Home » Jazz Articles » Nels Cline
Jazz Articles about Nels Cline
Nels Cline: Dirty Baby
by Mark Corroto
Those not hearing Nels Cline's music lately just aren't listening. Besides gracing rock band Wilco's albums and live shows, he seems to be the hottest jazz/improv guitarist of late. Right on the heels of his two-disc Initiate (Cryptogramophone, 2010)--maybe the jazz record of the year--he drops another double set, Dirty Baby, which is part of an art book, published by Delmonico Books Prestel, that re-contextualizes 66 works by artist Ed Ruscha with music and spoken word. These two CDs have ...
Continue ReadingNels Cline Singers, Richard Crandell and Good For Cows at Johnny Brenda's
by Nick Millevoi
Nels Cline Singers, Richard Crandell, and Good for Cows Ars Nova Workshop at Johnny Brenda's Philadelphia, PAJuly 7, 2010 For one of the closing concerts of the 2009-2010 season, Ars Nova Workshop brought the Nels Cline Singers to Fishtown's Johnny Brenda's. Cline has developed the reputation of being a guitar superhero, and the Singers are the purest manifestation of his work, so it was a rare treat to see the group in Philadelphia for ...
Continue ReadingThe Nels Cline Singers: Initiate
by AAJ Italy Staff
Nels Cline è molto di più che non il chitarrista dei Wilco. La sua lunga avventura musicale è una dimostrazione chiarissima di una classe cristallina e di una grande abilità nel manipolare i generi musicali. Sempre con la stella polare dell'improvvisazione e dell'avanguardia ben salda in mezzo al cielo, a indicare la strada. Ogni sua prova discografica sembra volere alzare l'asticella, fregandosene del fatto che già in precedenza questa era stata posta ben oltre i limiti suggeriti dal senso comune. ...
Continue ReadingNels Cline: Of Singers and Sound
by Rex Butters
Mimi Melnick's Salons feature some of Los Angeles' best improvising musicians in the most intimate of settings--her home, at the top of a hillside overlooking the San Fernando Valley. This afternoon's trio tunes, and tests sound levels. Bass wizard and longtime UCLA professor Roberto Miranda banters with veteran drummer Bert Karl, while the group's lanky guitarist, Nels Cline, studiously tunes a vintage Fender Jazz Master, and a fretless hollow-bodied 11-string that probably exists only in the arsenal of the versatile ...
Continue ReadingThe Nels Cline Singers: Initiate
by Mark Corroto
The release of the Nels Cline Singers 2-disc Initiate, a two hour-and-fifteen minute behemoth of sound, calls to mind a similar effort of 30 years ago, entitled Sandinista! (Epic, 1980) by the influential punk band turned prophets, The Clash. Like Mick Jones and Joe Strummer's 3-LP project, Cline's vision is too big to be encapsulated into a single genre or sound-byte blurb.
The guitarist Nels Cline, now famous as 'the sound' behind the rock band Wilco, was a ...
Continue ReadingThe Nels Cline Singers: Initiate
by Troy Collins
Called “The World's Most Dangerous Guitarist" by Jazz Times and named one of twenty “Guitar Gods" by Rolling Stone, Nels Cline's profile has expanded considerably since his collaborations with underground personalities like Thurston Moore and Mike Watt and recruitment by Wilco in 2004. Cline's roots in the West Coast jazz scene pre-date his newfound mainstream recognition however, dating back to the mid-1970s.
Initiate is the fourth release from The Nels Cline Singers, Cline's versatile ten-year old power trio ...
Continue ReadingNels Cline / G.E.Stinson: Elevating Device
by Ian Patterson
It is entirely appropriate that Sounds Are Active's fiftieth release since its inception in 1999 should be Elevating Device by Nels Cline and G.E. Stinson , two of the freer spirits of contemporary music. This recording, like much of the music from this label, provides challenging listening with music of a spirit unrestrained by convention and devoid of cliché, leading to a totally individualistic listening experience. Here, beauty and austerity slug it out without either one forcing the other into ...
Continue Reading
