Just got back from guitar class, where my dreamy teacher gave a bizarre background story on Elvis Costello’s bit during the Grammies. The discourse was on mandolin orchestras, which were apparently a very popular phenomenon around the turn of the last century…every town had one, with different sections using different sizes/keys of mandolins.
Or so he says. Normally I hang on every word that comes out of that guy’s mouth, but mandolin orchestras? It’s just weird. Anyone else know anything about this?
Dunno if it counts as an orchestra, per se, but the Dave Grisman Quintet plays acoustic music with several mandolins and, yes, they come in sizes. It’s high-energy stuff and doesn’t fit easily into any of the standard music genres. Dave and DGQ call it “Dawg Music.”