Gauthier Goatette, Jeff - Mask
SKU
17-CRYPTO112
"Mask features Jeff Gauthier on electric violin, Nels Cline on guitars, David Witham on piano, Joel Hamilton on bass and Alex Cline on drums. This is Gauthier's third CD as a leader and first for Cryptogramophone. Mask features works by Gauthier, Nels Cline, Alex Cline, former Goatette member Eric von Essen, and harmolodic legend Ornette Coleman. This is Gauthier's strongest and most original statement to date, and heralds his arrival as yet another important jazz violinist with a French name." "The Californian avant gardist continues his long association with Nels and Alex Cline. Although some have found the violinist's approach to be too amiable and soft-centred, nothing featuring the Cline brothers could ever be straight ahead, and here there's a strong core to Gauthier's melodicism -- even in the most lyrical grooves, which show a predilection for waltz and 6/8 time. The title track is the most ambitious at 18 minutes, referring to half-remembered themes in a dreamscape; Nels Cline's "The Fools" is elegiac, while "Enfant" is a free improvisation spun from the Ornette Coleman composition of that title. A beautiful release."-The Wire