Jason Carter brings his solo band to the Monte V in March

After 33 years as the Del McCoury Band's fiddler, the three-time Grammy winner plays Hotel Monte Vista Lounge on Saturday, March 6, 2027.

For more than three decades, if you saw the Del McCoury Band, you saw Jason Carter at the fiddle. Now he's out front with his own band, and he's bringing it to downtown Flagstaff. Carter plays Hotel Monte Vista Lounge on Saturday, March 6, 2027, at 8 p.m. Tickets are on sale through Eventim. The date was announced October 23.

The background is the reason this is a big booking for a bar room. In February 2025, Relix reported that Carter was stepping away after a 33-year tenure with the Del McCoury Band to focus on a solo career. That also meant leaving the Travelin' McCourys, the group he co-founded with Del's sons. Saving Country Music's headline put it plainly: "This Is Big." For bluegrass fans it was. Carter had been a fixture in what Grateful Web called the most awarded group in bluegrass history, and he's a three-time Grammy winner in his own right.

Since then he's been building the Jason Carter Band on the road. This year's listings had him at The Parkway in August, the Fuhrmann Auditorium in Covington, Louisiana, in September, and the Blue Jay Listening Room in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, on November 25. That's a solo career taking shape the way they usually do in bluegrass: one listening room, theater and festival at a time. JamBase pegs his usual headline room at about 325 capacity, so the Monte V is right in his range. Flagstaff gets him at close to the right size.

Flagstaff gets one of bluegrass's most decorated fiddlers in a downtown bar from the Prohibition era.

The room has its own legend. Hotel Monte Vista opened downtown in 1927, and Legends of America notes it was Flagstaff's most popular speakeasy during Prohibition. The lounge downstairs, known around town as the Monte V, has been a live-music bar for a long time. A 2007 State Press travel piece described it as a "dusty watering hole that features live music from national and local acts," and that line still fits. It's a bar first and a venue second, the kind of place where a fiddle player at arm's length is a very different experience than one on a festival stage across a field.

That's the case for this show. Bluegrass was built for small rooms and close listening, and the Monte V is about as close as Flagstaff gets. A player who spent 33 years in one of the genre's defining bands, now on his own, in a 1920s hotel bar on a Saturday night in March: that's a good night out whether you came for the fiddle or just wandered downstairs.

Tickets are on sale now. Snow is always possible in Flagstaff in early March, so check the roads if you're coming up from the Verde Valley or Phoenix, and plan to stay downtown if you can.

Sources: Jason Carter to Focus on Solo Career After 33-Year Tenure with The Del McCoury Band – Relix (relix.com); Jason Carter Places Focus on Solo Career after 33-Year Tenure with The Del McCoury Band – Grateful Web (gratefulweb.com); This Is Big: Jason Carter Leaves the Del McCoury Band – Saving Country Music (savingcountrymusic.com); Jason Carter (fiddler) – Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org); Jason Carter bio – The Kurland Agency (thekurlandagency.com); Jason Carter – The Parkway Theater (theparkwaytheater.com); Jason Carter – November 25, 2026 – OpenDate (app.opendate.io); Hotel Monte Vista – Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org); Haunted Monte Vista Hotel in Flagstaff, Arizona – Legends of America (legendsofamerica.com); Summer travel: historical hotels – The State Press (statepress.com); Hotel Monte Vista (hotelmontevista.com); Jason Carter Band tickets – Eventim (eventim.us); Jason Carter at Hotel Monte Vista Lounge – JamBase (jambase.com)