Jake Blount, Nic Gareiss and Sammy Wetstein

Jake Blount, Nic Gareiss and Sammy Wetstein, award-winning folk, jazz, and world music performers, have joined forces combining vibrant synergy, deft movements, and stories long untold. Through traditional songs familiar and arcane, this new trio celebrates the vivacious rhythms and deep roots of America’s eldest musics– and they'll be joining us on Cape Cod at Thacher Hall on Saturday, November 23 for a special Payomet Road Show. Jake Blount (Providence, RI) is a singer and multi-instrumentalist described by NPR as “an Afrofuturist in roots-music garb.” A winner of the 2021 Steve Martin Banjo Prize and a Smithsonian Folkways recording artist, American Songwriter has dubbed him the “King of Roots.” Percussive dancer Nic Gareiss (Lansing, MI) has been named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch,” and has been hailed by the New York Times for their “dexterous melding of Irish and Appalachian dance.” In 2020, Gareiss received the Michigan Heritage Award, the highest honor his home state bestows on traditional artists. Sammy Wetstein (Boston, MA) is a musician who infuses folk and jazz music with improvisational creativity. Sammy has performed at the Newport Folk Festival, The Shalin Liu Performance Center, and the International Bluegrass Music Association conference, and has appeared alongside artists jazz icons Joe Levano and Kenny Barron, and world-renowned string players including Eugene Friesen, Darol Anger, and Jason Anick. He is currently a student at Berklee College of Music focusing on jazz and roots cello performance. Blount, Gareiss, and Wetstein's years of experience as performers, educators, and scholars in their respective traditions have drawn them close to the spontaneous creative force at the heart of music-making. The trio brings the power of those fresh bonds to bear in a new performance: a paean to both strong roots and musical co-infatuations traced in wood, flesh, and gesture.