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DAVID GRISMAN
For nearly 40 years, mandolinist/composer David Grisman has been busy creating "dawg" music, a blend of many stylistic influences (including swing, bluegrass, latin, jazz and gypsy) so unique he gave it its own name. In doing so, David has inspired a whole new genre of acoustic string instrumental musicówith style and virtuosity while creating a unique niche for himself in the world of contemporary music.

Dubbed "The Paganini of the Mandolin" by the New York Times, David has been praised for his mastery of the instrument as well as his varied talents as a composer, bandleader, teacher and record producer. After recording for several major labels, Grisman founded his own company, Acoustic Disc, which he runs from his studio in northern California. Upon launching the label in 1990, David entered the most prolific period of his distinguished career, producing 45 critically acclaimed, high quality recordings of acoustic music (five of which have been nominated for Grammy Awards).

David discovered the mandolin as a teenager growing up in New Jersey, where he met and became a disciple of mandolinist/folklorist Ralph Rinzler. Despite a warning from his piano teacher that it wasn't a "real" instrument, Grisman learned to play the mandolin in the style of Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass music. He took it with him to Greenwich Village where he studied English at New York University and became immersed in the proliferating folk music scene of the early 1960s.

In 1963 Grisman made his first recordings as an artist (the Even Dozen Jug Band - Elektra) and producer (Red Allen, Frank Wakefield and the Kentuckians - Folkways). In 1966, Red Allen offered David his first job with an authentic bluegrass band, the Kentuckians. While studying the music of his bluegrass mandolin heroes like Bill Monroe, Jesse McReynolds and Frank Wakefield, Grisman began composing original tunes and playing with other urban bluegrass contemporaries like Peter Rowan and Jerry Garcia, with whom he would later form Old & in the Way.

David's interests spread to jazz in 1967, while playing in the folk-rock ensemble, Earth Opera. A failed attempt at learning to play the alto saxophone turned him into a lifelong student of jazz musicianship and theory. In the meantime, his burgeoning career as a session musician gave him experience playing various other types of music and opportunities to stretch the boundaries of the mandolin. Today his discography includes recordings with Bela Fleck, the Grateful Dead, Stephane Grappelli, Emmylou Harris, Chris Isaak, Dolly Parton, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Earl Scruggs and James Taylor.

David's unique instrumental style found a home in 1974 when he formed the Great American Music Band with fiddler Richard Greene. "Nothing against singers," said David, "but it became apparent to me that I could play 90 minutes without one. Besides, Elvis never called." Within that year, Greene moved on to join a pop act, and David met guitar wizard Tony Rice, who moved to California where they started rehearsing a new group, the David Grisman Quintet, which also included bassist/mandolinist Todd Phillips and violinist Darol Anger. The rest is string band history.

Since its auspicious debut in 1976, the DGQ has won numerous polls and awards and has headlined at major jazz, folk and bluegrass festivals around the world. DGQ alumni (including Tony Rice, Mark O'Connor, Mike Marshall and Darol Anger) have gone on to establish successful careers as leaders of acoustic music. Current DGQ members include bassist Jim Kerwin, multi-instrumentalist Joe Craven, flutist Matt Eakle, and Argentine guitarist Enrique Coria.

In 1990, David founded the Acoustic Disc label with his friend and manager, Craig Miller, and two other long-standing friends from New York, Artie and Harriet Rose. To date label has released 45 CDs, including five with Jerry Garcia, all produced or co-produced by Grisman.

David has always been a pioneer. He continues to deeply influenced several generations of musicians through his own musical explorations, and with the blossoming success of Acoustic Disc has helped make artist-owned independent labels a viable force in the modern music business.

JERRY GARCIA
Jerry Garcia was the lead guitarist, vocalist, and spokesman for the seminal ë60s rock & roll band, the "Grateful Dead." Throughout his career, he led the Dead through numerous changes, becoming one of the most famous figures in the history of rock & roll. Simultaneously, Garcia pursued an eclectic array of side projects, ranging from the bluegrass group "Old & In the Way" to his folky solo recordings. Garcia stayed active as a member of the Grateful Dead and as a solo performer until his death in 1995.

Garcia learned to play guitar when he was 15 years old, originally playing folk and rock & roll. In 1959, when he was 17 years old, he spent a brief time in the army. When he left the military after a matter of months, he moved to Palo Alto, CA, where he met and became friends with Robert Hunter, who would later become his lyricist. Garcia bought a banjo in 1962 and began playing in local bluegrass bands.

Within a few years, he was a member of "Mother McCreeís Uptown Jug Champions," a popular local bluegrass and folk band whose membership also included Bob Weir and Pigpen. In 1965, this group evolved into the "Warlocks," which would in turn become the Grateful Dead in 1966. Over the course of the next five years, the Grateful Dead began building a reputation as a mesmerizing live act. During this time, Garcia guested with a number of bands, both in concert and in the studio; among the artists he appeared with are the "New Riders of the Purple Sage" (a band which he helped form), "Jefferson Starship," and "Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young."

In 1970, they began to shift their music back toward their folk, country and bluegrass roots with the albums "Workingmanís Dead" and "American Beauty." The following year, Garcia began a solo career with "Hooteroll?," which was released on Douglas Records. For the next few years, Garcia recorded solo albums frequently, often with the keyboardist Merl Saunders, in which also featured David Grisman, Vassar Clements, and John Kahn.

After the Grateful Dead scored their first hit album in 1987 with "In the Dark," Garcia pursued a number of solo projects, including several acoustic duet records with David Grisman and a handful of live tours and albums with the Jerry Garcia Acoustic Band. For the first half of the ë90s, Garcia concentrated on Grateful Dead tours and albums, as the band confirmed their status as one of the most popular concert acts in America.

Garcia died in his sleep of a heart attack on August 9, 1995. Several months after his death, the Grateful Dead announced their disbandment.

MATT EAKLE
Matt's first musical memories are of his mother, a piano teacher, playing Chopin and Debussy as he drifted off to sleep. As a toddler, his three older brothers (one played the guitar, one the clarinet and the oldest played the violin) would sing him musical phrases and he would mimic them back. That Matt Eakle would grow up to be a musician is no surprise, but no one would have ever predicted that he would become the first flutist in the history of dawg music.

"It's a quirky thing," said Eakle. "Through playing dawg music, I've gained a reputation as a flutist who can play virtually any style of music - jazz, classical, folk, bluegrass, rock, Brazilian, Arab, Klezmer, Japanese, you name it - I love it all."

Matt Eakle's flute has enriched and enlivened the sound of dawg music for nearly eight years. Matt, in addition to being a great soloist, is a true team player in the David Grisman Quintet, playing (and singing) percussion parts during Joe Craven's violin passages, and using the flute in countless innovative ways to support the other players.

"When Matt steps up to the microphone," says his boss, David Grisman, "I know that here's my chance to really lay that rhythm down, and when he and I play a tune together in unison, it's hard to tell us apart. In the DGQ, we're known as the Melody Brothers."

Matt got his start on the flute in the Roosevelt Junior High School Band in Richmond, California, where he grew up. He took flute lessons from a teacher who listed among his favorite musicians Bela Bartok and Jimi Hendrix. He studied classical flute off and on for 10 years, but instead of seeking a career in the symphony, Matt chose to pursue his eclectic musical tastes with his flute. That included everything from playing for tips on the sidewalk in front of Ghirardelli Square to forming a jazz ensemble with the great guitarist Davis Ramey, Matt's jazz mentor.

Matt met David Grisman through a mutual friend in 1985 and played his first gig as a DGQmember in November of 1989 at Yoshi's in Oakland at shows featuring the quintet and special guest Vassar Clements. "One of the nicest things about playing with David has been the opportunity to play music with his friends - Vassar, Tony Rice, Stephane Grappelli, Jerry Garcia, Frank Wakefield, Mark O'Connor and Bonnie Raitt..."

Matt is featured on four Acoustic Disc CDs: "Dawg 90," "Dawgwood," "Dawganova," "DGQ-20" and is a special guest on others: "Not for Kids Only," "Shady Grove" and "Latin Touch." Matt recently recorded "Flute Jazz," an Acoustic Disc project of his own. "It's my first feature album doing exactly what I want to be doing," said Matt. Flute Jazz is a collection of Matt's original compositions and jazz standards featuring Davis Ramey, who has been Matt's musical partner and teacher for the past 15 years, and Harvie Swartz, the fine bassist (Andy Statman Quartet, Stan Getz and others).

Pacific Nurseries Prospers

In 1997, when Don and Julie Baldocchi purchased Pacific Nurseries, the oldest operating wholesale plant nursery in California, it was in bankruptcy. "People thought we were crazy to buy a company that was failing," said Julie recalling the reactions of friends and family. "But as it turned out, it was the best thing we ever did." In nine years the Baldocchi's business has increased an amazing tenfold. They now have facilities in Colma, Stockton and San Martin, approximately 50 acres of land in production, 54 employees and a fleet of six delivery trucks. Today, Pacific Nurseries has prospered into a leading, full service wholesale grower and broker of quality landscape plants for the greater Bay Area.

"We specialize in filling all of the landscape contractor's plant needs -- from ground covers to specimen trees," said Julie, "Essentially we're a one-stop shop," added Don, who earned a degree in environment horticulture at the University of California at Davis. "We grow Bay Area acclimatized plants at three different sites. And what we can't grow, we'll find for you. We search for plants from the Pacific Northwest to Southern California."

Pacific Nurseries also specializes in custom growing for contractors. "We'll take a plant that the original producer grows but no larger than a five gallon can and take it up to a 24 inch box," said Don, 50, who brought his 15 years of experience as a landscape contractor to Pacific Nurseries. "So if an architect knows he can get Monrovia's Razzelberri Loropetalum in 15 gallon cans, he'll specify that in his plan, knowing that Pacific Nurseries will supply it."

They have taken custom growing one step further by experimenting with various shrubs and turning them into single turn trees. "We try to innovate by creating trees out of what would be shrubs," said Don. "If it's possible for a plant to be grown as a tree, we will try it."

Don, a fourth generation Californian, comes to his passion for Pacific Nurseries honestly. "It's in my blood,", said Don, who as a young boy grew vines and vegetables that thrived from the windowsill in his bedroom. His grandfather Narciso was a founder of Podesta & Baldocchi, the landmark San Francisco florist. And although he passed away before Don was born, his influence remained. He studied horticulture in college thinking he might one day own a nursery.

Don was working as a landscape contractor and Julie as a commercial photographer, when they heard about a nursery in Colma that was going out of business. "A light bulb went off in my head," remembered Don. "I approached the owners of Pacific Nurseries, we struck a deal and it's been flourishing ever since."

2005