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Not just outside the box, but denying the existence of boxes.
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Reviews

Silvan Joray — Updraft
(Bandcamp Ubuntu Music UBU0144, 2023, CD / DL)

by Jon Davis, Published 2024-10-08

Updraft Cover art

It goes without saying that New York is a very large city with a large number of musicians. It’s also one of the world’s centers for jazz - in fact, it seems the majority of American jazz releases we’ve covered here at Expose are from musicians based in New York. Even looking only at guitarists, we’ve got Mary Halvorson, Brandon Seabrook, Ava Mendoza, Marc Ribot, and Harvey Valdes are some examples, each of them a player who stretches the boundaries of jazz guitar in interesting ways. Silvan Joray is a Swiss guitarist based in New York whose music is firmly in the tradition of jazz guitar. There is no boundary-pushing on Updraft, just a set of eleven tracks for guitar trio that could easily have been recorded at any time in the last 50 years or so. On double bass is Nadav Erlich, and the drummer is Jeff Ballard. I’ve heard Ballard before on his album Time’s Tales (2018), though I must admit I don’t remember much about it; he also worked with Chick Corea and a few others. Erlich is unfamiliar to me. Joray’s harmonies are sophisticated the way jazz is supposed to be, but never outside or edgy, and his tone is clean and smooth. I can’t fault the performance or the recording quality, but it’s definitely for listeners interested in the classic sound of jazz guitar rather than anything that will stretch the ears or sensibilities.

Filed under: New releases, 2023 releases

Related artist(s): Silvan Joray

More info
http://silvanjoray.bandcamp.com/album/updraft

 

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