Last time I caught up with Alex Sturbaum they had just released their excellent 2022 album Slash on which Alex played guitar to accompany a bunch of players of the fiddle, banjo, and nyckelharpa, most of them from the Pacific Northwest. Alex is based in Olympia, Washington, performing solo as well as with the bands Countercurrent, Gallimaufry, and the Waxwings. They also produce the collaborative Vashon Sessions for musicians from around the PNW, and operate Olympia’s Scrub Jay Studio, where both Slash and this new project Windjammer were recorded.
Alex is back with another album of danceable acoustic Americana, this time playing button accordion and leading a string band with the usual instruments played by a handful of Northwest musicians: Jesse Partridge on guitar and fiddle, Callie Jan Mills on banjo, Rae Eaton on bass, River Scheuerell on fiddle, bass, guitar, and mandolin, and Eva Leach on fiddle.
” ‘Windjammer’ is a term that has historically been used by Black traditional musicians to refer to the button accordion,” Alex says in the liner notes. “Like the folks who gave us this name for it, the accordion has not been given due credit for its place in, and contributions to, American old-time music. It is my hope that this album helps in some small way to set the balance right.”
All of the 10 tunes on the album are traditional except for one. “Whiteface,” the final track, is by Joe Thrift, a North Carolina fiddler and violin maker who has played in a lot of bands including Donna the Buffalo and the Red Hots. This catchy mid-tempo tune has a touch of Celtic to it, as do others including the rollicking “Johnny Johnny Don’t Get Drunk” and the quite familiar “Rocky Road to Dublin.” Others feel American through and through, including the loping “Mississippi Snagboat” and the even peppier “Squirrel Hunters.”
Most of the arrangements follow a common scheme, with the accordion and fiddle more or less sharing the lead in something like unison, with the banjo sometimes joining in on the tune (especially on the catchy opening track “Greasy Coat”) and other times commenting more as a rhythm instrument, and the guitar, bass (and sometimes mandolin) generally playing rhythm licks. The production and mixing give the music an appropriate feel of having been recorded on just one or a very small number of mics. It all has the down-home feeling of a front porch jam session or a Pacific Northwest contra dance night. Which sometimes is just what you need to hear.
(Alex Sturbaum, 2026)
