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Wolfgang Muthspiel / Mick Goodrick: Live At The Jazz Standard
by John Kelman
Guitar duos can be a dangerous thing. With 12 strings and four hands, there's the potential for serious train wrecks; but if the two players are really listening, there's also potential for inspired greatness. Ralph Towner and John Abercrombie's two albums for ECM—Sargasso Sea (1976) and Five Years Later (1982)—exemplify how two can, indeed, conjoin for a greater whole. So, too, does Live at The Jazz Standard, culled from 2008 performances at the venerable New York City venue, where student ...
Continue ReadingJean-Paul Brodbeck: Hang on Hippie
by AAJ Italy Staff
Il trentacinquenna pianista svizzero Jean-Paul Brodbeck è reduce da un passato da ragazzo prodigio che lo ha visto debuttare sul palco a soli quindici anni con Lionel Hampton. Da allora tanta acqua è passata sotto ai ponti e Brodbeck giunge al suo terzo album scegliendo la formula del quintetto che vede come componente più noto il chitarrista austriaco Wolfgang Muthspiel nel cui quartetto il pianista suona da tempo. Più che al periodo hippie evocato nel titolo dell'album, questa musica fa ...
Continue ReadingMGT: Wolfgang Muthspiel / Slava Grigoryan / Ralph Towner: From a Dream
by John Kelman
For over a decade now--at least on record--guitarist/pianist Ralph Towner has worked exclusively in two contexts: solo guitar albums under his own name for ECM, including Time Line (2006), and collaboratively with his longstanding group Oregon, last heard on 1000 Kilometers (Cam Jazz, 2007). Though never less than satisfied, many of his fans have hoped he'd participate in other contexts, as he's a flexible player who brings his distinctive harmonic approach to any setting, while adapting with ease to whatever ...
Continue ReadingWolfgang Muthspiel 4tet: Earth Mountain
by Chris May
A guitarist who moves at a pace through a variety of styles, from ambient, fusion, straight-ahead and post-rock to experimental jazz, Wolfgang Muthspiel sometimes returns to his projects, typically with a twist.
Collaborations with oud player and singer Dhafer Youssef and drummer Brian Blade have already been winningly revisited. Having worked on Youssef's Electric Sufi (Enja, 2001), seven years later Muthspiel produced and co-led Glow (Material Records, 2007), taking Youssef's incantatory singing to powerful new heights. A duo ... Continue ReadingWolfgang Muthspiel / Brian Blade: Friendly Travelers Live
by Chris May
This terrific two-disc package--identically sequenced in-concert CD and DVD recordings made in Austria in 2007--finds guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel and drummer Brian Blade performing half a dozen tracks from their studio album Friendly Travelers (Material Records, 2007) and another, “Shanghai," from Muthspiel's trio album with bassist Matthias Pichler and drummer Andreas Pichler Bright Side (Material Records, 2006).
Like fellow guitarist Pat Metheny--whose extreme technical virtuosity he shares, and to whose cascading lyricism he adds an enjoyable astringency--Muthspiel enjoys playing ...
Continue ReadingWolfgang Muthspiel-Brian Blade: Friendly Travelers
by Michael P. Gladstone
I've been hearing guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel for over fifteen years now and have categorized him in a fusion-ish setting with a propensity to emulate the harder-edged style of John Scofield. So it came as a pleasant surprise to find that his co-venture with one of the most musical drummer/percussionists in jazz today, Brian Blade, is a most welcome event.
This duo first saw the light after being invited to perform at the 2006 Jazz Baltica Festival. Considering their ...
Continue ReadingWolfgang Muthspiel and Brian Blade: Friendly Travelers
by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
Friendly Travelers is an attractive set of guitar and drums duets by two widely-traveled (and apparently friendly) musicians. Guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel's ample use of overdubs, loops and other effects is endlessly entertaining and certainly prevents any ennui. This proliferation of guitar voices nevertheless also prevents the listener from focusing carefully on Muthspiel's musical personality. Though capable of classical precision ("Gnadenwald," “Andrej Rublijow"), his soloing on the more explicitly rock-derived numbers is appealingly rough around the edges and expressive.For ...
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