Bio

Tucker got his first mandolin on christmas after hearing Nickel Creek on the radio when he was only four years old, but he didn't learn how to play it until he started taking lessons at a local music store at the age of eight.

Because of how hard it is for mandolin playing second graders to start bands, he gave up when he was nine, and it wasn't until 2022 when he picked the instrument back up.

Now inspired by Chris Thile and Sam Bush, Tucker adventured more into bluegrass and progressive bluegrass (likely due to the fact that he has been going to bluegrass festivals since he was born), but he also experimented with other genres like Irish, Swedish and old-time.

At the now retired Thomas Point Beach Bluegrass Festival, Tucker, just getting into improvisation, had met Sam Acus, who quickly turned him onto jazz- something Tucker never thought was possible on the Mandolin. Tucker returned from the festival heavily inspired by Sam, and shortly began exploring jazz and jazz-adjecent styles of music, starting with Abdullah Ibrahim, whom he heard on World Cafe.

Since then, Tucker has had the opportunity to share the stage with some awesome musicians. In 2025 he joined the acoustic band Pulling Strings, played jazz music on an island with Ethan Setiawan and Joe K. Walsh, and lead old-time jams with Jeff Claus, Bruce Molsky and Darol Anger.

These days, Tucker can be found playing and listening to Jazz and Bebop, as well as other kinds of progressive acoustic music.

Tucker plays a 2019 Lawrence Smart A5 Mandolin.