Jazz guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel returns to the trio format for Angular Blues. Joining him are the long-time cohort and acclaimed drummer Brian Blade and bassist Scott Colley, a departure from Muthspiel’s trio that usually includes Larry Grenadier on bass. In the nine selections, Muthspiel plays acoustic guitar on three and electric on the other half dozen. This is his fifth album for the renowned ECM label and includes originals, the relaxed “Huttengriffe” and the pensive “Camino,” as well as the standards from his early ECM tenure such as “Everything I Love” and “I’ll Remember April.” He also offers his first-ever bebop rhythm-changes tune on record (“Ride”). There is also one guitar-only track, “Solo Kanon in 5/4,” with his use of delay with his electric guitar in a tune that reveals his classical side.
Blade, of course, has been a member of the Wayne Shorter Quartet since 2000, along with recording with artists from Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Daniel Lanois and Norah Jones to Charlie Haden, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea (Trilogy with Christina McBride) and Joshua Redman. Regarding the humble virtuoso drummer, Muthspiel says: “Brian is famous for his sound and touch, that floating way of playing, how he creates intensity with relatively low volume. It’s also a great pleasure for me to witness how sensitively Brian reacts in his playing to whether I play acoustic or electric guitar. I’ve done a lot of concerts and productions with him over the years, including in our guitar-drums duo, Friendly Travelers, as well as on Driftwood and Rising Grace. He always offers complete interaction and initiative, as well as his individual sound. To play uptempo swing on something like ‘Ride’ with Brian was really luxurious, a gift.”
After being mentored by Charlie Haden, Colley was the bassist of choice for such jazz legends as Jim Hall, Andrew Hill, Michael Brecker, Carmen McRae and Bobby Hutcherson, along with appearing on albums by Herbie Hancock, Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Chris Potter and Julian Lage. Colley, a native of Los Angeles, has released eight albums as a leader. “Scott and Brian have also played a lot together over the past few years, so they know each other well,” Muthspiel notes. “I performed with Scott in New York in the ’90s, and I’ve always felt that he was an extremely giving musician, who – with his warm tone and his flexible, dancing rhythm – simultaneously animated and supported the music. I wrote the bass melody of the new album’s first tune, ‘Wondering,’ especially for him. His sound develops a flow and harmonic movement that is inviting to play on.”
After “Wondering” – which includes extended soloing by Colley that extends Muthspiel’s melody beautifully – comes the album’s title song, the highly trio-interactive “Angular Blues,” so titled for its “rhythmic modulations and strange breaks,” the guitarist explains. “Somehow Chick Corea’s album Three Quartets was an association, but so was Thelonious Monk.” It’s a true showcase for the talents of all three. Those first two tracks, as well as the album’s third, “Hüttengriffe,” feature Muthspiel on acoustic guitar, his sound on the instrument both warm and immensely fluent. All others are electric. Muthspiel’s fluid electric phrasing buoys both the emotive “Camino” and the two different turns on his kaleidoscopic “Kanon,” the trio version in 6/8 and the solo, mostly improvised rendition in 5/4.
About his first-time inclusion of jazz standards on one of his ECM albums, Muthspiel says: “I was inspired to record standards with this trio because everything about the way the group plays feels so free, open and far from preconceived ideas, but at the crucial moment a jazz language is spoken, what we do does justice to these tunes. I learned ‘Everything I Love,’ the Cole Porter song, from an early Keith Jarrett album, and I first came to know ‘I’ll Remember April’ from a Frank Sinatra recording. In that latter song, I hardly play solo. It’s more about the head and the vamp-like atmosphere that prevails from the start and is savored again in the end. As in many moments with this trio, it’s about playing with space: leaving it, creating it, filling it.”
Muthspiel made his first ECM appearance on Travel Guide as a member of a cooperative trio with fellow guitarists Ralph Towner and Slava Grigoryan. This is a return to the trio setting – telepathic interplay as rendered on Driftwood with Grenadier and Blade. Like so many of the ECM artists, much of the beauty of Muthspiel’s playing lies somewhere between lyrical and atmospheric. This one, excepting “Ride,” which has its own swinging attributes, often falls into dreamy, trance-like fare that reflects musical acuity upon close listening. It’s almost as if space, that he refers to above, is used so judiciously that it becomes the fourth member of the group.
