Michael Cleveland & Jason Carter - Carter & Cleveland (2025) Hi-Res

When two of bluegrass’s most honored and virtuosic fiddlers—Jason Carter has been named IBMAs Fiddler of the Year six times and Michael Cleveland has been recognized with the same accolade 12 times—sit down a let their fingers and bows fly like lighting over the strings, you know you’re bound for a treat. While it’s a bit of a surprise that these two artists haven’t recorded a collaboration album before now, they’ve been talking about a project like this one for close to 20 years. Listening to Carter & Cleveland is like dropping in on a living room session that features not only Carter and Cleveland but also special guests like Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Sierra Hull, and Del McCoury, among several others.

The album kicks off with the rollicking, high lonesome romp “Give It Away,” penned by Tim O’Brien and Matt Combs, fueled by Sam Bush’s expansive mandolin runs and harmony vocals. Carter’s and Cleveland’s fiddle dart around in counterpoint, chasing the song’s melodic theme across several harmonic variations. Carter and Cleveland set a breakneck tempo on Buck Owens’ and Don Rich’s tune “Kern County Breakdown,” and banjoist Cory Walker, guitarist Bryan Sutton, and mandolinist Harry Clark each take a turn stretching out with lighting licks. The fiddlers create an dreamy atmosphere on John Hartford’s “With a Vamp in the Middle,” and their fiddling spirals playfully on lively vamp in the instrumental bridge in the song. The bright fiddling and banjo runs on the minor chord verses of “Outrun the Rain” belie the melancholy nature of the song; Vince Gill and Jaelee Roberts supply the soaring harmony vocals on the song’s upbeat chorus. Jerry Douglas’ Dobro notes sparkle on the instrumental bridge of Darrell Scott’s song “Middle of Middle Tennessee,” a bluegrass country rambler with a few flourishes of phrases that would be at home in a Southern rock song. The album closes with the high-flying orchestral swirls and Django Reinhardt-like phrasings of “Bluegrass in the Backwoods,” a tune written by Kenny Baker and which evokes a bumblebee buzzing around on a spring day.

Carter & Cleveland is easily one the year’s best albums so far, simply because it brings together two of the best bluegrass musicians in the world who’ve invited their friends over for some jam sessions. We can only hope this is the first of many album that Jason Carter and Michael Cleveland produce together.