Michael Rossetto
Earl Scruggs would approve of Michael Rossetto’s new CD Intermodal Blues. The banjo godfather had big ears and was open to what the next generation of musicians were up to. Milwaukee-born Rossetto’s music connects the instrument’s droning trancelike quality to sounds of Saharan desert communities. Like many, he was struck by Béla Fleck’s genre-breaking sounds on the banjo.
“My exposure to Béla’s music opened up an entire universe to me. I don’t use the outer space pun lightly. The Flecktones are clearly taking a page from Sun Ra, who I discovered a few years later,” Rossetto said.
The son of Italian immigrants, Rossetto’s worldview might just be part of his DNA. He credits The Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis, where he has worked for nearly a decade for inspiration. “The Cedar is one of the most acclaimed world/global music venues in the country and I was exposed to musicians from around the world every week,” he said. “The music of Mali floored me—particularly the kora, as played by Ballaké Sissoko and the ngoni, as played by Bassekou Kouyate. The ngoni and the akonting from Senegal and Gambia are the ancestors to what Americans know as the banjo.”
He also credits the desert-blues sound of Tinariwen, “the originators of this gorgeous drone-like style of music that is other-worldly. My appreciation and love of African, Tunisian and Indian music comes from a place of deep respect for the musicians, and artists.”
Intermodal Blues features a sympathetic band led by drummer/producer JT Bates. The instrumental tunes tell stories narrated by searing guitars and pastoral dreamlike passages.
Rosetto’s instrument of choice even has a story to tell. “My banjo was built by Robin Smith of Heartland Banjo in Gallatin, Tennessee. The maple rim is made from sunken timber pulled from Lake Superior that is hundreds of years old, and the neck is a very old piece of mahogany from a boat builder in Virginia. The banjo head is real calfskin, like it was back in the 1920s and the bridge was built to my specs by Rick Sampson, an incredible luthier from northern Wisconsin. It’s taken me almost twenty years to find what I like.”
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Opener David Huckfelt may be best known as a member of The Pines. His solo debut Stranger Angels, which includes Michael Rossetto on banjo and guitar, is a special album created from self-imposed circumstances.
“The idea of getting away is never far from my thinking,” Huckfelt said. In 2017 he ventured to Isle Royale, an island six hours by boat off the Lake Superior coast. Selected as Artist In Residence by the National Park Service, Huckfelt spent 10 hours a day for two weeks working on material that would become the album. This sense of solitude led to the self-reflection that birthed the songs.
Public domain samples enhance the hoodoo of songs on Stranger Angels, but Huckfelt’s songs are pretty deep and often dark to begin with. Old Testament, even. Yet when asked about what appear to be religious references in his songs, he takes a matter-of-fact stance. “My religious framework amounts to downed power-lines and flattened barns after a massive thunderstorm. I see myself and every one of us as spiritual beings in a physical reality; half of our boat on land and half in the sea, washed up there on the shore of reality. Truth and meaning seem perpetually hidden under the opposite of what we expect. It informs my songwriting, insofar as there is not much time available for songs that don’t have any soul poking out from under the sound.”
Michael Rossetto & Argopelter Intermodal Blues CD release show with David Huckfelt at Pabst Milwaukee Brewery & Taproom, 1037 West Juneau Ave. on Thursday, May 16 at 8 p.m. Tickets are available at pabstmkebrewery.com.
