WHIPPERSNAP
“Whippersnapper” is a big, fun word for a young, enthusiastic, but inexperienced person, especially one who gets too big for their britches. We’ve all been whippersnappers at some point, and EZRA is no exception. The band’s newest album, Whippersnap (their fourth release in just over two years), is a project with youthful braggadocio at its core.
Comprised of seasoned musicians from disparate genres, ranging from bluegrass-born banjo and jazz-entrenched mandolin, to virtuoso classical piano and bass, all presented over a bed of contemporary composition techniques, EZRA’s ethos is one of stylistic experimentation, harmonic and rhythmic exploration, and a general willingness to throw themselves into the deep end of unfamiliar waters.
Founded by award-winning composer and multi-instrumentalist Jesse Jones, EZRA’s core ensemble is composed of acoustic music superstar Jacob Jolliff (mandolin), Max Allard (banjo), Craig Butterfield (double bass) and Jones (guitar). For Whippersnap, EZRA welcomes back pianist Xak Bjerken, who brandished a microtonal Moog synthesizer and toy piano on the group’s second album, Earth to EZRA (Cantaloupe Records, 2024). Bjerken’s contributions to Whippersnap include sultry solos on tunes like ‘Noname’ and ‘Pomaria’ (written by Jones and Butterfield respectively), rowdy rodeo rhythms in Allard’s ‘Taxiway Tossup,’ baroque-style counterpoint in Jolliff’s ‘My Point eXAKtly,’ and even a touch of the avant-garde with wild prepared piano sounds on the out-there Jones tune, ‘Addatif.’
Jones met each of the ensemble’s core members at different stages of his life: he met a young Jacob Jolliff at a bluegrass camp in 1999; he met Craig Butterfield in 2013 while both were on faculty at University of South Carolina; and he met Max Allard in the fall of 2021 at Oberlin Conservatory, where Jones is Associate Professor of Composition, and Allard was a composition student. Xak Bjerken’s presence adds another chapter to the story, with the initial Jones and Bjerken connection going back more than twenty years, when Jones was a doctoral student at Cornell University, auditioning for Bjerken’s piano studio. Jones had been waiting for the right moment and the right musicians for a long time, but once they sat down to play together, they realized they had something very special.
EZRA released three albums in quick succession: the self-titled EZRA (March 2024 on Adhyâropa Records); Earth to EZRA (September 2024 on Cantaloupe Music), which invited two new collaborators, Mark Stewart and Xak Bjerken; and Froggy’s Demise (March 2025 on Adhyâropa Records), which returned to the core quartet. The rapid release of new music might suggest a band with an active touring schedule, but in fact, their demanding individual careers make it almost impossible to tour this project.
An inside joke in the band is that they have recorded more albums than they have played live concerts. As the fourth album to be released in just over two years, Whippersnap proves that point. And yet they are still optimistic that they will find some future time to tour together. Perhaps it’s that youthful braggadocio, but they are a band fully open to possibility: playful yet determined, rooted yet unbound. Whippersnap captures the sound of longtime and fast collaborators challenging each other, trusting each other, and above all, making the most of every moment they have together.
“…one of our planet’s premier purveyors of progressive bluegrass.” – Doug Deloach, Songlines
“It’s a stunning fusion that shouldn’t really make sense, but absolutely works perfectly.” – Rick Stuart, Roots & Fusion
“Up there with Béla Fleck as explorers on the outer fringes of Bluegrass.” – Tim Martin, Americana UK
1 Milk on Tap (3:05)
2 Kting Ktang (4:48)
3 My Point eXAKtly (4:54)
4 Noname (5:31)
5 Taxiway Tossup (4:58)
6 Whippersnap (3:57)
7 Pomaria (6:16)
8 Angle of Defense (4:48)
9 Gossamer (4:43)
10 The Selsun Blues (4:46)
11 Addatif (3:42)
All tracks written by Jesse Jones, except: (1, 5, 8) by Max Allard; (3) by Jacob Jolliff; (7) by Craig Butterfield
Jacob Jolliff - mandolin
Max Allard - 5 and 6 string banjo
Jesse Jones - steel-string and classical guitars and steel-string ukulele
Craig Butterfield - double bass
Xak Bjerken - piano
Recorded at SUNY Fredonia
Engineered by Bernd Gottinger
Mixed by David Sinko
Mastered by Jeff Francis
Photography by Tanya Rosen-Jones
Album Art by Otto Allard
Adhyâropa Records 2026
“…what I can only call an acoustic supergroup.”
— Kevin Johnson, No Treble
FROGGY’S DEMISE
Although EZRA is still young enough to have the adjective “new” put in front of its name, Froggy’s Demise is the the third album from this prolific ensemble in the last 15 months, closely following their debut album EZRA (March 2024) and Earth to EZRA (September 2024). The full album released on May 9, 2025 on Adhyâropa Records.
With Froggy’s Demise, the core quartet — composer and multi-instrumentalist Jesse Jones (guitars), Jacob Jolliff (mandolin), Max Allard (banjo) and Craig Butterfield (double bass) — presents ten widely varied compositions in the manner of contemporary chamber music, but each with heavy doses of jazz- and roots-based improvisation. Get ready for some spiky synchronized jabs, some supersonic triplets, some asymmetrical metric turns, some loping rhythms, some poignant sensitivity, and some real-nerdy harmonic shifts, all grounded by a playful, folky tunefulness.
Jacob Jolliff: mandolin
Max Allard: 5-string banjo
Jesse Jones: guitars, banjo (track 9)
Craig Butterfield: double bass
All tracks written by Jesse Jones, except:
Waldeinsamkeit, written by Max Allard
Sobreandando, written by Max Allard
McLaughlin, written by Craig Butterfield and Jesse Jones
Too Late, written by Craig Butterfield, arranged by Jesse Jones
Recorded at: Kaplow Recording Studio, Columbia SC
Engineered by: Cory Plaugh
Mixed by: David Sinko
Mastered by: Jeff Francis
Adhyâropa Records 2025
What makes them special is the alchemical bond between members, each with a vital element to contribute, producing a sum greater than the parts. The title-track fires off sounding like Le Sacre du Printemps had Stravinsky been born in Kentucky. The quartet handles the song’s jagged rhythms and lightning quick harmonic changes with consummate sharpness. Not virtuosic enough? Fine, the following song, ‘McLaughlin’, dedicated to British guitarist John McLaughlin and his Shakti group, shifts the proceedings into an even higher gear with nary a sign of strain.
—Doug Deloach, Songlines
Jones's ornate compositions come across with enough complexity to be studiously revered, while incorporating enough melody to create memorable passages and toe-tapping rhythmic interplay. [“Froggy’s Demise”] shows this balance between EZRA's lush melodic moments and the complex time-skipping sensibilities, in somewhat of a cinematic battle between light and dark.
—Sam Bradley, The Tonearm
“EZRA are only on their third album but have established a style all their own…a great album from one of the most exciting bands adjacent to Bluegrass.”
Earth to EZRA
Ever wondered where the worlds of progressive bluegrass music and microtonal synthesis might intersect? The EZRA ensemble is game to answer the question on their adventurous second album, Earth to EZRA. Convening in an intimate studio in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, the core quartet — composer and multi-instrumentalist Jesse Jones (guitars and vocals), Jacob Jolliff (mandolin), Max Allard (banjo) and Craig Butterfield (double bass) — teamed up with musical polymath Mark Stewart and keyboardist Xak Bjerken to craft a complex recording that is by turns whimsical, uplifting, haunting and otherworldly. And you can dance to it.
More succinctly, Elizabeth Ogonek describes the project as “a wild, surreal, and totally joyful album — a ‘cycle’ to be listened to from beginning to end.” The sonic beast at the center of Earth to EZRA is a microtonal organ designed by David Rothenberg and built by synthesizer pioneer Robert Moog in the mid 1960s. The 478-key instrument divides the octave into 31 equal parts, but was never actually functional until 2023, when electronic music scholar and instrument builder Travis Johns began the meticulous process of making the organ playable.
Produced by Xak Bjerken and Elizabeth Ogonek
Recorded by Dave Dennison at Studio 9
in North Adams, MA on October 21-22, 2023
Mixed by Dave Sinko
Edited and mastered by Jeff Francis
Earth to EZRA was released September 6, 2024 with Cantaloupe Music.
From left: Xak Bjerken, Craig Butterfield, Jacob Jolliff, Jesse Jones, Max Allard, and Mark Stewart in North Adams, MA in October 2023.
“It’s a stunning fusion that shouldn’t really make sense, but absolutely works perfectly, such is the musicianship involved.”
EZRA
What do you get when you take two seasoned conservatory professors (one for composition at Oberlin Conservatory and one for double bass studies at the University of South Carolina), add one of the best mandolin players in the world in any genre, throw in a young banjo phenom, and put them all together to play new chamber music using bluegrass instrumentation? You get EZRA.
“New, out of this world progressive string music.”
— Jason Marck, Radio Z, WBEZ Chicago
Founded by award-winning composer and multi-instrumentalist Jesse Jones, EZRA is comprised of Jacob Jolliff (mandolin), Max Allard (banjo), Craig Butterfield (double bass) and Jones on guitar and piano. Jones, who is also a luthier, built some of the instruments he plays, and he composed all nine of the works on their self-titled debut album.
Jesse Jones met each of the other three musicians in EZRA in a different decade of his life: Jones met a young Jacob Jolliff at a bluegrass camp in 1999; Jones met Craig Butterfield in 2013, while both were on faculty at University of South Carolina; and Jones met Max Allard in the fall of 2021 at Oberlin Conservatory, where Jones is currently a composition professor and Allard is studying composition and playing banjo. The quartet sat down to play together for the very first time in January 2023, and one week later, they had recorded their first album.
Recorded and engineered by Paul Eachus and mastered by Dave Sinko (Punch Brothers, Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer), this album captures lightning in a bottle for these first time collaborators.
EZRA was released March 1, 2024 on Adhyâropa Records.
This is an incredibly potent album with a high string wizardry quotient and lots of heart.
Almost 40 years on from the rise of the new acoustic music movement, there’s still a lot of life left in the genre, and EZRA, on their debut album, have already shown themselves to be in the vanguard.
—George Graham, Mixed Bag, The Graham Album Review
Up there with Béla Fleck as explorers on the outer fringes of Bluegrass.