Summer is Festival time. The United States offers huge gatherings featuring classic rock acts cashing in on their legacy, hip bands doing reunion tours featuring their one record that sold, baby bands that may or may not last a year and other pop ephemera. Meanwhile, over in Europe, American jazz artists tour festivals in super groups that could never afford to play together back home, making their rent for the year.
Here at Guitar Moderne we offer a virtual festival: no camping, no porta-potties, no stifling heat or mud. Just the enjoyment of the best in modern guitar in the comfort of your own home. Enjoy.
Bill Frisell – Live at Montreal Jazz Festival 2002 [FULL HD]
For the most part Europeans, and especially Scandinavians, are miles ahead of Americans when it comes to the seamless integration of jazz with sampling, beats, and electronics that is Nü-Jazz. Nils Petter Molvær brought out Khmer in 1995, while Bugge Wesseltoft, Jazzanova and St. Germain have been working this territory easily as long. Guitarists mining this particular type of fusion also seem to reside on the east side of the Atlantic: Eivind Aarset, Bram Stadhouders, Jeff Beck, Stian Westerhus, and Nguyên Lê have been long at home with the grooves of EDM and/or the sounds of experimental electronica.
Nguyên Lê has been making magnificent music for well over three decades yet remains criminally under the radar. His trio records with Michel Benita on bass and Peter Erskine on drums (ELB) are among the best post bop excursions around; Homescape, a record of duets with Paolo Fresu and Dhafar Youssef, features his masterful drum programming as well as his unique Vietnam meets fusion guitar stylings. Songs of Freedom offers creative reworkings of classic rock tunes. Perhaps his most interesting musical adventure is Saiyuki, a trio with Mieko Miyazaki (koto) and Prabhu Edouard (tablas). Here is an amazing full concert by that band with featured guest Rudresh Mahanthappa on alto saxophone. Hope to have a full interview with Lê here soon.