What’s Next For Brittany Haas?
While at Princeton earning her Evolutionary Biology degree, Brittany Haas joined the jam-grass band Crooked Still on fiddle with whom she recorded four albums of esoteric bluegrass, folk-grass, jazz-grass and chamber-grass. No telling if she smoked a lot of grass. Probably not. For if Hass is anything, it’s focused. Driven. They toured the world together.
She’s been part of comedian/banjoist Steve Martin’s band. She was touring with Darol Anger’s Republic Of Strings at age 14. David Letterman’s latenight audience loved her. Her sister, Natalie Haas, has jammed with her on cello. Then there’s her own combo, Hawktail, whose Unless was one of the top alt-picks of 2018. There’s no containing her imagination. She even collaborated with percussive dancer Nic Gareiss. And she hosts and educates at string camps internationally.
In the process, Haas has become the most influential fiddler of her generation. Her Haas album, with sister Natalie, has to be heard to be believed. Genre be damned! She’s her own genre! She embalms folk, jazz, classical, country and fusion into a body-bag of ideas. In so doing, a Musical Monster of Frankenstein-proportions emanates from what was once staid tradition. In Musicality For Modern Humans: How To Listen Like An Artist, the brilliant new book by Craig Havighurst, she’s featured, along with Montclair bassist Christian McBride, in a section called “Highly Musical Humans.” Havighurst writes that she has had “a huge impact.” Her aptly-named 2022 Place Of Growth was influenced by fiddle strains from Sweden. Always seeking. Never satisfied. Her Swedish phase also culminated in a duo project with Lena Jonsson, The Snake. There’s obviously no telling what’s next for her, the only certainty is that she’s a must-listen.