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Johannes Luley — August
(My Sonic Temple no#, 2024, LP / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2024-07-24

August Cover art

Last time out with 2021’s Follow Your Heart, Luley turned in an excellent selection of jazz interpretations scored by others, such as Eberhard Weber, John Abercrombie, Ralph Towner, Bill Evans, and John McLaughlin. This time, with August, Luley presents a full album of original material seemingly inspired by those same artists and other ECM artists from the 70s, so authentic that it seemingly comes from that time period, though here Luley has offered the listener his best compositional ideas with arrangements that echo from decades past with clear and tempered brilliance; not knowing otherwise one could swear this is some great unknown ECM guitarist who somehow flew under your radar all those years ago. Here, his band is a quartet featuring his former Perfect Beings bandmate Ben Levin playing drums, David Hughes playing upright bass, and Chris Lawrence on trumpet and flugelhorn, with Luley playing all manner of guitar — electric, nylon and steel string acoustic and twelve string as required, and no vocals anywhere. The opener, “Grastrup,” offers an illustrative picture of the quartet as they work through a number of different ideas with fluid interchanges between guitar and trumpet with the ever-agile rhythm section laying the spatial, ever-shifting groundwork. “Timmerhorn” follows with a beautiful Abercrombie-like entrance, with a powerful melody delivered by Lawrence, followed by some brilliant lucid interplay. There are seven pieces total, each with its own element and approach, and though there are similarities in style, they all offer the players plenty of room to stretch out and be heard. Mention mus be made of the playful “Lotti, Leni & Lisa” which bears some similarities to the earliest Pat Metheny before Lawrence takes it in a different direction. Closer “Schulterblatt” begins with a workout for the rhythm section and some action for a snarly electric guitar, though it mellows out a couple minutes in with some splendid and imaginative improvisation. All taken, a joyful new tour-de-force by Johannes Luley and his crew that all should hear.

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): Johannes Luley

More info
http://johannesluley.bandcamp.com/album/august

 

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