Nels Cline

Prior to the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, Nels Cline earned recognition chiefly through his contributions to Quartet Music and assorted ventures across jazz, rock, and experimental idioms, together with his broader participation in West Coast avant-garde and improvisational circles. Throughout the nineties he issued a pair of duo projects alongside Thurston Moore and Devin Sarno, then cut Interstellar Space Revisited: The Music of John Coltrane with drummer Gregg Bendian; he subsequently entered Bendian’s Interzone ensemble while fronting his own trio, the Nels Cline Singers. In 2004 Cline reached a far wider listenership than is customary for a jazz guitarist by becoming a member of the alt-country and experimental-pop band Wilco. Across appearances interpreting works by figures such as Andrew Hill on the 2006 release New Monastery: A View Into the Music of Andrew Hill, creation of a score for the touring retrospective of Los Angeles painter Ed Ruscha titled Dirty Baby, partnerships with guitarist Julian Lage, sessions with Medeski, Martin & Wood, and performances alongside White Out, Cline has exerted influence on an international scale. In 2016 he delivered Lovers, his first Blue Note album, in which he directed his own ensemble and a chamber orchestra through a program of standards and new pieces. He followed that set with 2018’s Currents, Constellations and three albums issued in 2020, one of which was Share the Wealth.

Cline entered the world in Los Angeles during 1956 and took up the guitar near age twelve, roughly when his twin brother Alex began studying drums. By his twenties he was deeply engaged with the city’s improvisational network, and in 1978 he made his recording debut on Openhearted by multi-instrumentalist Vinny Golia. Over the ensuing decades he appeared on more than seventy albums, led several ensembles—including the Nels Cline Trio and the later sextet Destroy All Nels Cline—and toured extensively abroad with numerous groups. As a composer he has supplied music for films while also generating much of his own repertoire; he has additionally produced recordings for himself, G.E. Stinson, and Jeff Gauthier, among others.

Cline and bassist Eric Von Essen first crossed paths in the late seventies and soon began collaborating, resulting in the duet album Elegies, issued in 1980 on Nine Winds. Von Essen subsequently joined an orchestra led by violinist Gauthier, and before long the three musicians formed a unit of their own. Alex Cline sat in on their initial concert and ultimately became a permanent member, giving rise to Quartet Music, which remained active throughout the eighties. During that same decade Cline also performed with Liberation Music Orchestra West Coast, belonged to the rock group Bloc, worked with Julius Hemphill and Charlie Haden, and released his debut leader date, Angelica, which featured fellow Quartet Music members together with saxophonist Tim Berne and additional players.

In the first half of the nineties the newly formed Nels Cline Trio sustained a weekly improv series for four years and documented four albums. Cline further collaborated during the decade with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Stephen Perkins of Jane’s Addiction, Mike Watt of the Minutemen, and the Geraldine Fibbers. A duo recording with percussionist Gregg Bendian that reinterpreted John Coltrane’s Interstellar Space appeared on Atavistic in 1999. That year the California Music Awards named Cline Outstanding Jazz Artist. The following year he issued Inkling on Cryptogramophone, initiating an extended partnership with Andrea Parkins. Destroy All Nels Cline followed, after which the Nels Cline Singers were assembled and released their first album, Instrumentals, in 2002.

Cline accepted an invitation to join Wilco in 2004 and has since toured and performed on every subsequent recording by the band. He nevertheless continued other pursuits, among them several one-off collaborations and two albums by the trio comprising Cline, Parkins, and Tom Rainey. Also in 2004 the Nels Cline Singers put out Giant Pin; Cline next released an album of Andrew Hill compositions in 2006, the acclaimed New Monastery. Cryptogramophone later issued two further Singers recordings, Draw Breath in summer 2007 and the two-disc Initiate in 2010. Later that year Cline unveiled Dirty Baby, a double-disc collaboration with poet and producer David Breskin. Breskin selected sixty-six period images by Ed Ruscha, divided them into two sets, and commissioned the guitarist to create one extended piece and one shorter work to accompany each group of images, supplying no additional directives. Cline recorded the music with a large ensemble that included Jon Brion, Scott Amendola, brother Alex Cline, and Devin Hoff. A lavishly illustrated book edition containing enlarged reproductions of the images together with sixty-six textual pieces by Breskin was also produced. When this endeavor is added to the extensive sideman activity Cline has maintained since the turn of the century, the result is a portrait of an exceptionally active, prolific, and versatile guitarist. In April 2014 he appeared as a guest on Joan Osborne’s Love and Hate and as a full collaborator with Medeski, Martin & Wood on Woodstock Sessions 2. Later in 2014, Macroscope by the Nels Cline Singers and Room, a duet recording with classical guitarist Julian Lage, both appeared on Detroit’s Mack Avenue Records.

Following the recording of Star Wars with Wilco and the accompanying tour, Cline signed with Blue Note. His debut for the label was the double-length Lovers. Realizing a long-standing ambition, the project drew inspiration from Bill Evans, Jim Hall, Gil Evans, and Henry Mancini. Cline assembled an ambitious “mood music” program performed by a twenty-three-member ensemble conducted and arranged by Michael Leonhart. David Breskin served as producer, and Ron Saint Germain handled recording and mixing. Lovers juxtaposed jazz and Great American Songbook standards with originals and interpretations of songs by Annette Peacock, Gabor Szabo, Sonic Youth, Jimmy Giuffre, and Arto Lindsay. The single and video for “Beautiful Love” were released in early June 2016, premiered live at the Newport Jazz Festival in July, and issued commercially in August.

Cline’s experience recording Room with Lage proved lasting. The pair frequently discussed how an album might sound if they enlisted a rhythm section. Cline therefore invited bassist Scott Colley and drummer Tom Rainey—musicians who had performed hundreds of concerts together as a working rhythm section in the nineties—to join them during a 2016 residency at New York’s venue The Stone. At that time Colley and Lage were both members of Gary Burton’s group, and the bassist eventually entered the guitarist’s trio. Cline had previously performed with each participant. The live performances proved so successful that they formed the basis for the studio sessions that produced Currents, Constellations, Cline’s second Blue Note release, credited to the quartet known as the Nels Cline 4. He composed seven of the album’s eight pieces; the sole cover was Carla Bley’s “Temporarily,” a seldom-heard work long associated with the Jimmy Giuffre Three. Cline noted that the objective was not to spotlight “sovereign” guitar solos but rather to cultivate an ensemble texture, whether realized through vigorous collective improvisation or a more refined and exacting approach on the reflective selections. The funk-inflected preview single “Imperfect 10” appeared in March alongside a promotional in-studio video. Currents, Constellations reached stores in mid-April, a few days before the band—augmented by bassist Jorge Roeder substituting for the previously committed Colley—embarked on a European tour.

In January 2020 Cline, bassist William Parker, and keyboardist Thollem McDonas released Gowanus Sessions II for ESP-Disk. During the spring Cline and pianist-organist-synthesist Jamie Saft assisted drummer-composer Bobby Previte on the RareNoise trio album Music from the Early 21st Century. In October Blue Note issued the single “Beam/Spiral” ahead of Share the Wealth, Cline’s third release for the label, this time featuring an expanded Nels Cline Singers. The lineup he convened—saxophonist Skerik, percussionist Cyro Baptista, keyboardist Brian Marsella, bassist Trevor Dunn, and drummer Amendola—had not yet performed a single concert together when they entered Brooklyn’s The Bunker studio. Cline and co-producer Eli Crews captured the band over two days of extended, spontaneous jams. Initially Cline intended to edit the expansive material extensively in order to fashion a cut-and-paste, collaged, psychedelic record. After repeated close listening to the uninterrupted performances, however, he elected to issue the music without further editing. The double-length Share the Wealth appeared in November.