Julian Lage’s New Album, ‘View With A Room’ Is Out Now
To mark the release, the guitarist has shared a live performance of the song, ‘Temple Steps’.
Visionary guitarist Julian Lage’s eagerly awaited new album, View With A Room, is out now via Blue Note Records.
Lage is marking today’s arrival of View With A Room by joining Blue Note President Don Was for a new episode of Blue Note Records Presents “First Look,” an in-depth conversation about the making of the new album, premiering today via YouTube. Also streaming now is a live performance video of the song “Temple Steps.” You can check both out below.
A stunning collection of 10 compelling original compositions that sees Lage expanding upon his core trio’s orchestrational possibilities with the involvement of six-string icon Bill Frisell, View With A Room also includes such acclaimed singles as “Tributary,” “Auditorium,” “Word For Word,” and “Chavez,” all available now for streaming and download.
Official live performance videos featuring the extraordinary trio of Lage, bassist Jorge Roeder, and drummer Dave King are streaming now at YouTube. All four tracks have been met by immediate applause from such publications as Guitar Player, which hailed the hard-hitting “Chavez” as “an audacious, life-affirming composition…a conversational jazz composition that once more positions Lage as one of the finest jazz players today.”
Lage will mark the arrival of View With A Room with a busy international live schedule, including the just-launched “View With A Room In Concert” tour, now underway and set to travel through mid-December. Highlights include a pair of eagerly awaited double bills alongside The Bad Plus, set for Los Angeles, CA’s Walt Disney Concert Hall (October 14) and New York City’s Webster Hall (December 2). In addition, Lage will be offering exclusive pre-show Master Classes at select cities throughout the tour. For complete details and ticket information, please visit the artist’s official website.
View With A Room sees Lage fulfilling a long-standing goal to “have lush orchestration combined with an organic sense of improvisation and the agility of a small ensemble” by adjoining his core trio of Roeder and King with legendary guitarist Bill Frisell.
Having previously collaborated in several different contexts, including duo concerts and projects devised by John Zorn, the two musicians homed in on a shorthand musical vocabulary rich with references – spanning The Beach Boys, Keith Jarrett’s American and European Quartets, and George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass – to craft a subtle, eloquent weave that expertly manifests Lage’s enhanced vision in atmospheric and incisive ways throughout the new collection.
“There’s no one I would trust more than Bill Frisell to come into our trio ecosystem and be able to expand it while totally embracing it,” Lage says. “It became a beautiful collaboration that achieved the Technicolor experience that I’ve been searching for.”
Produced by Lage’s wife and musical partner, singer-songwriter Margaret Glaspy, at Brooklyn’s Bridge Studios with engineer Mark Goodell, View With A Room marks Lage’s second release via Blue Note Records, following last year’s acclaimed label debut album, Squint. Lage’s longtime friend and collaborator Armand Hirsch added integral post-production elements that bring the emotional intent of each song into focus.
View With A Room has already drawn early critical applause from such outlets as Glide Magazine, which declared the album “further documents Lage’s progression as a composer, musician, and recording artist…Julian and company are constantly but quietly shifting their perspective(s) as they play and, in so doing, they alter the perceptions of their listeners. It’s an ever-so-nuanced process that might well also sum up Lage’s approach to his recording career.”
