{"id":12195,"date":"2026-01-22T09:23:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T15:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/?p=12195"},"modified":"2026-01-23T09:24:06","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T15:24:06","slug":"review-lage-scenes-above","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/postgenre.org\/staging\/4567\/review-lage-scenes-above\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Julian Lage Quartet\u2019s \u2018Scenes from Above\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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\u2019s been l branching out. First, there was the Joe Henry-produced Speak to Me <\/em>(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<\/em>,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\u2019s ensembles since 2009.  Warren also returns on a majority of the nine tracks, playing a variety of instruments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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With Scenes<\/em>, 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 B\u00e9la Bart\u00f3k \u2019s 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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