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Trio Sud: Young and Fine

By John Kelman

Trio Sud Young and Fine Dreyfus Jazz2008 It's hard to believe that a guitarist as fine as France's Sylvain Luc has been so overlooked by supposedly comprehensive music sites like All Music Guide--especially with albums like today's Rediscovery, Young and Fine, featuring his Trio Sud group, out in the world. While you can find Luc at AMG, coverage of his small but significant discography is diminutive, and that's a shame, because Luc may well be ...

Sylvain Luc / Trio Sud: Young and Fine

By John Kelman

For every artist who's achieved popular acclaim there are ten more equally talented, but for whom greater recognition remains strangely elusive. Sylvain Luc's gradually growing discography demonstrates a guitarist with formidable technique and harmonic sophistication, and yet albums like Joko (Dreyfus Jazz, 2007)--a classic six-string workout if ever there was one--remain beneath the radar for many. Equally curious is the lack of visibility for his nearly decade-old Trio Sud. Many will look to Pat Metheny's undeniably excellent Day Trip and ...

Sylvain Luc: Joko

By Stephen Wood

Try not to listen to this album. I bet you won't be able to do it. With rich servings of fusion, swing, harmony, captivating guitar fills, and rhythm Joko, the new album from Sylvain Luc, is a gallimaufry of impressive musical feats.What are those feats? Luc manages to put his finger on the pulse of so many disparate musical themes and ideas and draw them all under a record title that, appropriately, bears his name.The album's ...

Sylvain Luc: Joko

By Ernest Barteldes

This Basque guitarist is possibly one of the most versatile jazz musicians to have appeared in recent years; he seems comfortable playing funk-inspired jazz (as he did in a recent appearance with drummer Billy Cobham at the Cutting Room last month) and is able to have an open ear to pop music while also exploring more complex sounds, as can be heard on this disc. He opens with a very loose cover of The Doors' “Light My ...

Sylvain Luc: Ambre

By James Taylor

Guitarist Sylvain Luc's sophomore solo album, Ambre, is similar to solo instrumental albums from other virtuosic talents--akin to, say, anything by Victor Wooten. You kind of have to be a player and student of the instrument in question, or just really into solo instrumental albums, to fully appreciate the album and the artist's technical proficiency. Maybe “appreciate" is too strong a word--one can certainly appreciate the deeply lyrical playing, wellspring of world jazz influences, and flurrying fingerpicking that colors Ambre. ...

Sylvain Luc: Ambre

By Jim Santella

The pure sound of an acoustic guitar runs through most forms of music around the world and through time. Civilization's earliest music makers applied the same natural techniques to interpret melodies and to portray desired moods. You can find guitar lovers applying their intimate technique today just about anywhere in the world.

Sylvain Luc employs an array of guitars, sometimes multi-tracked, in order to express his love of jazz. When he interprets “All Blues," it's with an appreciation ...

Sylvain Luc: Trio Sud

By Jim Santella

The acoustic timbres and sensual approach to jazz bring Sylvain Luc’s trio in line with Django Reinhardt. Born in Bayonne, France, Luc comes from a family of traditional Basque musicians. To his natural heritage, the guitarist has added South American and South African tinges, and timeless, straight-ahead colors to his palette. Sud has been together for several years. Their empathy produces a well-structured program with seamless transitions between solo and group voices. Luc delivers a powerful performance, steeped in tradition ...