Sounding Point | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | March 24, 2009 | |||
Recorded | May 11, 2008 and June 15–16, 2008 | |||
Studio | Legacy Studios, New York City | |||
Genre | Jazz | |||
Length | 56:20 | |||
Label | EmArcy | |||
Producer | Steven Epstein | |||
Julian Lage chronology | ||||
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Sounding Point is the debut studio album by the then 21-year-old jazz guitarist Julian Lage. [1] It was released in March 2009 by EmArcy Records. It entered the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart at number 13 and was nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album. Reviews of the album were generally positive; one reviewer found the recording inferior to Lage's live performances.
It started with an idea, but it wasn’t until I shared with some of the other musicians that it became something. We started having these dialogues about what would the Julian Lage record be. We would talk about it all the time. What kind of songs it would have and what would it say...I didn’t want it to be virtuosic; I wanted there to be a more storytelling in this. I constantly thought about how I could represent the common theme in all these songs.
Sounding Point was recorded when Lage was 20 years old. [3] He plays an acoustic Martin D-18GE and an electric Linda Manzer archtop on the record. [4]
The album was nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album [5] but lost to the Joe Zawinul album 75 . [6] The other nominees were Urbanus by Stefon Harris, At World's Edge by Philippe Saisse, and Big Neighborhood by Mike Stern. [7]
Lage performs two solo tracks on the release, the remainder of the album consists of pieces played by three separate combos. There are two duets, "Tour One" [3] and "All Blues", with pianist Taylor Eigsti [8] and three all-string bluegrass inspired numbers, "The Informant", "Long Day, Short Night", and "Alameda", with Chris Thile on mandolin and Béla Fleck on banjo. [3] The remaining six tracks are played by some combination of Lage's touring band; saxophonist Ben Roseth, cellist Aristides Rivas, bassist Jorge Roeder, and percussionist Tupac Mantilla. [8] There are no trap drums on the recording, Mantilla plays cajón, djembe, frame drums and cymbals. [9]
The album's opening track, "Clarity" was written by Lage when he was 15 years old for Gary Burton's album Next Generation. It was rewritten for this release to feature the cello playing of Aristides Rivas. [10] "All Purpose Beginning" is about writing a letter to a friend. It starts with the sound of a pencil writing on paper. [10] The album's closing track, "All Blues" is a cover of the Miles Davis composition. [11] There are two other covers, Elliott Smith's "Alameda" and Neal Hefti's "Lil' Darlin'", [4] a piece made famous by Count Basie. [8]
Sounding Point | |
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Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [8] |
The Guardian | [12] |
David Wiegand in his review in the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that Lage "demonstrates a jaw-dropping stylistic range and thrilling technique" on this "exquisite" album. [13] In his review in The Washington Post , Geoffrey Himes called Lage "a jazz newcomer more interested in elegance than in flash, more interested in instrumental storytelling than in virtuosity." [3]
The Chicago Tribune's Howard Reich found the album to be inferior to Lage's live performances. He wrote "The power of this music proved significantly greater in concert than on the recording" and "What often sounds static and predictable on disc becomes dramatically more vibrant and detailed in concert". [14] John Fordham quips in The Guardian that a "downside of the music is a sometimes becalmed over-refinement". [12]
In Patrick Ferrucci's New Haven Register review, he called the release "a cohesive and entertaining jazz journey". [2] All About Jazz managing editor wrote "a fully-formed voice that transcends yet incorporates his multifaceted stylistic interests, Lage's impressive debut points to a giant in the making". [11] AllMusic's Michael G. Nastos called the album "as impressive a debut recording as you'll hear" and Lage "a legitimate rising star". [8]
All tracks are written by Julian Lage except where noted.
No. | Title | Length |
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1. | "Clarity" | 5:54 |
2. | "All Purpose Beginning" | 7:16 |
3. | "Familiar Posture" | 2:58 |
4. | "The Informant" (Lage/Béla Fleck/Chris Thile) | 3:23 |
5. | "Peterborough" | 0:46 |
6. | "Long Day, Short Night" (Lage/Fleck/Thile) | 5:47 |
7. | "Quiet, Through and Through" | 2:18 |
8. | "Lil' Darlin'" (Neal Hefti) | 5:20 |
9. | "Tour One" (Taylor Eigsti, Lage) | 4:27 |
10. | "Alameda" (Elliott Smith) | 2:19 |
11. | "Constructive Rest" | 2:38 |
12. | "Motor Minder" | 6:00 |
13. | "All Blues" (Miles Davis) | 7:14 |
Date | Chart | Peak |
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April 11, 2009 | Top Contemporary Jazz Albums | 13 [15] |
Taylor Eigsti is an American jazz pianist and composer. He has performed, toured, or recorded with Dave Brubeck, Chris Botti, Joshua Redman, Julian Lage, David Benoit, Terence Blanchard, Becca Stevens, James Moody, Esperanza Spalding, Lisa Fischer, Ernestine Anderson, Red Holloway, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Diane Schuur, Ambrose Akinmusire, Ben Wendel, Marian McPartland, Christian McBride, Nicholas Payton, Joshua Bell, Chris Potter, Stefon Harris, Sting, John Mayer, Hank Jones, Chick Corea, Snarky Puppy, Vanessa Williams, McCoy Tyner, Joey DeFrancesco, Charles McPherson, Geoffrey Keezer, Eldar Djangirov, Joe Lovano, The Doobie Brothers, and Frederica von Stade, among many others. His working trio features bassist Harish Raghavan and drummer Eric Harland. He is also a member of Eric Harland Voyager, Kendrick Scott Oracle, and Gretchen Parlato's group. Since age 15, Eigsti has been a faculty member at the Stanford Jazz Workshop at Stanford University.
Julian Lage is an American guitarist and composer.
Gretchen Parlato is an American jazz singer. She has performed and recorded with musicians such as Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Kenny Barron, Esperanza Spalding, Terence Blanchard, Marcus Miller and Lionel Loueke.
Eric Harland is an American jazz drummer.
75 is a live album by Austrian-American jazz musician Joe Zawinul and his band the Zawinul Syndicate. It was recorded in 2007 at two performances in Switzerland and Hungary, among bandleader Joe Zawinul's final performances. The album was produced by Joachim Becker and originally released in 2008 by JVC Compact Discs, with the Zawinul Estate and Becker serving as executive producers. It was later released by BHM Productions and Heads Up International, the BHM release with the alternate title 75th. It peaked at number eighteen on Billboard's Top Jazz Albums chart and won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album. The album received a generally positive critical reception.
Urbanus is the seventh album by jazz vibraphonist Stefon Harris. It was released in August 2009 on Concord Records, Harris's first release with the label, his previous six releases were on Blue Note Records. The self-produced album was Harris's second with his band Blackout, the first being 2004's Evolution. It reached number 15 on the Billboard Top Traditional Jazz Albums chart and was nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.
At World's Edge is the ninth album by jazz keyboardist Philippe Saisse. The 2009 release was Saisse's first on Koch Records. It was produced by Saisse and Roy Hendrickson and was nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.
Big Neighborhood is the fourteenth solo studio album by jazz guitarist Mike Stern. The 2009 release was produced by Jim Beard and released by Heads Up International. It debuted at number five on the Billboard Top Traditional Jazz Albums chart and was nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album.
Tupac Mantilla is a percussionist from Bogotá, Colombia. He is the founder and director of the Global Percussion Network PERCUACTION and the director of the percussion group Tekeyé. He has worked with Bobby McFerrin, Esperanza Spalding, Zakir Hussain, Bill Cosby, Danilo Perez, Julian Lage, Bob Moses, and Medeski, Martin and Wood.
This World is a band founded in 1995 by brothers Lee Kohler and Rob Kohler in Bozeman, Montana. Lee is well known as a church organist, having performed with The Temptations and Bo Diddley. Rob is well known as a bassist and educator, teaching at the Stanford Jazz Workshop since 1991 and having performed/recorded with Danny Gottlieb, Julian Lage, Taylor Eigsti, Jeff Ballard, John Stowell, Alice Di Micele, and Michelle Shocked.
Arclight is the fourth solo album by American jazz guitarist Julian Lage. Two tracks were given a prerelease, "Nocturne" and "Harlem Blues".
Room is an album by guitarists Nels Cline and Julian Lage which was released in November 2014 on the Mack Avenue label.
Mount Royal is an album by guitarists Julian Lage and Chris Eldridge which was released by the Free Dirt label in 2017. The record was nominated for a Grammy in the "Best Contemporary Instrumental Album" category.
Next Generation is a studio album by American jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton. The album was released on April 12, 2005 via Concord Jazz label.
Modern Lore is the fifth studio album by American jazz guitarist Julian Lage which was released in February 2018 by Mack Avenue Records.
All Ashore is the fifth studio album by the American group Punch Brothers, released on July 20, 2018. The band announced the release of the album's first singles "It's All Part of the Plan" and the instrumental "Three Dots and a Dash" on June 14, 2018. The album was self-produced by the band and was released on the Nonesuch Records label. The nine songs were written and recorded in the sequence of the tracklist at the United Sound studio in Los Angeles, California. The album received generally favorable reviews from critics.
Currents, Constellations is an album by The Nels Cline 4 that was released in April 2018 by the Blue Note label.
Love Hurts is an album by guitarist Julian Lage that was released in February 2019 by the Mack Avenue label.
Gladwell is an album by guitarist Julian Lage that was released in 2011 by the EmArcy label.
Jorge Roeder is a Peruvian bass player and composer. He has performed and collaborated with many jazz artists including Gary Burton, Nels Cline and John Zorn. As part of the Julian Lage Group, he received a 2010 Grammy nomination for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, for Sounding Point.