Julian Lage - Scenes from Above

Guitar virtuoso Julian Lage's fifth Blue Note album, is the second made in collaboration with revered producer Joe Henry, and his first with a striking new quartet featuring keyboardist John Medeski, bassist Jorge Roeder, and drummer Kenny Wollesen.

Where 2024’s GRAMMY-nominated Speak to Me was Lage’s grand statement as an improvising bandleader helming an ensemble through a diverse set of tunes, Scenes from Above is about being a band member himself, about Lage exploring the tunes he has written with a crew he has built with that entirely in mind. Its nine tracks frame a brilliantly open experience, with four astounding players giving and taking space in equal measure as they explore these songs in one space, in real time.

“I came in with a desire to present this as an egalitarian thing, rather than ‘I’m the leader — let’s build something around me,’” Lage says. “This is music that’s connected to our own growth and development individually and within our relationships with one another, with no sense that anybody’s expecting anything.”

The album’s nine compositions resulted from what Lage calls a writing sprint ahead of a residency at SFJAZZ which marked the live debut of the band. As he thought about each of their qualities as players and hypothesized about how they might interact, he set a timer for 20 minutes, wrote a tune, recorded it once, and then began again. “My dream with composing, really, is to have something to talk about once we’re together,” he says. “It’s not the end-all, be-all.”

“Julian really thinks about things, has a lot of intention,” says Medeski. “But it’s a beautiful combination of caring about the concept and direction and of being free and in the moment.” Scenes from Above radiates both qualities in tandem, and that’s what makes the album so poignant and timely.