Sounding Point
Encyclopedia
Sounding Point is the debut album by jazz guitarist
Jazz guitarist
Jazz guitarists are guitar players who play jazz music on the guitar using an approach to playing chords, melodies, and improvised solo lines which is called jazz guitar playing. The guitar has fulfilled the roles of accompanist and soloist in small and large ensembles and also as an unaccompanied...

 Julian Lage
Julian Lage
Julian Lage is an American jazz guitarist and composer.A former child prodigy, Lage began performing in public at the age of six. His talent led him to be the subject of the 1997 Academy Award nominated documentary Jules at Eight. At age 13 Lage performed at the 2000 Grammy Awards...

. It was released in March 2009 on EmArcy Records
EmArcy Records
EmArcy Records is a jazz record label founded in 1954 by Mercury Records, and today a European jazz label owned by Universal Music Group. The name is a phonetic spelling of "MRC", the initials for Mercury Record Company....

. It premiered at number 13 on the Billboard Top Contemporary Jazz Albums chart
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...

 and was nominated for the 2010
52nd Grammy Awards
The 52nd Annual Grammy Awards took place on January 31, 2010, at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. Neil Young was honored as the 2010 MusiCares Person of the Year on January 29, two days prior to the Grammy telecast. Only ten of the 109 awards were received during the broadcast...

 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album
Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album
The Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album was an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for works containing quality contemporary jazz performances...

. Reviews of the album were generally positive, however one reviewer found the recording inferior to Lage's live performances.

Overview

Sounding Point was recorded when Lage was 20-years old. He plays an acoustic
Acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...

 Martin D-18GE
C. F. Martin & Company
C.F. Martin & Company is a US guitar manufacturer established in 1833 by Christian Frederick Martin. Martin is highly regarded for its steel-string guitars, and is a leading mass manufacturer of flattop acoustics with models that retail for thousands of dollars and vintage instruments that often...

 and an electric
Electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction to convert vibrations of its metal strings into electric audio signals. The signal generated by an electric guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is amplified before sending it to a loudspeaker...

 Linda Manzer
Linda Manzer
Linda Manzer is a Canadian master luthier renowned for her archtop, flat-top and harp acoustic guitars.She received her training from Jean Larrivée between 1974 and 1978 and later studied with the late Jimmy D'Aquisto in New York....

 archtop
Archtop guitar
An archtop guitar is a steel-stringed acoustic or semi-acoustic guitar with a full body and a distinctive arched top, whose sound is particularly popular with blues and jazz players.Typically, an archtop guitar has:* 6 strings...

 on the record.

The album was nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album but lost to the Joe Zawinul
Joe Zawinul
Josef Erich Zawinul was an Austrian-American jazz keyboardist and composer.First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis, and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, an innovative musical genre that combined jazz with...

 album 75
75 (album)
75 is a live album by Austrian-American jazz musician Joe Zawinul and his band the Zawinul Syndicate. It was recorded in 2007 at two of bandleader Joe Zawinul's final performances in Switzerland and Hungary. The album was produced by Joachim Becker and originally released in 2008 by JVC Compact...

. The other nominees were Urbanus
Urbanus (album)
Urbanus is the seventh album by jazz vibraphonist Stefon Harris. It was released in August 2009 on Concord Records, Harris's first release with the label, his previous six releases were on Blue Note Records. The self-produced album was Harris's second with his band Blackout, the first being 2004's...

by Stefon Harris
Stefon Harris
Stefon Harris is an American jazz vibraphonist. In 1999, the Los Angeles Times called him "one of the most important young artists in jazz" who is "at the forefront of new New York music" and "much in demand as a star sideman"...

, At World's Edge
At World's Edge
At World's Edge is the ninth album by jazz keyboardist Philippe Saisse. The 2009 release was Saisse's first on Koch Records. It was produced by Saisse and Roy Hendrickson and was nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album....

by Philippe Saisse
Philippe Saisse
Philippe Saisse is a French Grammy Award-nominated Smooth Jazz and New Age music keyboardist, producer and arranger.He was born in Marseille and raised in Paris. After studying at the Conservatoire de Paris he won a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music. He became the protege of Gary Burton...

, and Big Neighborhood
Big Neighborhood
Big Neighborhood is the fourteenth solo studio album by jazz guitarist Mike Stern. The 2009 release was produced by Jim Beard and released by Heads Up International. It debuted at number five on the Billboard Top Traditional Jazz Albums chart and was nominated for the 2010 Grammy Award for Best...

by Mike Stern
Mike Stern
Mike Stern is an American jazz guitarist. After playing for a few years with Blood, Sweat & Tears, he landed a gig with Billy Cobham and then broke through with Miles Davis' comeback band from 1981 to 1983, and again in 1985. Since then, he launched a solo career, releasing more than a dozen albums...

.

Various ensembles

Lage performs two solo tracks on the release, the remainder of the album consists of pieces played by three separate combos. There are two duets, "Tour One" and "All Blues", with pianist Taylor Eigsti
Taylor Eigsti
Taylor Eigsti is an American jazz pianist and composer.A former child prodigy, Eigsti started studying piano at age four. He recorded his first album at age 14...

 and three all-string bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

 inspired numbers, "The Informant", "Long Day, Short Night", and "Alameda", with Chris Thile
Chris Thile
Christopher Scott Thile is an American musician, best known as the mandolinist and a singer for the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek. His current band is Punch Brothers whose most recent album is Antifogmatic...

 on mandolin
Mandolin
A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...

 and Béla Fleck
Béla Fleck
Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is an American banjo player. Widely acknowledged as one of the world's most innovative and technically proficient banjo players, he is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.-Early life and career details:Fleck was born in...

 on banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

. The remaining six tracks are played by some combination of Lage's touring band; saxophonist Ben Roseth, cellist Aristides Rivas, bassist Jorge Roeder, and percussionist Tupac Mantilla. There are no trap drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....

 on the recording, Mantilla plays cajón
Cajón
A cajón is a box-shaped percussion instrument originally from Peru, played by slapping the front face with the hands.-Origins and evolution:...

, djembe
Djembe
A djembe also known as jembe, jenbe, djbobimbe, jymbe, yembe, or jimbay, or sanbanyi in Susu; is a skin-covered drum meant played with bare hands....

, frame drum
Frame drum
A frame drum is a drum that has a drumhead width greater than its depth. Usually the single drumhead is made of rawhide or man-made materials. Shells are traditionally constructed of bent wood scarf jointed together; plywood and man-made materials are also used. Some frame drums have mechanical...

s and cymbal
Cymbal
Cymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...

s.

Selected tracks

The album's opening track, "Clarity" was written by Lage when he was 15-years old for Gary Burton
Gary Burton
Gary Burton is an American jazz vibraphonist.A true original on the vibraphone, Burton developed a pianistic style of four-mallet technique as an alternative to the usual two-mallets. This approach caused Burton to be heralded as an innovator and his sound and technique are widely imitated...

's album Next Generation. It was rewritten for this release to feature the cello playing of Aristides Rivas. "All Purpose Beginning" is about writing a letter to a friend. It starts with the sound of a pencil writing on paper. The album's closing track, "All Blues
All Blues
"All Blues" is a jazz composition by Miles Davis first appearing on the influential 1959 album Kind of Blue.It is a 12 bar blues in 6/4; the chord sequence is that of a basic blues and made up entirely of 7th chords, with a ♭VI in the turnaround instead of just the usual V chord...

" is a cover of the Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

 composition. There are two other covers, Elliott Smith
Elliott Smith
Steven Paul "Elliott" Smith was an American singer-songwriter and musician. Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and resided for a significant portion of his life in Portland, Oregon, where he first gained popularity...

's "Alameda" and Neal Hefti
Neal Hefti
Neal Hefti was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, tune writer, and arranger. He was perhaps best known for composing the theme music for the Batman television series of the 1960s, and for scoring the 1968 film The Odd Couple and the subsequent TV series of the same name.He began arranging...

's "Lil' Darlin'", a piece made famous by Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...

.

Critical reception

David Wiegand in his review in the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...

wrote that Lage "demonstrates a jaw-dropping stylistic range and thrilling technique" on this "exquisite" album. In his review in The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

, Geoffrey Himes called Lage "a jazz newcomer more interested in elegance than in flash, more interested in instrumental storytelling than in virtuosity."

The Chicago Tribune's
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...

Howard Reich found the album to be inferior to Lage's live performances. He wrote "The power of this music proved significantly greater in concert than on the recording" and "What often sounds static and predictable on disc becomes dramatically more vibrant and detailed in concert".

In Patrick Ferrucci's New Haven Register review, he called the release "a cohesive and entertaining jazz journey". All About Jazz
All About Jazz
All About Jazz is a leading jazz music website for enthusiasts and industry professionals based in Philadelphia in the United States.Founded by Michael Ricci in 1995, the Web-Site is maintained by a volunteer staff of writers, editors, and musicians, and provides coverage of all genres of jazz from...

 managing editor wrote "a fully-formed voice that transcends yet incorporates his multifaceted stylistic interests, Lage's impressive debut points to a giant in the making". Allmusic's Michael G. Nastos called the album "as impressive a debut recording as you'll hear" and Lage "a legitimate rising star".

Tracks

  1. "Clarity" (Julian Lage
    Julian Lage
    Julian Lage is an American jazz guitarist and composer.A former child prodigy, Lage began performing in public at the age of six. His talent led him to be the subject of the 1997 Academy Award nominated documentary Jules at Eight. At age 13 Lage performed at the 2000 Grammy Awards...

    ) 5:54
  2. "All Purpose Beginning" (Lage) 7:16
  3. "Familiar Posture" (Lage) 2:58
  4. "The Informant" (Béla Fleck
    Béla Fleck
    Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is an American banjo player. Widely acknowledged as one of the world's most innovative and technically proficient banjo players, he is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.-Early life and career details:Fleck was born in...

    , Lage, Chris Thile
    Chris Thile
    Christopher Scott Thile is an American musician, best known as the mandolinist and a singer for the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek. His current band is Punch Brothers whose most recent album is Antifogmatic...

    ) 3:23
  5. "Peterborough" (Lage) 0:46
  6. "Long Day, Short Night" (Fleck, Lage, Thile) 5:47
  7. "Quiet, Through and Through" (Lage) 2:18
  8. "Lil' Darlin'" (Neal Hefti
    Neal Hefti
    Neal Hefti was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, tune writer, and arranger. He was perhaps best known for composing the theme music for the Batman television series of the 1960s, and for scoring the 1968 film The Odd Couple and the subsequent TV series of the same name.He began arranging...

    ) 5:20
  9. "Tour One" (Taylor Eigsti
    Taylor Eigsti
    Taylor Eigsti is an American jazz pianist and composer.A former child prodigy, Eigsti started studying piano at age four. He recorded his first album at age 14...

    , Lage) 4:27
  10. "Alameda" (Elliott Smith
    Elliott Smith
    Steven Paul "Elliott" Smith was an American singer-songwriter and musician. Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and resided for a significant portion of his life in Portland, Oregon, where he first gained popularity...

    ) 2:19
  11. "Constructive Rest" (Lage) 2:38
  12. "Motor Minder" (Lage) 6:00
  13. "All Blues
    All Blues
    "All Blues" is a jazz composition by Miles Davis first appearing on the influential 1959 album Kind of Blue.It is a 12 bar blues in 6/4; the chord sequence is that of a basic blues and made up entirely of 7th chords, with a ♭VI in the turnaround instead of just the usual V chord...

    " (Miles Davis
    Miles Davis
    Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

    ) 7:14

Personnel

  • Julian Lage
    Julian Lage
    Julian Lage is an American jazz guitarist and composer.A former child prodigy, Lage began performing in public at the age of six. His talent led him to be the subject of the 1997 Academy Award nominated documentary Jules at Eight. At age 13 Lage performed at the 2000 Grammy Awards...

     – guitar
    Guitar
    The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

  • Ben Roseth – saxophone
    Saxophone
    The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

     on "Clarity", "All Purpose Beginning", "Peterborough", "Quiet, Through and Through", and "Motor Minder"
  • Aristides Rivas – cello
    Cello
    The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

     on "Clarity" and "All Purpose Beginning"
  • Jorge Roeder – bass
    Bass (instrument)
    Bass describes musical instruments that produce tones in the low-pitched range. They belong to different families of instruments and can cover a wide range of musical roles...

     on "Clarity", "All Purpose Beginning", "Quiet, Through and Through", "Lil' Darlin'", and "Motor Minder"
  • Tupac Mantilla – hand percussion
    Hand percussion
    Hand percussion is a term used to indicate a percussion instrument of any type from any culture that is held in the hand. They can be made from wood, metal or plastic and are usually either shaken, scraped or tapped with fingers or a stick...

     on "Clarity", "All Purpose Beginning", "Lil' Darlin'", and "Motor Minder"
  • Chris Thile
    Chris Thile
    Christopher Scott Thile is an American musician, best known as the mandolinist and a singer for the progressive acoustic trio Nickel Creek. His current band is Punch Brothers whose most recent album is Antifogmatic...

     – mandolin
    Mandolin
    A mandolin is a musical instrument in the lute family . It descends from the mandore, a soprano member of the lute family. The mandolin soundboard comes in many shapes—but generally round or teardrop-shaped, sometimes with scrolls or other projections. A mandolin may have f-holes, or a single...

     on "The Informant", "Long Day, Short Night", and "Alameda"
  • Béla Fleck
    Béla Fleck
    Béla Anton Leoš Fleck is an American banjo player. Widely acknowledged as one of the world's most innovative and technically proficient banjo players, he is best known for his work with the bands New Grass Revival and Béla Fleck and the Flecktones.-Early life and career details:Fleck was born in...

     – banjo
    Banjo
    In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

     on "The Informant", "Long Day, Short Night", and "Alameda"
  • Taylor Eigsti
    Taylor Eigsti
    Taylor Eigsti is an American jazz pianist and composer.A former child prodigy, Eigsti started studying piano at age four. He recorded his first album at age 14...

     – piano
    Piano
    The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

     on "Tour One" and "All Blues"

Charts

Date Chart Peak
April 11, 2009 Top Contemporary Jazz Albums
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...

13
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