After the last act leaves the IBMA World of Bluegrass stage, the music doesn’t stop
As soon as the elevator doors of the Marriott Raleigh City Center hotel opened to the fourth floor, the faint hum of a double bass vibrated through the walls. Other string instruments joined in harmony, getting louder the closer you walked down the hall.
The music was coming from a room where, with the door wide open, a group of musicians were gathered for a jam session at 2 a.m.
When the last act leaves the stage at IBMA’s World of Bluegrass Saturday night, the Marriott becomes the late-night hub for strangers to gather and share their love of bluegrass into the early hours of the morning. Musicians of all skill levels join in, and festival-goers are encouraged to hear the raw, unfiltered tunes filtering through the halls.
After a year off due to the pandemic, IBMA’s annual conference, awards, street festival and bluegrass showcase were back in Raleigh last week. Official concerts attracted thousands to downtown, and the impromptu musical gatherings brought joy to those musicians who were simply happy to play together again in-person.
On this early Sunday morning, it was the first time some of the musicians and spectators had played together or even met. They were so in sync, it was hard to believe they weren’t an actual band, let alone that they were improvising.
Tyler Griffith was on the bass. Sitting beside him was award-winning musician Tony Watt playing the acoustic guitar. Eli Gilbert played the banjo, Kylie Anderson the mandolin and her husband, Owen Schinkel, played the slide guitar.
“The slide guitar and steel guitar are brothers,” said Schinkel, who is from the Netherlands. “It’s very known for Hawaiian music — and SpongeBob.”
Since the festival moved to Raleigh, the hotel does away with its quiet hours on certain floors where jam sessions can be held until 5 a.m.
Adam Kruzic and his father, Tim, were the hosts of the jam session in this fourth-floor room. They traveled from Glen Rock, Penn., and have been loyal attendees of the World of Bluegrass festival since 1997.
“In jams like this, it’s a lot of fun to just see really high-level tier players and how they approach things in a jam,” said Kruzic, who plays the mandolin for a band called Troy Engle & Southern Skies. “Some jams I’ll participate in. Some I just wanna see what players are doing.”
IBMA’s World of Bluegrass is set to return to Raleigh for at least another three years, through 2024, The News & Observer previously reported. Attendees say they appreciate not just the music — different styles of bluegrass played on and off stage — but the history that comes alive through the performances.
“This room in particular has been awesome,” Alex MacLeod said. “(Bluegrass) is a really special part of the shortened American history since the 1940s. I think it’s an important one that people need to learn more about.”
He’s well-known in the Rhode Island bluegrass scene, where he’s from, and attended IBMA for the first time. He watched the impromptu band jamming as he snacked on some pretzels and sipped from a cold beer Kruzic gave him.
“And it starts with this,” he said looking around the hotel room as the band played. “Exposing people to this.”
Around 3 a.m., the group moved their jam session to the lobby where they switched things up. Watt took over the mandolin, Griffin switched to guitar, and his wife, Nienke, took over the bass. Schinkel kept playing his slide guitar, and Gilbert stayed on the banjo.
The band played another three songs before calling it a night at 4 in the morning. By then, the dozens of other bands had left the lobby making them the last group standing.
This story was originally published October 5, 2021 at 8:30 AM.
