Artist: Julian Lage
Album: The Layers
Genre: Post-Bop, Contemporary Jazz
Label: Blue Note Records
Released: 2023
Quality: FLAC (tracks+.cue)
Tracklist:
- Everything Helps (Lage) - 4:13
- Double Southpaw (Lage) - 3:03
- Missing Voices (Lage) - 5:35
- This World (Lage) - 4:19
- Mantra (Lage) - 4:01
- The Layers (Lage) - 3:43
DOWNLOAD FROM FILECAT.NET >>>
- Personnel:
- Julian Lage, Bill Frisell - guitar
- Jorge Roeder - bass
- Dave King - drums
When guitarist Julian Lage released View with a Room in 2022, he was seeking the answer to a question: "Can you have lush orchestration combined with organic improvisation and the agility of a small ensemble?" He discovered clues in studying the electric guitar's history on recordings. Lage felt the need for an additional musical voice and recruited guitar icon Bill Frisell, who appeared with Lage's rhythm section -- bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King -- on seven of the recording's ten pieces. The Layers is a direct companion; Lage considers it a "prequel," despite appearing afterward. The six tunes included here were cut during the recording sessions for View with a Room, and like its predecessor, the music was produced by singer/songwriter Margaret Glaspy and mixed by Mark Goodell.
Set opener "Everything Helps" is a showcase for the ensemble at its best. Lage's languid, summery melody is introduced by the guitars as Roeder's vamp erects a tight, harmonic intersection with the guitarists and King offers colorful fills and accents. The guitar interplay is sumptuous, lyrical, and not unlike the exchanges between Frisell and Greg Leisz on Good Dog, Happy Man. "Double Southpaw," with Lage on acoustic and Roeder on bass guitar, is one of two duets. Its meditative melody weds classical, Americana, and post-bop. Roeder's playing is in duet; it's not accompaniment. He offers chordal and single-string runs as the alternates between expansive chords and intricate fingerpicking. Its modal melody crisscrosses post-bop, Americana, and Andalusian folk music. Lage sets the tone for "Missing Voices." Played by the quartet, King's double-time brushwork, broken accents, and subtle pulse allow Roeder to offer hypnotic phrasing as Lage and Frisell travel the space ways gently and mysteriously, swirling together intricately interlaced harmonics before they re-emerge melding jazz balladry and minor blues. "This World" is an acoustic duet from the guitarists. Unhurriedly, they stake out different spots on a harmonic plane and explore one another's playing with deep listening, generosity, and nearly spiritual melodic invention. The final two tracks, "Mantra" and the title cut, are both played by the quartet. The former uses a two-chord pattern from the instrument's lower register. Roeder underscores it with deep single lines as Frisell and Lage take the opportunity to explore undefined terrain in waltz time. The closer is played acoustically by the guitarists and Roeder. The back porch Americana offers the guitarists' labyrinthine flatpicking exchanges, circling one another as the expressionistic melody unfolds. King shuffles his snare, hi-hat, and kick drum as Roeder floats the changes for the guitarists to improvise on, separately and together. The music on The Layers offers a run time of barely 25 minutes; further, it closely echoes its predecessor, making it unclear why View with a Room wasn't released as a 16-track album. Ultimately, that doesn't matter, because fans will appreciate not having to wait a year or two for new music from Lage -- especially with this quartet.
Review by Thom Jurek