Julian Lage

Julian Lage enjoys worldwide recognition as an extraordinarily gifted guitarist, composer, and bandleader. Based in New York, this musician maintains an extensive record of sought-after sideman work alongside figures that include Gary Burton and John Zorn. Equally fluent across jazz, classical, pop, folk, and rock idioms, he devoted the 2010s to exploring the breadth of American musical traditions. His capacity to connect disparate styles, tempos, keys, and textures fuels an apparently boundless improvisational approach. His 2009 Emarcy debut Sounding Point earned a Grammy nomination. The 2014 Room, his first Mack Avenue release, captured a duo performance with Nels Cline. He later contributed to Cline’s 2016 project Lovers, the same year his own Arclight appeared. On that record Lage employed a Telecaster for a set of contemporary originals and pre-bop covers supported by bassist Scott Colley and drummer Kenny Wollesen. The same trio reconvened for the widely praised 2018 album Modern Lore, while Lage and Cline also collaborated on the Grammy-nominated Currents, Constellations. Introducing a trio featuring Jorge Roeder and Dave King, Lage issued Love Hurts in 2019 and Squint in 2021. For the 2022 release View with a Room the trio expanded to include Bill Frisell on second guitar. His 2024 album Speak to Me, produced by Joe Henry, ranks among his most stylistically varied efforts and encompasses settings ranging from solo to large ensemble.

Born on Christmas Day 1987 in Santa Rosa, California, Lage displayed prodigious talent by mastering the instrument at age five and appearing publicly the following year. His abilities quickly attracted attention, leading to performances with Carlos Santana at only eight years old as well as with Pat Metheny, Kenny Werner, Toots Thielemans, Martin Taylor, and David Grisman, among others. This period of his childhood received documentation in the Academy Award-nominated 1996 film Jules at Eight. Beyond live work, he recorded the 1999 duo album Dawg Duos with Grisman and delivered a rendition of “In a Sentimental Mood” alongside Martin Taylor and David Grisman for the 2000 compilation Acoustic Disc: 100% Handmade Music, Vol. 5. He also performed at numerous jazz concerts and festivals and appeared at the 2000 Grammy Awards.

Lage’s first solo album Sounding Point arrived on Emarcy in 2009 and was hailed as the emergence of a commanding new instrumental voice. The concept album Gladwell followed in 2011, featuring a quintet that included bassist Jorge Roeder, tenor saxophonist Dan Blake, cellist Aristides Rivas, and drummer-percussionist Tupac Mantilla. He moved to Palmetto Records for the 2013 duet project Free Flying with pianist Fred Hersch. The duo format continued to suit him. In 2014 he released Avalon with guitarist Chris Eldridge, produced by Kenneth Pattengale of the Milk Carton Kids; the collection blended bluegrass, folk, jazz, and classic pop standards, which the pair described as a “love letter to the acoustic guitar.” His second 2014 album, Room with Nels Cline on Mack Avenue, ranged from meticulously composed intricate pieces to entirely spontaneous improvisations. Arclight, a 2016 trio date with Scott Colley and Kenny Wollesen, was produced by Grammy-winning guitarist-songwriter Jesse Harris, known for work with Norah Jones and Madeleine Peyroux, and featured the single “Nocturne.” A five-song EP, Live in Los Angeles, documented live renditions of Arclight material later that year. Around the same period Lage served as a regular bandmember on Chris Thile’s variety radio program Live from Here. Early in 2017 he reunited with Chris Eldridge for Mount Royal, another set of acoustic guitar duets. Later that year he paired with Gyan Riley for Midsummer Moons, a duet album interpreting ten compositions by John Zorn. In 2018 the trio with Colley and Wollesen reassembled for Modern Lore, again produced by Harris; whereas Arclight had drawn from freewheeling pre-bop jazz, this recording integrated the rhythmic character and persona of early rock & roll within improvisational contexts.

Following tours with both his own ensembles and Cline’s groups, Lage assembled a new trio with bassist Jorge Roeder and drummer Dave King of the Bad Plus to record his third Mack Avenue album, Love Hurts, in 2019. While Arclight had examined pre-bop and country swing eras and Modern Lore had surveyed early rock & roll, Love Hurts saw the guitarist mining late-1960s and early-to-mid-1970s repertoire across multiple genres for covers of songs by Roy Orbison, Ornette Coleman, Jimmy Giuffre, and Peter Ivers, all reframed in a personal jazz-fusion idiom. With King and Roeder providing support, Lage returned in June 2021 with Squint, his Blue Note debut produced by Margaret Glaspy and Armand Hirsch. Expanding the trio into a quartet by adding guitarist Bill Frisell, the ensemble recorded ten original compositions and toured the summer jazz festival circuit. The Glaspy-produced View with a Room by the quartet appeared in September 2022. Sessions for that project yielded additional material, resulting in the March 2023 Blue Note release The Layers, a six-track prequel drawn from the same recordings. His subsequent album, produced by Joe Henry, emerged from an especially prolific writing period during a 2023 European tour with Roeder and King; the trio refined the new pieces in soundchecks and occasional performances. In the studio Lage further broadened the palette by shifting among solo acoustic, duo, trio, and large-ensemble formats according to each song’s requirements. The resulting Speak to Me appeared on Blue Note in March 2024.