Chris Thile

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original stylistic home was bluegrass — never played absolutely straight in his southern California environment, but recognizable enough in the basic shapes of his playing.

Though he's been compared to Sam Bush, John Duffey, and even Bill Monroe himself, he doesn't sound like any of those players. Thile excels at creating purling streams of dense musical line that fill in subtle areas of shade behind a vocal melody. He is incredibly fast, but his speed is a matter of grace and of being a step ahead of what's happening, not of seeming to nearly tear the mandolin apart. Unlike most bluegrass mandolinists, he generally avoids a percussive element in his playing.

As Thile's talents grew, he took the important step of collaborating with artists who could stretch his musical vision. Since he was eight, he had performed with the guitarist-and-fiddler brother and sister Sean and Sara Watkins, and that group evolved into Nickel Creek, an unclassifiable band that added to bluegrass not only jazz (for the basic progressive-bluegrass equation) but also classical music and alternative rock songs. Nickel Creek accomplished the unlikely feat of taking progressive acoustic music into the pop Top 20. Thile also worked with archprogressive virtuoso mandolinist Mike Marshall, and the two delved into Bach and into some mighty advanced jazz harmonies. They delivered a near-flawless recital at the Ark a couple of years ago.