Jake Blount put it plainly this past August: “Jake Blount dies on 12/31/2026. You will meet me with a new name and a new sound in 2027.” He meant it. The award-winning banjo player and scholar, a musician who has spent years channeling Black American folk traditions through string band music and what he describes as a “genrequeer” approach to centuries-old material, has declared that this chapter ends at year’s end. On Saturday, October 17, three months before that self-set deadline, he brings the Jake Blount Band to Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs for a night centered on Single-Footing Horse, his final stringband recording.
About the Show
Single-Footing Horse arrives September 18 on Free Dirt Records, just four weeks before this show, and it represents a particular kind of return within Blount’s own catalog. Where The New Faith (2022, Smithsonian Folkways) built an Afrofuturist world of Black refugees after climate collapse, and symbiont (2024, Smithsonian Folkways, with Mali Obomsawin) explored racial and climate justice through Indigenous and Afrofuturist folklore, Single-Footing Horse pulls back toward Appalachian fiddle tunes and propulsive grooves. “I wanted it to be a reflection of the type of old-time music I like to play,” Blount has said. The record was shaped with his mentors Judy Hyman and Jeff Claus of The Horse Flies; the band performing here includes Cap Cooke on banjo, Ethan Hawkins on guitar, and Felix Sartori on bass. Blount is a Steve Martin Banjo Prize recipient who has performed at Carnegie Hall, Newport Folk Festival, and NPR’s Tiny Desk, and who collaborated with Rhiannon Giddens and the Kronos Quartet before consulting on Ryan Coogler’s film Sinners and contributing to Ken Burns’ The American Revolution. That this fall tour may be the last time those credentials travel under his current name is not theater. It is the deliberate decision of a serious artist clearing ground for whatever comes in 2027.
Venue & Logistics
Caffe Lena holds 110 people in its listening room on Phila Street in Saratoga Springs, one of the better-suited rooms in the capital region for this kind of music — close enough to hear Blount breathe between phrases, built for listening rather than spectacle. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. for the 8 p.m. show. The show is all ages. For those who cannot attend in person, Caffè Lena TV offers a livestream for $5, with proceeds going directly to the artist.
Tickets
General admission is $27.11. Member pricing is $24.94. A child and student rate is $13.56. All prices are inclusive of fees. Buy tickets