Prodigious progressive jazz guitarist Julian Lage at age thirty has been playing professionally for the majority of his life. In recent years, collaborations with other innovative virtuosic players such as Nels Cline, Chris Thile, and Chris Eldrige, have broadened his adoring listener base. Julian was gracious enough to catch up with Grateful Web’s Dylan Muhlberg in the midst of an already bustling year of gigs with dozens more across the globe to come.

On Modern Lore, Julian Lage's second studio recording with his trio, the composer and guitarist focuses on the groove, building his melodies and solos around the work of the prodigious rhythm section of double bassist Scott Colley and drummer Kenny Wollesen. Modern Lore finds Lage playfully flipping the script he followed on his acclaimed 2016 Mack Avenue debut, Arclight.

Nels Cline’s music brings tangibility to abstraction. Over the years, as bandleader or featured sideman, his approach has little preconception of where the music needs to go or how his audience will respond to it. It’s the next evolution in the jazz idiom. While younger generations might know Cline as the non-exemplary lead guitar of alt rock band Wilco, his career as an established jazz authority dates back to the mid 80s.