Bumper Jacksons set to swing into Sisters

Bumper Jacksons fold sounds of jazz, early blues, old-time music, and country swing into an exhilarating repertoire of modern American roots music.

On Saturday, February 27, the Washington, D.C.-based band will bring their swinging party energy to Sisters in the season's second Sisters Folk Festival Winter Concert.

With three recent Washington Area Music Awards and many dozens of jubilant live shows under their collective belt, they've produced their second album, "Too Big World," a sweetly balanced collection of hot swing numbers, heartbreak ballads, and late-night moonshine foot-stompers.

Front-woman and Florida native Jess Eliot Myhre (clarinet, vocals, washboard) honed her musical chops in jam sessions in the streets and clubs of New Orleans, immersed in the music that fuels the city's humid, carnivalesque all-night parties.

In 2012, she met Maryland-born fellow song-crafter Chris Ousley (guitar, vocals) in Washington, DC, and the two joined forces to form Bumper Jacksons' core.

Chris' background in old-time banjo and bluegrass music harmonized perfectly with Jess's vintage jazz credentials; the songs the duo collects, arranges, and creates weave the high lonesome echoes of old rural America into the galvanizing sounds of the cities and artists that have defined American jazz, blues and swing.

Bumper Jacksons' musically eclectic approach sharpens the edge of traditional tunes like "Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down," "Trouble in Mind," or "The Dying Californian." On the Duke Ellington jazz classic "Delta Bound," the group nods to Appalachian modal harmony. The Billie Holiday classic "Them There Eyes" perfectly manifests the bracingly romantic vintage jazz of Frenchman Street, as does the band's treatment of the old bluegrass tune "Bully of the Town," or near-feminist cautionary tale "Come All You Virginia Gals."

For more information on the 2016 Sisters Folk Festival Winter Concert Series visit http://www.sistersfolkfestival.org/winter-concert-series. Tickets can be purchased online at http://www.sistersfolkfestival.org/tickets or by calling 541-549-4979 or at the door. Tickets are $20 for Bumper Jacksons. If available, individual show tickets are $5 more at the door. The show is at Sisters High School auditorium, and starts at 7 p.m.