George Jackson: The Ute Theater w/The Jacob Jolliff Band

Jacob Jolliff is one of the world’s premier contemporary mandolinists. In 2011, he graduated from Berklee College of Music, having studied there on a full scholarship. The following year, in 2012, he won the USA’s National Mandolin Championship in Winfield, KS. A fixture of the bluegrass scene, he has performed and collaborated with Béla Fleck, Tony Trischka, Michael Daves, Grant Gordy, Wes Corbett, and Alex Hargreaves, to name a few. Additionally, throughout his 20s, he toured as a member of the groups Joy Kills Sorrow and Yonder Mountain String Band. Currently, his focus is on his own ensemble, The Jacob Jolliff Band—one of the most cutting-edge progressive bluegrass groups on the scene today. They’ve released three albums, the most recent of which, “Instrumentals, Vol. 2: Mandolin Mysteries,” dropped in May 2024. The band plays a combination of complex original instrumental music and vocal repertoire that spans from trad bluegrass to unlikely pop covers. Improvisation and the ensemble interplay are at the forefront. George Jackson is a Nashville-based fiddle player and the 2022 IBMA Instrumentalist Of The Year Momentum Award Winner, who performs as a band leader and fiddler for hire with artists such as The Jacob Jolliff Band, Jake Blount, Tall Poppy String Band, The Local Trio, Front Country, Peter Rowan, Missy Raines, Charm City Junction and others. Born in New Zealand, George grew up in a musical family and first heard bluegrass music around the age of 14, immediately falling in love with the style he started trying to work out how to play it from recordings and from mentors in New Zealand. Moving to Australia as a 16-year-old, he won the Australian National Bluegrass Championship on fiddle three times and toured the country with his bluegrass band, "The Company", playing all the major folk festivals on the Australian circuit. As a resident of Nashville and the USA from 2016, George has released three albums of fiddle tunes, "Time and Place" in 2019 and "Hair & Hide" in 2021 and most recently “George Jackson’s Local Trio” with Eli Broxham and Frank Evans in 2023. He was awarded first place in the Mike Auldridge tune composition award by the DC bluegrass union in both 2019 and 2021 for his tunes "Chapel Hill Deer Stalk" and "Neighbor Mike" respectively. He also sparked a viral fiddle tune frenzy with his composition "Dorrigo", when hundreds of musicians learned the tune and posted videos of themselves playing it online, becoming known as the "#dorrigochallenge". In his free time, George loves to watch Star Trek and cook food at home, with recent obsessions in Italian and Cajun fare. He loves Swedish fiddle music and —fun fact— he was a competitive Highland dancer until the age of 21.