Jazz Articles about Nguyen Le

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Nguyen Le: Songs of Freedom

by John Kelman
April 15, 2011

For over twenty years, Nguyên Lê has collaborated with a growing cadre of like-minded musicians--mostly Paris-based, where the guitarist of Vietnamese origins resides--building a body of work that is, in the truest sense of the word, “world music." From the Afro-centric band Ultramarine, and exploration of his own roots on the seminal Tales from Vietnam (ACT, 1996), to recent explorations of a nexus where programming and spontaneity meet on Homescape (ACT, 2006), Lê has carved out a unique space--often fusion-like ...

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Nguyen Le: Signature Edition 1

by Chris May
April 15, 2010

Nguyên Lê Signature Edition 1 ACT Music 2010

It might seem perverse to begin a review of a Nguyên Lê release with the observation that there is “too much fusion" on it, as, increasingly since the late 1990s, it is to the fusion mast that the guitarist has nailed his colors. But it is legitimate when considering the anthology Signature Edition 1, a double-disc set which starts with Lê's recordings ...

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Nguyen Le: Signature Edition 1

by John Kelman
April 5, 2010

Few musicians embody the word “fusion" more than Parisian-born guitarist Nguyên Lê. The son of Vietnamese immigrants, for the past 25 years he's been mining a combination of fusion by the more conventional definition--the infusion of rock energy into the jazz sphere--with fusion in a broader sense, the seamless integration of music from cultures around the world. More than many, Lê's music represents a cross-pollination that, at any given time, can combine his own electric guitar--often distortion-tinged and whammy bar-driven, ...

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Nguyen Le: Saiyuki

by John Kelman
October 16, 2009

He's not the first guitarist to explore the nexus of east and west--the legendary John McLaughlin is, at the very least, the first well-known six-stringer to do so--but, over the past couple decades, Nguyên Lê has been finding his own junctures. McLaughlin may have dug deep into the place where western harmony and Indian linearity meet, but Lê has set his sights even more expansively. Of Vietnamese descent, he's explored the music of his own heritage on Tales from Vietnam ...

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E_L_B (Peter Erskine_Nguyen Le_Michel Benita): Dream Flight

by John Kelman
May 7, 2008

Active leaders all--and busy sidemen as well--drummer Peter Erskine, guitarist Nguyên Lê and bassist Michel Benita worked together in other contexts, prior to forming the collective trio E_L_B and releasing their self-titled 2000 ACT debut. Busy schedules prevented a follow-up for seven years; but following a successful tour where the trio became a quartet with the addition of impressive up-and-coming saxophonist Stéphane Guillaume, Dream Flight retains all that made E_L_B such a compelling listen, while demonstrating the growth one would ...

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Huong Thanh & Nguyen Le: Fragile Beauty

by John Kelman
January 28, 2008

Fragile Beauty isn't the first time that singer Huong Thanh and guitarist Nguyên Lê--both Vietnamese-born, Paris-based--have worked together, but it is the first time they've shared the bill. Thanh has released three other ACT albums on which Lê produced, arranged and performed, and she's appeared on two of Lê's own discs--Maghreb & Friends (ACT, 1998) and the particularly stunning Tales from Viêt-Nam (ACT, 1997). Every one of these albums leads inevitably to Fragile Beauty, an album largely consisting of thoughtfully ...

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Nguyen Le: Purple: Celebrating Jimi Hendrix

by John Kelman
August 1, 2007

Originally released in 2002 but only seeing release in the United States five years later, Purple: Celebrating Jimi Hendrix--alongside welcome 2007 reissues of Miracles (Universal, 1990) and Zanzibar (Universal, 1992) and the more recently recorded Homescape (ACT, 2006)--provides an increasingly balanced picture of guitarist Nguyên Lê. He may be considered by most to be a fusion guitarist, and his often overdriven, almost always processed tone may well fit within that definition, but there's always been more to Lê than electric ...