When musical goals are concerned, mandolinist David Grisman wants to keep the acoustic movement on its toes.
"I don't really have any conceptional goals about my work," Grisman said during a phone interview from his home in Mill Valley, Calif. "I mean I've got a full plate right now - mind you, I'm dealing with all I can handle - but my purpose is to see the music continue to evolve and stay fresh."The David Grisman Quintet will bring acoustic and bluegrass music to Kingsbury Hall Friday, Oct. 25. Showtime is 8 p.m. Tickets, ranging from $14 to $18, are on sale at all ArtTix outlets.
Grisman, the man who is also known for his close musical and personal friendship with the late Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, has been involved in music since he was in grade school in Passaic, N.J.
"My father instigated the piano lessons," remembered Grisman. "He was a pianist, and I was enthralled by all types of music, so he started me with the basics."
By the time Grisman turned 11, however, the piano slipped a couple of notches in his priorities.
"I bailed," he said simply. "I didn't pick up another musical instrument until I was 15."
As fate would have it, the new device Grisman laid his hands on was the mandolin.
"I became very interested in bluegrass music," Grisman said. "I really wanted to learn to play."
After moving to New York to study English at NY University in the early 1960s, Grisman got involved with the Greenwich Village folk music scene.
He made his first recording with the Even Dozen Jug Band and played with and produced a lot of urban bluegrass bands, one being the Ramblers, which won the 1963 Fiddlers Convention competition in Union Grove, N.C.
A year later, while attending a bluegrass festival in West Grove, Pa., Grisman met Garcia, who nicknamed him "Dawg."
"Jerry and I listened to the same musical heroes," Grisman said. "Four years later, after I'd been held up a few times in New York, I moved to California. I liked the climate, and I had made some musical friends."
Garcia asked Grisman to play on some tracks that would later become the Dead's definitive "American Beauty" album. On off days, the two would sit together jamming out bluegrass tunes. Those jams provided the basis for another band, Old and in the Way, which later would record one of the biggest selling bluegrass albums ever made.
The quintet was formed in 1975 and played its first gig in January 1976. The band mixed American country, bluegrass, Jewish music, jazz and blues.
The band has released five albums, the most recent being "DGQ 20," a three-CD, 20-year retrospective. In addition, Grisman has released more than 17 solo and duet albums. He has made appearances on albums by such artists as Linda Ronstadt, Judy Collins, Dolly Parton, the Pointer Sisters and James Taylor.
"When you talk about guest credits, sometimes you'll just come into the studio and do overdubs like I did with James Taylor," Grisman explained. "I just play what I feel."
Then he added with a laugh, "And do whatever the producer wants me to."
Grisman formed his own record label, Acoustic Disc, in 1989 out of desire and necessity.
"I had been playing for nearly 25 years and didn't really have anything to show for it," he said. "So I decided to put all my eggs in one basket and built a studio."
As for regrets, Grisman said he doesn't think that way.
"I could have jacked up the reverb on a couple of songs," he joked. "Seriously, although the touring gets a little bleak at times, the best part is playing. I find rewards expressing myself through music. I don't have to say anything."