Two at twilight

Brothers Matt Jordan and Young Stryker never planned to form a folk duo. It just sort of happened. What started as Stryker producing some tracks for his older brother Jordan turned into Bailey Jester, who have released two albums and toured extensively over the last three years.

The brothers will be playing two shows in Cape Girardeau over the weekend. Tonight they will play the opening show of Tunes at Twilight, and Saturday they will perform at the ArtsCape festival.

Jordan and Stryker, who have been calling Nashville, Tenn., home for about a year, are no strangers to Cape Girardeau. They have played in the city several times, including a performance in March.

"They're really good," said Larry Underberg, who booked all the acts for Tunes at Twilight.

Bailey Jester has performed at Underberg's house concerts on more than one occasion. "They're our most requested house-concert act," he said.

Because the duo has gone over so well with Cape Girardeau crowds, Underberg said it seemed like a good choice for the opening act for Tunes at Twilight.

"Their music is likely to appeal to a lot of people," he said.

Jordan said Bailey Jester most often gets categorized as modern folk, but he and Stryker try to pull a little from other musical genres like rock, bluegrass and country.

Before the creation of Bailey Jester, the brothers were on different musical paths while growing up in Griffin, Ga., a small town near Atlanta.

While Jordan, who is 13 1/2 years older, played variations on folk, Stryker tended more toward rock-influenced music.

"I didn't anticipate playing the upright bass in a folk duo, I can tell you that," Stryker said.

Not that he disliked folk or had no experience playing it. In Griffin it was the only type of music that would get gigs, he said.

Jordan said he always liked the sound of '70s pop-folk acts like James Taylor and Simon and Garfunkel, as well as country artists Buck Owens and Charlie Pride.

When the brothers first teamed up as Bailey Jester (named after the street they lived on in Griffin), they assumed it would soon turn into a four- or five-piece band. Finding additional members with similar interests and goals, however, proved difficult, and the brothers said it's easier and cheaper to tour as a duo.

Still, Jordan said he would still love to tour with more members and see what the music would sound like.

Right now, though, the brothers are busy touring as a duo, spending three for four days out of the week on the road.

In 2003, they played more than 160 shows and recorded their second album, "Travelin' Show." Most of the albums are sold at Bailey Jester concerts.

"It does kind of wear on you, but when you get to do shows were the people are enjoying the music, that really does make it worth it," Jordan said.

The extensive touring has also been paying off.

In Atlanta, which was a particularly hard city to play, the duo is just getting to the point where they can draw a crowd. While in the Boston area there already is a contingent of fans, Jordan said.

Stryker said playing house concerts and festivals is particularly helpful for them because there is a built-in audience. A lot of the house concerts have a reputation for good music, and people go to festivals for the overall event, he said.

After their performances in Cape Girardeau, the duo will head to Florida, where they recently played the Gamble Rogers Folk Festival, and then spend some time away from touring so they can work on their third album.

In addition to Bailey Jester, Tunes at Twilight will feature the following musicians: Brooke Burrows on May 28, FM Smith on June 4, Dalziel on June 11, Saxy Jazz on June 18, Kym Tuvim on June 25, Chris Rosser on Aug. 13, Amelia Royko on Aug. 20, Sonya Lorelle on Aug. 27, Randy Auxier on Sept. 3, Kevin Danzig on Sept. 10 and Peter Karp on Sept. 18.

According to Underberg, finding enough acts to perform at this year's Tunes at Twilight was no problem.

"This year we got a lot of phone calls from musicians who heard of Tunes at Twilight from other musicians who played here," Underberg said. "We probably turned away 60 percent of acts who wanted to get in, and we've already had half a dozen acts asking to play in 2005. It's really gathered momentum."

kalfisi@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182