Musical Vanguards at the Dairy presents Jerron Paxton and Dennis Lichtman

Although in his early 30’s, Jerron Paxton has earned a reputation for transporting audiences back to the 1920’s and making them wish they could stay there for good. Blind Boy Paxton may be one of the greatest multi-instrumentalists that you have not heard of. Yet. Paxton was featured on CNN’s Great Big Story and appeared in the multi-award-winning music documentary AMERICAN EPIC produced by Robert Redford, Jack White & T-Bone Burnett. This young musician sings and plays banjo, guitar, piano, fiddle, harmonica, Cajun accordion, and the bones (percussion). Paxton has an eerie ability to transform traditional jazz, blues, folk, and country into the here and now, and make it real. In addition, he mesmerizes audiences with his humor and storytelling. According to Will Friedwald in the Wall Street Journal, Paxton is “virtually the only music-maker of his generation—playing guitar, banjo, piano and violin, among other implements—to fully assimilate the blues idiom of the 1920s and ‘30s.”

Dennis Lichtman is a multi-instrumentalist (mainly clarinet, fiddle, and mandolin) who is deeply entrenched in early- to mid-1900’s American music, from traditional jazz and swing to bluegrass and western swing. His elegant voice carries through on all his instruments, lending a thread that weaves together the various genres he navigates. He has performed and recorded as a regular member of Ghost Train Orchestra, Pokey LaFarge Band, Nation Beat, Jim Kweskin Band, and many more.