By Cameron Wall
With nearly three albums and multiple regional music awards under their belts, D.C. American roots musicians The Bumper Jacksons are ready to take on The Barns at Wolf Trap later this month.
Influenced by country, Western swing and street jazz, the band is fronted by vocalists Jess Eliot Myhre, who also plays clarinet and washboard, and Chris Ousley, who doubles as guitarist. Myhre and Ousley previously played together in the Sligo Creek Stompers but broke off as a duo in 2011. They eventually fleshed out The Bumper Jacksons’ lineup with bassist Alex Lacquement, drummer Dan Samuels, pedal-steel guitarist Dave Hadley and trombonist Brian Priebe.
Named after a friend’s dog that would howl along with the band’s music, The Bumper Jacksons are now part of the thriving D.C. bluegrass scene, playing jams, dances and house parties across the District. And that scene has embraced them: The band has been continually recognized by the Washington Area Music Awards, winning Best Folk or Traditional Group in 2013, 2014 and 2015, Best Folk or Traditional Recording in 2014 and 2015 and Artist of the Year in 2015.
The band has recorded two albums with their current lineup, 2014’s Sweet Mama, Sweet Daddy, Come In and 2015’s Too Big World, with a third album expected this spring. Myhre describes the upcoming album as “very uplifting.”
“Both Chris and I sort of embrace this spiritual thought of the bigness of life, and I think a lot of our songs reflect this belief in the power of life to be bodacious and beautiful,” she says.
The band’s music balances those grand concepts with an intimate connection with listeners. “No matter what, I’m thinking about how [I can] invite the listener into a moment,” Ousley says. “I want everyone to feel slightly more connected to the stranger sitting next to them after they hear the song, and say, ‘That was a human moment.’… It’s understood that we all just felt this same thing.”
The Bumper Jacksons are playing The Barns at the famed Wolf Trap in Vienna on Saturday, Oct. 22, where they will debut a new trumpet player in their beefed-up horn section. Myhre says the band is excited to play at such a prestigious venue. “Since moving to this area, [Wolf Trap] has been such a big place, like, ‘Wow, only really amazing artists play there,’” she says. “It didn’t even occur to me [to ask to play there].”
