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Wolfgang Muthspiel: Angular Blues
by Mike Jurkovic
So much of Austrian guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel's music materializes before you like Mr. Spock and company on Star Trek. The music beamed in always airy and on the verge of evaporation. But before it does either manifest or vanish it leads you along a slippery slope, through brave structures where only the guitarist knows where the footings are hidden. Long time collaborator drummer Brian Blade knows the above characteristics well. So he becomes the center of gravity around ...
Continue ReadingWolfgang Muthspiel: Angular Blues
by Mark Sullivan
Austrian jazz guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel's previous two ECM albums have been quintets: Where The River Goes (ECM, 2018) and Rising Grace (ECM, 2016). This trio date is a call back to his ECM leader debut, Driftwood (ECM, 2014), with Brian Blade returning on drums but Scott Colley replacing Larry Grenadier on double bass. The music is mostly Muthspiel originals, but this time the program also includes two standards. Muthspiel opens the set on classical guitar, which he stays ...
Continue ReadingWolfgang Muthspiel: Angular Blues
by Dan Bilawsky
Guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel's fourth leader date for ECM Records--and his second trio outing for that storied imprint, following Driftwood (ECM Records, 2014)--is a marvel of ingenious interplay, musical sensitivity and absolute sincerity. Joining forces with drummer Brian Blade, a longtime band mate, and bassist Scott Colley, a playing partner from the '90s, Muthspiel delves into the deepest recesses of his mind and sound, delivering a program which is as absorbing as it is refreshing. Recorded in Tokyo after ...
Continue ReadingJeff Denson, Romain Pilon, Brian Blade: Between Two Worlds
by Friedrich Kunzmann
American bassist Jeff Denson and French guitarist Romain Pilon not only became professional acquaintances, but also great friends, when they began their studies at the much-revered Boston Berklee College of Music at the end of the last century. On Between Two Worlds the two celebrate their twenty years of on-and-off collaborating, with leading drum wizard Brian Blade completing the trio. In a set of mostly clear structures and highly melodic interplay between all involved, a crunchy guitar effect paired with ...
Continue ReadingWayne Shorter: Emanon
by Mike Jurkovic
With his most trusted cohorts standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him--pianist Danilo Perez, ever-ready bassist John Patitucci, and drummer Brian Blade--Wayne Shorter knows, beyond instinct, that any music he envisions will come to life. And inspire. And amaze. And so we have Emanon, a three-CD set whose first disc--four sweeping orchestral works recorded with the quartet and the 34-piece, player-conducted, innovative and expansive Orpheus Chamber Quartet--serves, in a rather loose way, as the cinematic soundtrack to the Shorter/Monica Sly-penned, Randy ...
Continue ReadingWayne Shorter: Emanon
by Mark Sullivan
Saxophonist/composer Wayne Shorter is a living jazz legend--his career includes stints with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, with trumpeter Miles Davis (including his last great quintet, as well as foundational fusion albums), and with fusion icon Weather Report--any one of which would be enough to give him a significant place in the history of the music. Throughout his career he has also produced influential work as a leader, going back to hard bop standards for Blue Note Records. So it is ...
Continue ReadingWayne Shorter: Emanon
by Ian Patterson
Just the fifth release from Wayne Shorter's celebrated acoustic quartet in its near two-decade career, the triple-CD plus graphic novel that is Emanon marks something of a creative high point in its journey. The first CD, a four-part suite for quartet and the thirty-four-piece Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, is Shorter's first studio recording since Alegria (Verve, 2003), while the second and third discs capture the quartet live in London. The accompanying forty-eight page comic-book, co-written by Shorter and Monica Sly, with ...
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