RYLEY WALKER - Crucible Chicago

26. March 2015

Ryley Walker

RYLEY WALKER - Crucible Chicago

It doesn't happen that often that you insert a CD and leave everything you're busy with lying around. Ryley Walker's "Primrose Green" is a candidate for such a loss of control, because such an album has not existed for a long time. It builds from old virtues of free improvisation a completely new variant of folk. But the young singer-songwriter from Chicago also has both feet on the ground in very different traditions.

A harp-clear folk guitar spreads out on the damp, fragrant floor of double bass and vibraphone, over which the voice lays down incantations. The music suggests an encounter of Van Morrison from the times of "Astral Weeks" with Jeff Buckley in the settings of the Blue Note albums of Andrew Hill, Eric Dolphy and Bobby Hutcherson from 1963/64. No wonder, because although Walker feels committed to the US folk, he recorded these songs with representatives of Chicago's jazz avant-garde, first and foremost cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, drummer Frank Rosaly and vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz.

"The music came with the band," says Walker, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "I made up these folk themes on the guitar, but the guys immediately understood what I was about and started improvising like crazy. It's a mishmash of the music I love. There's as much free jazz as psychedelic rock and folk in it. Van Morrison and Tim Buckley also played together with West Coast jazz musicians. I wanted that sound on my record. I'd be bored if I just played a single sound."

Lesen Sie mehr im eclipsed Nr. 169 (April 2015).