Review: Julian Lage Quartet’s ‘Scenes from Above’

Julian Lage is unafraid to switch gears. While the guitarist has held together his trio with bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King, over the last four years, recently he’s been l branching out. First, there was the Joe Henry-produced Speak to Me (Blue Note, 2024) with keyboardists Patrick Warren and Kris Davis, and saxophonist Levon Henry. Last year, Lage toured with Joe Lovano in the Paramount Quartet. Now, with Scenes from Above,he returns to collaborate with Henry on capturing an expanded unit of organ great/pianist John Medeski and celebrated drummer Kenny Wolleson. Roeder, consistently on double bass throughout, continues to hold the bass chair, as he has in Lage’s ensembles since 2009.  Warren also returns on a majority of the nine tracks, playing a variety of instruments.

With Scenes, the leader serves as an integral band member in a group of artists who had largely never previously never worked or recorded together. His compositional approach for the group is an interesting one. He would set a timer for twenty minutes, write a song during that period, record it once, and then move onto the next song to do the same. He then turned what he had written and recorded over to the rest of the ensemble, curious to see how they would render them. At that time, Lage was in a deep period of thinking about folkloric music with touchstones of Susan Baca, early calypso, American blues, and Béla Bartók ’s integration of Romanian and Hungarian folk songs. These are mostly unresolved sketches, played with restraint. The resulting pieces emphasize texture and mood rather than a display of chops. While there are solos, the collective takes precedence.

“Opal” is deliberate and unhurried as Lage and Medeski refract each other’s lines over a subtle rhythm bed, with a few splashes of high-pitched piano notes from Medeski. “Red Elm” is similar in tone, albeit with a more fully formed groove and bluesy overtones. Lage steps into the forefront with precise picking over organ and cymbal flourishes. The intensity rises on “Talking Drum,” the closest the unit comes to the classic guitar-and-organ soul jazz aesthetic. But the group resists solos once it lands on a central idea while Warren’s dulcitone sweetens the group’s sound. Most tracks stay in the four-five-minute range except for “Nightshade,” the album’s pivotal track, which stretches to seven minutes. With “Nightshade,” Medeski’s bluesy organ swells lie behind Lage’s searching, single-note bursts. The music crests at times, suggesting a letting loose, but, yet again, restraint prevails. Wollensen and Warren (piano, bells) add subtle layers to the reflective piece, giving it a bit more drama than the softer “Havens” and ‘Storyville.”

Therein lies a critical difference between Scenes from Above and Speak to Me. The latter purposefully had far more percolating, peak moments, and unexpected thrusts from not both Lage and his bandmates.  Scenes is less expectant. Or, as Lage refers to it, “ [the] music [is] connected to our own growth and development individually and within our relationships with one another, with no sense that anybody’s expecting anything.” 

The aptly named “Solid Air” gently floats along, sounding almost like a tune-up in a soundcheck, though Lage and Medeski wring out all they can from a simple melody line. “Ocala” reads more like a series of bluesy riffs.  The closer, “Something More,” features equal measures of piano, organ, and guitar. Wollenson gives it a bit more thrust here than some of the other tracks. But it remains warm, partly sad and sweet as if to reflect on tough times while offering up a prayer for better days ahead.  

Given Scenes from Above’s restrained nature, it will be interesting to see if these four otherwise dynamic players, stretch out more in a live setting. With Five U.S. dates scheduled, including Big Ears, and six more in Europe, we’ll see.

‘Scenes from Above’ is out now. It can be purchased from the label.