Scenes From Above Julian Lage, Feat. John Medeski, Jorge Roeder, Kenny Wollesen

• 1 Opal 04:09
• 2 Red Elm 04:46
• 3 Talking Drum 05:06
• 4 Havens 04:43
• 5 Night Shade 07:24
• 6 Solid Air 03:20
• 7 Ocala 04:20
• 8 Storyville 04:22
• 9 Something More 04:02
• Total Runtime 42:12

Info for Scenes From Above

Guitar virtuoso Julian Lage returns with his fifth Blue Note release, Scenes From Above, the follow-up to the Grammy-nominated Speak To Me, which was once again produced by Joe Henry. The album features Lage in a new band with John Medeski on organ and piano, Jorge Roeder on bass, and Kenny Wollesen on drums for a set of striking new original compositions.

Where 2024’s GRAMMY-nominated “Speak to Me” was Julian Lage’s grand statement as an improvising bandleader helming an ensemble through a diverse set of tunes, his new album “Scenes from Above” is about being a band member himself, about Lage exploring the tunes he has written with a crew he has built with that entirely in mind. Its nine tracks frame a brilliantly open experience, with four astounding players giving and taking space in equal measure as they explore these songs in one space, in real time.

“I came in with a desire to present this as an egalitarian thing, rather than ‘I’m the leader — let’s build something around me,’” Lage says. “This is music that’s connected to our own growth and development individually and within our relationships with one another, with no sense that anybody’s expecting anything.”

The album’s nine compositions resulted from what Lage calls a writing sprint ahead of a residency at SFJAZZ which marked the live debut of the band. As he thought about each of their qualities as players and hypothesized about how they might interact, he set a timer for 20 minutes, wrote a tune, recorded it once, and then began again. “My dream with composing, really, is to have something to talk about once we’re together,” he says. “It’s not the end-all, be-all.”

“Julian really thinks about things, has a lot of intention,” says John Medeski. “But it’s a beautiful combination of caring about the concept and direction and of being free and in the moment.” “Scenes from Above” radiates both qualities in tandem, and that’s what makes the album so poignant and timely.

Julian Lage has also announced upcoming touring including a tour of Japan, a performance at the Big Ears Festival, and a concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London with additional touring to be announced soon.

Julian Lage, guitar
John Medeski, keyboards, Hammond organ
Jorge Roeder, double bass
Kenny Wollesen, drums

Please Note: We offer this album in its native sampling rate of 48kHz, 24-bit. The provided 96kHz version was up-sampled and offers no audible value!

Julian Lage
Award-winning guitarist Julian Lage has been widely acclaimed as one of the most prodigious guitarists of his generation. The New York-based musician boasts a long resumé as a desired sideman with artists as diverse as Gary Burton, Taylor Eigsti, John Zorn, Nels Cline, Chris Eldridge, Eric Harland, and Fred Hersch, to name just a few. Equally important is his reputation as a soloist and bandleader. He is equally versed in jazz, classical, pop, and show tunes, and has spent more than a decade searching through the myriad strains of American musical history via an impeccable technique and a gift for freely associating between styles, tempos, keys, and textures that adds to his limitless improvisational spirit. Sounding Point, his 2009 debut album for Emarcy, featuring Bela Fleck and Chris Thile among his sidemen, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album. For Room, his Mack Avenue debut in 2014, he recorded as a duo with Cline, revealing the depth of their respect and camaraderie. It proved so successful that Lage joined Cline’s group for the landmark Lovers in 2016, the same year his own Arclight was released. On the latter, Lage played a Telecaster — a guitar not normally associated with jazz — in a program of modern originals and pre-bop covers with bassist Scott Colley and drummer Kenny Wollesen. He brought the lineup back together for 2018’s acclaimed Modern Lore, the same year he worked with Cline’s quartet for the Grammy-nominated Currents, Constellations.

Lage was a child prodigy — playing his instrument at the age of five and performing in public a year later. Shortly thereafter, Lage began playing with such renowned artists as Carlos Santana (when he was only eight years old!), Pat Metheny, Kenny Werner, Toots Thielemans, Martin Taylor, and David Grisman, among others, resulting in Lage being the subject of the Academy Award-nominated 1996 documentary film Jules at Eight. In addition to performing, Lage recorded as a duo with Grisman (the 1999 release Dawg Duos), and contributed a fine cover of “In a Sentimental Mood” with Martin Taylor and David Grisman to the 2000 compilation Acoustic Disc: 100% Handmade Music, Vol. 5. Lage also appeared at numerous jazz concerts/festivals and performed at the 2000 Grammy Awards.

In 2009, Lage released his debut solo album, Sounding Point, on Emarcy. The album was widely celebrated as the arrival of a new and authoritative voice on the instrument. This was followed by the concept album Gladwell in 2011. He fronted a quintet that featured bassist Jorge Roeder, tenor saxophonist Dan Blake, cellist Aristides Rivas, and drummer/percussionist Tupac Mantilla. The guitarist switched labels for 2013’s Free Flying. Issued on Palmetto Records, it was recorded in duet with pianist Fred Hersch.

The duo format apparently agreed with Lage, though its focus shifted a bit. In 2014, he issued two such albums. The first was Avalon with guitarist Chris Eldridge. Produced by the Milk Carton Kids’ Kenneth Pattengale, it contained bluegrass, folk, jazz, and classic pop standards; the pair called it a “love letter to the acoustic guitar.” Lage’s second 2014 album, Room, with fellow jazz guitarist Nels Cline, appeared on Mack Avenue. It focused on a range of material, from intricately composed and complex works to free and spontaneous improvisations.

In 2016, Lage released the trio album Arclight with bassist Scott Colley and drummer Kenny Wollesen. Produced by Grammy-winning guitarist/songwriter Jesse Harris (Norah Jones, Madeleine Peyroux), the album featured the single “Nocturne.” A five-song EP, Live in Los Angeles, followed later that year, documenting concert versions of songs from Arclight. In early 2017, Lage reunited with Chris Eldridge for Mount Royal, a second volume of acoustic guitar duets. Later that year, he paired with Gyan Riley for Midsummer Moons, a duet album of ten John Zorn compositions. The following year Lage reassembled his trio with Colley and Wollesen for Modern Lore. Produced by Harris, this set flipped the script on Arclight. Where the previous set — his first electric guitar trio date — found the artist inspired by freewheeling, pre-bop jazz, the latter recording incorporated the rhythmic sensibility and persona of early rock & roll in improvisational settings.

After tours with his own and Cline’s groups, Lage formed a new trio with bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King (Bad Plus) to cut his third Mack Avenue offering, Love Hurts. Whereas Arclight explored the pre-bop and country swing eras and Modern Lore surveyed first wave rock & roll, Love Hurts found the guitarist searching through the music of the late 1960s and early to mid-’70s in various genres for a series of covers — including songs by Roy Orbison, Ornette Coleman, Jimmy Giuffre, and Peter Ivers — in a jazz fusion of his own design. It was released in February 2019.

John Medeski
Equally comfortable behind a Steinway grand piano, Hammond organ or any number of vintage keyboards, Medeski is a highly sought after improviser and band leader whose projects range from work with John Zorn, The Word (Robert Randolph, North Mississippi Allstars), Phil Lesh, Don Was, John Scofield, Coheed & Cambria, Susana Baca, Sean Lennon, Marc Ribot, Irma Thomas, Blind Boys of Alabama, Dirty Dozen Brass Band and many more. Classically trained, Medeski grew up in Ft.Lauderdale, FL where as a teenager he played with Jaco Pastorius before heading north to attend the New England Conservatory. He released his first solo piano record, A Different Time, on Sony’s Okeh Records in 2013, and current projects include a new album in the works with his band MadSkillet (Terrence Higgins, Kirk Joseph, Will Bernard), and HUDSON (a collaboration with Jack DeJohnette, John Scofield & Larry Grenadier), plus a documentary on Medeski Martin & Wood.

Jorge Roeder
Bassist Jorge Roeder is originally from Lima, Peru and is now based in New York City. The biography on his website really encapsulates his work: “Combining a symphonic imagination with the intimate lyricism of a folk musician, the aggressive energy of a raw rocker with the buoyant rhythmic sensibilities of his Afro-Peruvian roots, Roeder conveys a wide spectrum of influences within a resolute foundation.”

Roeder is involved in projects with Sofia Rei, Shai Maestro and Ryan Keberle (he plays on all of Ryan’s Catharsis records!) and has performed with jazz heavyweights Gary Burton, Nels Cline, Kenny Werner and John Zorn. He was the winner of the 2007 International Society of Bassists Jazz Competition, a semi-finalist in the 2009 Thelonious Monk Bass Competition, and he received a Grammy nomination in 2018 for his playing on Julian Lage’s album Modern Lore.

Kenny Wollesen
Percussionist Kenny Wollesen performed on over 30 recordings during the 1990s and, as the decade progressed, gained increasing renown as a musician of astonishing versatility, skill, and ingenuity. He has recorded and toured with all kinds of musicians, from Tom Waits (Wollesen performs on Waits' 1993 collaboration with William S. Burroughs, Black Rider), to Sean Lennon, to Ron Sexsmith (Wollesen performs on his second album, Other Songs). A founding member of the New Klezmer Trio, Wollesen is also all over N.Y.C.'s downtown jazz and avant-garde musicians' recordings, and has been so active as to tour with Bill Frisell and Myra Melford in the same month.

This album contains no booklet.