Everything about the David Grisman Quartet is related back to jazz music – even the bluegrass the group plays is indebted to that other American art form. Counting innumerable sidemen over time, each making a unique contribution to the ensemble and subsequently having solo recording careers of their own cements the tie between the DGQ functioning like group’s sporting horn players out front.

But what of those folks who’ve moved through the ranks of David Grisman’s ensemble?

Two – well these two, at least – continued on in solo capacity, but also shared the recording studio a few times.

Darol Anger, an original member of Grisman’s troupe, and Mike Marshall, who was initiated a bit later on, have since the early eighties sporadically sought each other’s company in revitalizing music that’s pushing past the sixty year mark. Of course, that’s only if you figure Anger and Marshall’s music as bluegrass. But just a glance at the tracklisting for the pair’s 1983 album The Duo names like Chick Corea, Charlie Parker and Johann Sebastian Bach should contrast with what most would perceive bluegrass music to be.

Referencing so much beyond the scope of bluegrass as conceived by Bill Monroe, even the new grass tag seems obsolete. Separating this effort from anything in the Grisman catalog, though, is an air of stately old tyminess, not tied to rural America as much as it is to a European sense of music forms. Yeah, that Bach composition specifically, but even the opening section of the traditional “Golden Slippers” trickles in with purposefulness of a fugue or some such (I couldn’t define what a fugue is, but it sounds uppity, right?).

That’s not meant as an out and out criticism. The strain of music that Anger and Marshall have chosen to follow simply has more to do with working inside of a composition than expanding it – which is what Grisman and jazz in general sought to do.

While Anger and Marshall have worked together countless times and taken part in various high profile jams with other noted bluegrass players, the work each turned in with Grisman still seems to be the most immediately satisfying. That might be as a result of Grisman’s leadership or musical sensibility more than a lack of those things in this duo. But whatever the case, The Duo, while more than intriguing and past competent, isn’t as engaging as other work this pair’s turned in. So, if the first few Grisman Quartet albums aren’t in your collection, take care of that before giving this a spin.