Julian Lage (acoustic guitar)
The intimate auditorium of Sage 2 proved to be the ideal setting for an evening of surprising solo guitar playing from Lage. The obvious first – an acoustic folk instrument – not a gypsy jazz guitar à la Django Reinhardt but instead one favoured by flat-pickers. And flat-pick he did! Each note strong and propulsive but with a dynamic range and sensitivity that totally captured the audience.
His language on the guitar has developed beyond his early bebop days with the Gary Burton Quartet and perhaps now has at its core a folksy, bluesy, essence. This is liberally peppered with free jazz exploration, often resolving to the blues but frequently forging its own path. Classical harmony, Jimmy Wyble-esque guitar counterpoint, astonishing single-line passages and fretboard-defying intervallic leaps make up the rest.
Yet Lage was effortless and smiling, sage-like at times, allowing himself to enter a zone where anything was possible. Folk-jazz tunes (Jim Hall's Blue Dove, and Lage's own Day and Age) stood shoulder-to-shoulder with standards (I Hear a Rhapsody and Emily). Some tunes began life as an impressionistic outline before revealing themselves and the aptly named Northern Shuffle was, well a blues shuffle. Until of course it wasn't.
It was a masterclass – every angular exploration engaging and never alienating – each flight of fancy run through a prism of expression and emotion almost more impressive than the technique itself.
His chosen support act, Ike Thomas – a singer-songwriter from Liverpool - was an ideal choice to counter the maelstrom of musical intensity which was to follow. With sensitive songwriting and an unexpectedly beautiful falsetto, the audience warmed to this new artist immediately. Richard Herdman
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