CONCERT

Carnegie Hall
The Time Jumpers

Tonight was fun, pure pleasure, and interesting.

They did a lot of Bob Wills but the Buck Owens and George Jones numbers were the best.

Together Again by the Time Jumpers...

The Time Jumpers, Country Swing Standard Bearers, Thrive in Nashville

NASHVILLE — In some respects it was business as usual on a recent Monday night at the 3rd & Lindsley Bar and Grill here: The Time Jumpers were playing their long-running weekly gig to a capacity crowd. The musicians, mostly on stringed instruments, occupied the full length of the stage. After racing through “All Aboard,” a quicksilver original with a locomotive theme, they eased into an old blues standard, “Trouble in Mind,” with three fiddles blending in sweet, buttery harmony.

 From another angle, the Time Jumpers — a collegial crew of Nashville studio aces like the guitarist Andy Reiss, the pedal-steel guitarist Paul Franklin and the fiddlers Larry Franklin (no relation) and Kenny Sears — operate about as far from business as usual as it gets. This 10-piece band originally formed without the intention of performing in public. And these musicians have been steadfast in their devotion to outmoded, oldfangled and underplayed forms of country music, especially the springy, gladsome lilt of Western swing, best exemplified by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.

Along the way, over the last 17 years, the band’s stature has evolve from guildlike obscurity to best-kept secrecy to a sort of aw-shucks pre-eminence. Their Monday-night gig long ago became a Nashville institution, with fans often making pilgrimages from abroad.

“They represent the best of roots music,” said Rosanne Cash, who picked the band to kick off her Carnegie Hall Perspectives series on Saturday night at Zankel Hall. “They dip into Western swing and pop standards and real, straight hard-core country. They can do anything.”

Ms. Cash, who was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame this month — joining a pantheon that includes her father, Johnny Cash — will close the four-concert series herself on Feb. 20. Two other concerts will spotlight bluegrass (Ry Cooder, Ricky Skaggs and Sharon White) on Nov. 14; and Southern soul (St. Paul and the Broken Bones) on Jan. 15.

The idea behind the series has to do with history and continuity, which Ms. Cash also explored on her fine 2014 album, “The River & the Thread” (Blue Note). She said that theme was one reason the Time Jumpers made the perfect openers (another being the band’s sheer virtuosity).

Yet another factor: her long friendship with the country star Vince Gill, who joined the Time Jumpers (becoming their most famous member) in 2010. “What’s fun about this band is it’s a bunch of guys who are nuts about how it used to be,” Mr. Gill said.

Nashville prizes its traditions while embracing change; its downtown is pockmarked with construction sites, the byproduct of a $2 billion building boom. It’s tempting to draw a parallel with the present state of country music: the rampant Auto-Tune, the blockbuster arena tours. By that token, the Time Jumpers could seem a bit like their old Monday-night perch, the Station Inn — a revered, unvarnished little bluegrass haunt now across the street from a gleaming Urban Outfitters.

But the analogy goes only so far. “Most people would surmise that this is a band that’s only going to cater to an audience that’s been disenfranchised from their music,” Mr. Gill said. “It’s really not the case.” The audience at 3rd & Lindsley typically includes appreciative new-breed country stars, like Hunter Hayes, and younger fans only dimly aware of the likes of Bob Wills.

As sidemen, members of the Time Jumpers routinely contribute to the sleek mainstream country that their more dogmatic fans might decry. But the band has also become a name brand, a mark of quality: Last year the Time Jumpers appeared on Miranda Lambert’s No. 1 album “Platinum” (RCA), and several band members accompany Kacey Musgraves on her version of “A Spoonful of Sugar,” from the compilation “We Love Disney,” out next week on Verve.

Backstage at 3rd & Lindsley, band members reflected on their undiminished enthusiasm for the gig, and the function they serve. “I understand human nature enough to know that we’re designed to change and evolve,” said the fiddler Joe Spivey. “But you’ve got to be particular about the things of worth that should be held on to. We’re hanging on to this real musical expression that seems to be trying to get lost in all this growth.”

Mr. Sears pushed back on this idea a bit: “You know, we never set out to do that,” he said. “Actually, we didn’t have any intention at all. We certainly didn’t want to try to start careers; some of us are just trying to finish ones we already started!” They both laughed.

The Time Jumpers released a live double album in 2007, and a self-titled studio debut on Rounder in 2012. The toughest change since has been the loss of Dawn Sears, a sterling vocalist (and Mr. Sears’s wife), to lung cancer in December. “We’re doing the best we can,” said Mr. Gill, who had featured Ms. Sears as his own backup harmony singer for 22 years.

There were a few nods to her absence during the show: Mr. Gill sang his ballad “Faint of Heart” in her honor, and took what had been her vocal part in “San Antonio Rose.” At one point, as Mr. Gill sang the Buck Owens tune “Together Again,” Mr. Sears appeared to dab a tear.

But elsewhere the energy was jovial and spry, with routine flashes of brilliance. Mr. Franklin raised the bar with each of his pedal-steel guitar solos, gently swooping around the contours of a melody. Mr. Gill and Mr. Reiss, both on guitars, made their own sure-footed mark — as did Jeff Taylor, on accordion and keyboards.

Two guests sat in during the second hour, and each exposed the jazz undercurrent in the music. The first was Duffy Jackson, a veteran big band drummer. The second was Jack Pearson, a guitarist formerly with the Allman Brothers: He took a series of whip-smart choruses on “Take the A Train,” after which Mr. Sears wondered aloud what the band should do next.

“Practice,” shot back Mr. Gill, cracking up everybody else onstage.

The entire show hewed to a selectively broad vision of American music, one that hasn’t been prominent for some 50 years. But the musicians gave it a live spark, working with unhurried mastery and an obvious accord. “It doesn’t seem like a labor of love, playing with this band,” Mr. Sears had said, before the gig. “It feels like pure unadulterated fun.”