This issue of Fiddle Sessions is blessed with articles by three extremely knowledgeable writers.

Tim Woodbridge, New England fiddle maven and popular fiddle contest judge, contributes the first of what I hope are many articles about his neck of the woods. Tim celebrates the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Don Messer.  Tim gives some evidence Messers influence on Canadian fiddling is impossible to overstate. I used to play with a contra dance band that featured the same kind of piano and drum playing that you can hear on the recording that accompanies Tim’s article.

Miamon Miller introduces Fiddle Sessions to the Maramures region of Romanian Transylvania.  It’s weird, wild and riveting with an accompaniment of a shouting kind of singing and a guitar-like instrument.

Anthony Barnett, the Boswell of jazz violin, returns after a long absence with the first of a series of musings on the history and current state of bowed jazz.  These essays will cover many aspects of the the scene; from Barnett’s discoveries about the evolution of jazz violin to visicitudes of being a researcher and collector of this music.

Finally I give a short review of relatively recent books that are about American fiddlers.  This neglected area of our history is finally being addressed by both knowledgeable amateurs and academics.

STACY PHILLIPS