Damn Tall Buildings, the bluegrass band from Brooklyn, delights while encouraging you to abandon your assumptions about who can play traditional music.

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A few weeks ago we spent a lovely evening with friends on the lawn at Strathmore Music Center listening to a bluegrass band from Brooklyn. Yes, you read that right. Damn Tall Buildings came out of an unlikely place to build a following in the traditional world of bluegrass music.

As you would expect, they aren’t your father’s bluegrass band. Where’s the banjo, you might ask. Yet they certainly have a bluegrass vibe. This three piece ensemble featuring Avery Ballotta on fiddle, Max Capistran on guitar (and the occasional banjo), and Sasha Dubyk on bass bring swing, old-time, and jazz influences into their offerings of bluegrass and traditional music.

Now in their tenth year, the band began on the streets, busking for tips and building real connections with fans. That origin is evident in their live shows, where Capistran, who handles most of the emcee work, is an engaging and humorous presence.

At the Strathmore concert, the band included new tunes and originals, such as Turkish Airlines, What a Nice Life and Sleeping Dogs.

But they also mixed in more traditional (or traditional-sounding) pieces from the folk, bluegrass, and folk-rock canon.

As you can see in some of the older videos, the band has had periods as a four-piece group, with the addition of the banjo. And yes, they can play some of the bluegrass classics, such as Sweetheart of Mine.

The Boston Globe calls Damn Tall Buildings “The Carter Family for the millennial generation.” Damn Tall Buildings refer to themselves as an all-acoustic guerrilla roots band. While their instrumentation is that of bluegrass, they are not bound to it.

That’s a pretty good description for the band which, being from Brooklyn, makes their name—a takeoff of John Hartford’s In Tall Buildings—so appropriate.

Sit back and enjoy some bluegrass from an unexpected place.

More to come . . .

DJB

Photos of Damn Tall Buildings courtesy of the band’s website.