Modern Lore

Albumbeschreibung

For his first album on the label Mack Avenue Records, released in 2016, Julian Lage and his trio – made up of bassist Scott Colley and drummer Kenny Wollesen – tackled older, sometimes forgotten partitions by Willard Robison, Sidney Bechet, Jack Teagarden, Bix Beiderbecke and Spike Hughes, and incorporated original works, paying tribute to one of his many obsessions: Keith Jarrett’s American quartet. But the real shock value of this album is of course to hear Lage exclusively on the electric guitar, as opposed to the acoustic guitar, on which he had excelled so far… Two years later, still with Colley and Wollesen, he doubled down on this electric path and continued to blend jazz, blues, country and rock’n’roll. And because Julian Lage knows his classics like the back of his guitar pick, filiations keep on coming. From Bill Frisell’s current, we take a sharp turn to Pat Metheny’s branch, before going for a more streamlined path, à la Jim Hall, who in fact worked with Colley and Wollesen. But of course Lage’s Fender Telecaster isn’t the weapon of a copyist, as virtuosic as he may be. Now 30 years old, the former Californian child prodigy has not only sorted out his personal culture, but also imposed his own style thanks to an ever more mastered writing. And the compositions on his Modern Lore are among some of his more mature works. This fifth album is the result of an ever-growing complicity with his rhythm section. © MD/Qobuz