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Ray Russell Plus New Releases From Ears&Eyes
by Bob Osborne
This week we feature a selection of mostly new releases including the recent one from guitar legend Ray Russell who has enjoyed two distinct careers: one as an esteemed session player and award-winning film and television composer, another as an ingenious guitar experimentalist and free-thinking collaborator. There are also some new albums from the ears&eyes label and ground breaking sounds from Bonjintan and the trio of Dan Blake, Jon Irabagon and Ingrid Laubrock. Last but not least, I feature a ...
read moreRay Russell: Fluid Architecture
by Mark Sullivan
Veteran British guitarist and composer Ray Russell has been active in free jazz, fusion and as a session player. His whole range of experience finds a voice in the opener “Escaping The Six String Cage," as he and synthesist Eric Baldwin explore a wide range of guitar sounds. Slide guitar gives way to lyrical volume pedal swells, followed by rhythmic loops leading into free playing. Lyrical delay evolves into an abstract soundscape, finally returning to slide. Several tracks ...
read moreRay Russell: Playing with Time
by Ian Patterson
Each time guitarist/composer Ray Russell releases a new album, it feels like a comeback. Now, More than Ever, Russell's debut on the Abstract Logix label, comes seven years after Goodbye Svengali (Cuneiform Records, 2006), his heartfelt tribute to composer Gil Evans. Although Russell may drop off the radar for periods of time, he's never really far away from our ears. For much of the past 30 years, Russell has composed award-winning music for a plethora of hugely popular TV shows ...
read moreRay Russell: Now, More Than Ever
by Ian Patterson
English guitarist/composer Ray Russell has flown under the radar for most of his 45-year career, dividing his energies between his own projects, sessions for some of the biggest names in popular music and composing award-winning music for television and film. Russell's wide-ranging musical interests have meant that his own recordings have sometimes been separated by long gaps, and this is probably the main reason why he isn't better known. Seven years after Goodbye Svengali, Russell's tribute to composer Gil Evans, ...
read moreRay Russell Quartet: Turn Circle
by Roger Farbey
Vocalion has done it again, with a long overdue reissue of Ray Russell's first album Turn Circle (originally released in on the CBS Realm series), and superbly remastered by Michael J. Dutton. Russell is probably the most heinously undervalued jazz guitarist in the world, which is ironic because he is undoubtedly one of the best. His style is his own, sounding like no other guitarist.This album, recorded in 1968, is quite beautiful and the rather quaint cover art ...
read moreRay Russell: Goodbye Svengali
by Ty Cumbie
Heavy chops and slick production values are the dominant traits of this recording by British guitar wizard Ray Russell. While offering due tribute to the guitar master's powers, I would have liked to have heard more ideas and fewer effects. Russell was called up from the minors near the time fusion was starting to catch fire, and his sound remains redolent of that period. His playing, on single-note runs and complex, edgy chord voicings, is formidable indeed ...
read moreRay Russell: Goodbye Svengali
by David Miller
Ray Russell is an eclectic. From rock to free jazz, fusion and pop, the guitarist has done it all. His newest effort, Goodbye Svengali, a tribute to a like-minded spirit (Gil Evans), highlights Russell's eclecticism. Nearly all of the aforementioned ground is covered, and Russell is in rare form throughout. Structuring this recording as a tribute album, Russell does not use a single band, instead working with a revolving door of musicians who fit the bill for each tune. While ...
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