Bruce Hornsby [ tickets ] has been tickling the keys of his grand piano--and tickling the imaginations of music fans around the globe--for nearly a quarter century now, and he doesn't show any signs of slowing down. In fact, the man who won Grammys for Best New Artist, Best Bluegrass Recording and Best Pop Instrumental all in the space of his first five years in the biz still continues to cleverly and gratefully dodge the burden of categorization.

Is he a singer or a songwriter; a pianist or accordionist; a classical, jazz, bluegrass, folk, rock or jam band musician? Or is he all of them and whatever else he has tucked up his sleeve to spring on unsuspecting fans next?

This may be the very essence of Bruce Hornsby--a musical shape shifter who on one night may be found drilling deeply into a 20-minute Miles Davis jazz improvisation backed by none other than Jack DeJohnette and Christian McBride, and on the next afternoon, tripping joyously through a bluegrass set trading licks with the likes of Ricky Skaggs.

While his nearly 18 months treading the tightrope between the jazz trio and the king of bluegrass mandolin have passed, the lanky piano man from Williamsburg, Virginia is still bringing audiences to their feet with his own band, The Noisemakers, for a handful of remaining shows that wrap August 23 in Lincoln City, Oregon.

Maybe then Hornsby will give himself a richly deserved break, or maybe not. During a recent interview with LiveDaily, he was not ready to admit he needed a vacation, promising that he had lots of new ideas kicking around in his head.

LiveDaily: The last time we had a chance to talk, you kidded me that I was the only person in Connecticut who went out and bought your 2002 album, "Big Swing Face." And I told you then, "Hey, if you want to defy categorization, you gotta kick the boat out there without the oars once in awhile ..."

Bruce Hornsby: Well, I just don't worry about it. I never trusted the fickle scene that is known as Top-40 Radio. You can count on just a few fingers the people who had long Top 40-radio careers. You know, from early on I said, "Screw this, I'm just going to be about playing music." And the lucky thing for me and my first record company was we had such a fluke hit with "The Way It Is," a flukey, wonderful accident. Because of that, they didn't know what a commercial hit was supposed to be with me. There was never anybody breathing down my neck to come up with a single; it just allowed me to move forward with every record and working with my newfound friends, Pat Metheny, Branford, Wayne Shorter, Bela Fleck ...

Now that was a tour, with just you and Bela.

Oh yeah, that solo tour with just banjo and piano. You saw that one? In Connecticut? Yeah, that was at the Charles Ives Theater ... outside on the lake. I remember that one because we had some little kid opening for us playing accordion. You've got a good memory.

So you talk about not making a lasting career on pop radio, but according to the guy who just drove the last dumptruck full of hundred dollar bills up to your house, you're still doing pretty good on the royalties from the songs you wrote that other musicians put out on Top 40 radio.

Well, that's right. Having that early kind of success as a hit radio guy, it sets you up to go down different paths. And different people deal with that in different ways. Most people try and continue to have hits, almost everyone. But there are some exceptions. I think Mark Knopfler is sort of like me in the sense he had some early hits, but it was never about that. Most people who have hits, that's all they can do. But I'm an old music school guy. I'm interested in doing a lot of things, so I use it as a springboard to work with a lot of people. But I never went looking for that either. I just kept getting calls from all these great people who I admired who were fans of my music. So the Top 40 success got my music out there to an extent I started getting these calls. That was the best part of it for me--getting the calls from musicians I always admired who I ended up getting to work with.

So is it your pattern to drop a project that may be designed as being more commercially accessible, and then throw a few curve balls like the jazz trio, the Skaggs thing ... the famous "Big Swing Face" ...?"

(laughing) It all has come pretty naturally. It seems I've done nothing but adventurous stuff in other styles. But really, both the jazz record and the bluegrass record are just natural progressions. I've been making brief forays into the bluegrass world since 1989, when I recorded with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, when we pissed all the purists off by winning the Grammy for best Bluegrass Record. And I've always woven jazz into my music and made records with those aforementioned guys. So people have been badgering me to finally make a jazz record, and finally make a Bluegrass record. So Ricky asked me to be part of his Bill Monroe tribute record--and that was an instant 'yes'--and he asked me, "Did you ever think about making a whole record like this? We have such a good connection." It's not like you're making a calculated plan, "Let's do this." These projects are coming from a really natural place.

I've seen you with the Grateful Dead and the Dead family of jam bands maybe 20 times over the years; and I saw you from close enough to observe that you really brought the best out of them. Particularly Jerry, there was a real connection there. How did he first reach out to you?

Well, he first reached out to me musically in the early '70s when my brother turned me on to him. But they reached out to me in 1987; I guess Jerry and Phil were fans of my first record so they asked us to open for them at Laguna Seca in Monterey. The next year, they asked us to open, and they asked me to sit in with them. Then the next year we opened for them again for a few times and they asked me to sit in with them a little longer. Then I was sitting in with them when we weren't opening for them. And then I asked Garcia to play on our record. And it eventually got to the point--and here's a little known fact, that there was a time before Brent [Mydland] died, that they were calling me to replace him. And that was happening about eight months before he died. It never came to that decision and it would have been a tough decision. It was hard enough to do when Brent died, but I did help them out for 20 months. And I wouldn't trade that time for anything.

Do you see yourself 15 or 20 years from now settling in like Les Paul does, with a few session guys in some club somewhere, and letting everybody you want to work with come to you?

You know, I live in Virginia, so I'm not sure how that would be. If I lived in New York, that would be easy, but I'm not sure what the hell I'll do. I love to play, but it's harder and harder to be on the road. We play so much every year and I sure love the two or three hours we play, but the rest of it you can have. I think it would be hard to get it together in some little club in Williamsburg, VA, but what you're saying sounds attractive on that level.