Let’s fly back four years to when Julian Lage’s album Arclight was new and I was smitten like a teenager. I found out about Julian when his official debut recording Sounding Point came across my transom in 2009. I’d never heard anything like it, and guitar jazz is kind of my thing. Turns out he was a Bay Area prodigy with early ties to mandolin maestro Chris Thile. You may have heard Lage with Thile on Live From Here (may it rest in peace). He’s done a bunch of projects in his first professional decade, including stretchy duos with Nels Cline (Wilco) and remarkable chamber grass flatpicking with Punch Brother Critter Eldridge. He’s a good artist to feature here in the early days of this String Theories journal, because I hold him up as an exemplar of modern musicianship and a bridge between the jazz head and the folk heart. Lage has command of and interest in tone, time and timbre that is objectively outstanding and also happens to fit with my chemistry like a DNA match. I found that especially true on Arclight, which became quickly one of my favorite all-time albums. That was a studio project, but before the year was out, Lage and his trio made a live recording of that material in Los Angeles, which is where this video comes from. They’re playing a ballad called “Nocturne,” an old English dance hall number, radically rethought and played so I hold my breath. There are phrases and lines as smooth and fragile as a poached egg. The variety of qualities and colors he draws out of his Telecaster (the perfect electric guitar) defy belief. And the band - Scott Colley on bass and the mighty Kenny Wollesen - is a life form unto itself. So close and meshed. I’m reduced to making Homer Simpson donut noises. Gwaaaahh.
I got to interview Julian for WMOT, so here’s that, with more background and thoughts.
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