Grammy-nominated virtuosic guitar duo Julian Lage and Chris Eldridge have announced plans for a major U.S. tour, their first in nearly three years. The dates begin with an eagerly awaited two-night-stand at Nashville, TN’s Station Inn on April 1 and 2 and then continue through mid-April. The tour includes stops in major markets including New York City, Chicago and Minneapolis along with visits to such iconic venues as Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace in Bakersfield, CA. For complete tour details and ticket information, please visit www.lageeldridge.com.
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Julian Lage and Chris Eldridge craft songs that sound familiar but are never easily classified. Percolating with tinges of bluegrass and folk, insinuations of jazz and pop, and hints of classical and avant-garde composition, their music rarely settles into any one particular category; rather, it dances around the territory between genres, never announcing its innovations and prizing soulfulness above chops at every turn.
From first note to last, the duo push themselves to find new ways to play their flat-top steel-string acoustic Martins together – creating what The New Yorker calls a “familiarity with the fretboard… so extravagant and capacious that they bring flourishes to this music that it simply hasn’t enjoyed before.”
The GRAMMY® Award-nominated Lage has been highly regarded in jazz and new music circles for his own work as well as for his collaborations with such artists as Nels Cline, Fred Hersch, and John Zorn among many others. Fellow GRAMMY® Award-nominee Eldridge, an Oberlin Conservatory grad who studied with bluegrass guitar legend Tony Rice, is equally noted in the progressive bluegrass world for his stints with The Seldom Scene and The Infamous Stringdusters, which led to his joining Chris Thile’s adventurous quintet, Punch Brothers.
Lage and Eldridge first met backstage in Boston following a Punch Brothers show. Over the course of several years, a casual friendship led to a solid musical partnership that produced the 2013 EP CLOSE TO PICTURE, 2014’s full-length release, AVALON, and most recently, 2017’s acclaimed MOUNT ROYAL. A GRAMMY® Award-nominee for “Best Contemporary Instrumental Album” and an Independent Music Award winner in the “Best Instrumental Album” category, MOUNT ROYAL proved a top-10 success on Billboard’s “Jazz Albums” chart, fueled in part by a wide range of critical applause. “A spirited conversation between the two acclaimed musicians,” declared American Songwriter, while Relix noted, “Lage’s background in jazz and Eldridge’s penchant for bluegrass find common ground, emerging in a way that upends the parameters of both. Lovely and lilting at the same time, Mount Royal finds both men ensconced on a comfortable plateau.”
“There’s no attempt to outplay or one-up each other,” enthused Aquarium Drunkard. “The duo understands the need for breathing room.”
“The melodic lines are rigorously integrated, the arrangements more involved, the harmonies more ravishing,” wrote The Chicago Reader.
“The opener, ‘Bone Collector,’ one of three co-written tunes, draws from modern jazz in the harmonic interplay of its fluid improvisations without belying the track’s folk foundations. Other tunes tap more into the intricate forms Eldridge navigates with Punch Brothers: ‘Everything Must Go’ feels like a jazz ballad written by Paul McCartney, flush with a gorgeous melody and tender interplay.”
“Lage’s and Eldridge’s styles are dissimilar,” wrote The New Yorker’s Alec Wilkinson. “Each is a specialist and deeply articulate, although Lage has the larger and broader vocabulary. The dissimilarity means that there is an insistent and absorbing tension to their exchanges, which are neither reticent nor flowery. It is as if they understood each other’s thoughts intimately. They make me think of those schools of fish or flocks of birds that change direction all at once and for reasons that are mysterious.”
JULIAN LAGE & CHRIS ELDRIDGEUS TOUR 2020
APRIL 2020
1 – Nashville, TN – Station Inn
2 – Nashville, TN – Station Inn
3 – New York, NY – Le Poisson Rouge
4 – Chicago, IL – Old Town School of Folk Music
5 – Minneapolis, MN – The Cedar Cultural Center
8 – Austin, TX – Cactus Café
9 – Bakersfield, CA – Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace
11 – Berkeley, CA – Freight & Salvage
