted it. He is on the Quintet’s Acoustic Disc albums Dawg ’90 (1990), the label’s first release, Dawgwood (1993), Dawganova (1995), recorded at Grisman’s Dawg Studios in September 1994 with Enrique Coria, Joe Craven and Matt Eakle, and Dawgnation (2002).

The same years took him into Grisman’s bluegrass work. On the double album Home Is Where the Heart Is (Rounder, 1988) he played string bass behind both Del McCoury and Red Allen, with Herb Pedersen or Porter Church on banjo and Bobby Hicks, Jim Buchanan or Stuart Duncan on fiddle. In May 1991 he joined Grisman, Allen, Pedersen and Buchanan to record Bluegrass Reunion for Acoustic Disc, and the band played two sets at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall the same week, later released as a download. Bluegrass Reunion was nominated for the Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album at the 1993 awards, with Kerwin among the credited artists.

With Grisman and Garcia he played bass throughout Jerry Garcia / David Grisman (Acoustic Disc, 1991), with Joe Craven on fiddle and percussion, and on Shady Grove (1996) and the jazz album So What (1998). He also appears on single tracks of Not for Kids Only (1993) and Been All Around This World (2004) and on several tracks of the Grateful Dawg soundtrack. He has also played with Stéphane Grappelli and Yo-Yo Ma at Carnegie Hall, and his recordings, which range from big band, bluegrass and jazz to klezmer and Latin music, include six that were nominated for Grammy Awards. In 2017 he was playing bass fiddle in the Nell Robinson & Jim Nunally Band, which was touring behind its album Baby Let’s Take the Long Way Home.