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Four bands including the Santa Cruz-based Trolley Drops come to Abbott Square on Aug. 17 for the Santa Cruz Jug Band Festival, highlighting an often overlooked genre in early 20th-century American folk music. It mixes traditional music with alternatives such as washboards, washtubs and, of course, jugs.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Jug-band music is a widely recognized genre of traditional American music. But it could just as easily have been called \u201cwashtub bass music\u201d or \u201cwashboard music\u201d or even \u201cspoons music.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Sunday, Aug. 17, locals can dive into the genre with the first Santa Cruz Jug Band Festival, a free show at Abbott Square, featuring four accomplished jug bands.<\/p>\n
The jug-band name, of course, applies to the unusual instrumentation of a style that dates back more than 100 years to the early 20th century. A jug in this context is what you think it is: a large earthenware or glass vessel that you can conceivably play \u2014 if you have the talent or the drive to practice \u2014 as a musical instrument, blowing into it much like you\u2019d blow into a brass instrument.<\/p>\n
Curiously, a jug is not necessarily required to play jug-band music. As a style, it refers to a certain gray area that falls between blues, jazz and ragtime, largely developed by African American musicians who used various household items in lieu of expensive horns, drums or stringed instruments. The style was repopularized in the 1960s and \u201970s by such artists as Jim Kweskin, Maria Muldaur and even Jerry Garcia.<\/p>\n
\u201cJug band music is two different things,\u201d explained Peter Thomas. He is well known for his leadership in the Ukulele Club of Santa Cruz<\/a>, but also plays with The Trolley Drops, one of the four bands playing at next weekend\u2019s festival. \u201cTo some people, it\u2019s just music played on toy instruments. And to other people, it\u2019s a specific genre of music that came out of the 1910s and \u201920s mostly around Memphis.\u201d<\/p>\n The Trolley Drops have been performing locally and regionally for about a decade, said Thomas. The Drops focus on jug-band music in the second sense of the term: \u201cWe focus a lot on the repertoire rather than the instrumentation.\u201d<\/p>\n Also performing at the festival is the Rivertown Skifflers, from the North Bay, and two groups from Oakland, the Quake City Jug Band and the Washboard Rhythm Co. Jug bands generally use traditional stringed instruments along with washtubs, washboards and jugs, and they are known to occasionally mix in even more unusual instruments like kazoos, toy pianos and musical saws.\u00a0<\/p>\n Thomas said that jug bands largely began as Black musicians playing for largely white audiences at parties, and often contained risqu\u00e9 or salacious lyrics. Many contemporary jug bands pick up that tradition by including songs with mildly titillating double entendres.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe front guy,\u201d said Thomas, \u201cusually sang and played the jug, too, because you had to have a really big voice to carry without amplification, and you had to have big powerful lungs to blow a jug.\u201d<\/p>\n Santa Cruz\u2019s Trolley Drops will mix banjo, guitar and mandolin with kazoos, washboards and spoons, as well as trumpet, trombone and clarinet, and the occasional accordion.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen people come to our shows,\u201d said Thomas, \u201cthey\u2019re always happily surprised with how much fun they have, because fun is the key element from our point of view.\u201d<\/p>\n The Santa Cruz Jug Band Festival takes place <\/em>Sunday, Aug. 17<\/em><\/a>, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Abbott Square in downtown Santa Cruz.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n