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| 1. | Biko's Blues
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| 2. | Friends of the Animals
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| 3. | I.O.A.
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| 4. | House of Return
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| 5. | Satellites and Sideburns
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| 6. | Dissolution
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Jazz
* Alex Cline - Drums
* Nels Cline - Guitar
* Jeff Gauthier - Violin
* Joel Hamilton - Bass
* David Witham - Piano
Violinist Jeff Gauthier's music cuts a wide musical swath. House of Return, his 5th recording as a leader, moves effortlessly from moody acoustic jazz to classically tinged new music, to skronk fusion and electronic space jam. Voted a "Rising Star" as both violinist and producer in the 2007 Downbeat Critics Poll, Gauthier continues his subversive plot to destroy all musical boundaries, and all boundaries of good taste. Gauthier's Goatette features Wilco guitarist Nels Cline, drummer Alex Cline, pianist David Witham, and bassist Joel Hamilton.
BBCi says "Gauthier and his group show how it should be done, rooting themselves solidly in the jazz tradition while at the same time extending and revitalizing it."
* Gareth Jiffeau - Design, Layout Design
* Michael Aarvold - Engineer
Los Angeles based violinist Jeff Gauthier's fifth recording as a leader, House of Return is the third album to feature the capable talents of his self-coined Goatette. A veteran quintet of stellar West Coast improvisers, Gauthier and company work from a varied palette to explore a mix of sound worlds, ranging from thorny progressive fusion and unfettered psychedelia to folksy introspection and lush ballads.
As founder and producer of the adventurous Cryptogramophone label and co-founder of the influential acoustic group Quartet Music in 1979 (with guitarist Nels Cline, bassist Eric Von Essen and drummer Alex Cline), Gauthier's seminal role in the development of progressive West Coast jazz is implicit.
The aforementioned Cline brothers, along with longstanding collaborators, keyboardist Dave Witham and bassist Joe Hamilton, comprise the Goatette. Following a similar pattern to previous releases, Gauthier augments his own originals with pieces written by the Cline brothers and works from the late Von Essen, opening and closing the album with tunes culled from the bassist's deep back catalog.
Melodious and assured, House of Return is Gauthier's most accessible record to date. The session favors acoustic instrumentation with subtle real-time electronic effects that thicken the band's sound without becoming obtrusive. Harmonious and evocative, the luxuriant Von Essen ballads “Biko's Blues” and “Dissolution” inspire some of the Goatette's most sublime work. Nels Cline's languorous meditation ”I.O.A.” and Alex Cline's shimmering tone poem “Dizang” offer ethereal serenity delivered with knowing restraint.
The leader's titular centerpiece, which evolves through numerous changes in mood and dynamics, reveals his classical training. A spare electronic conversation between Gauthier and Nels precedes a knotty theme that yields a swinging piano trio feature in a buoyant 7/4 rhythm. A sequence of concise statements from the remainder of the ensemble ensues, including a plangent solo from the leader that briefly veers into outside territory.
The session's melodic focus doesn't forsake the quintet's power however. “Friends of the Animals,” and ”Satellites and Sideburns” are episodic electro-acoustic workouts that recall the seminal recordings of Weather Report and Lifetime with their angular ornate riffs and violent asymmetrical rhythms. Nels Cline's caustic fret-board shredding and the leader's clarion cadences coalesce with Witham's hazy analog keyboard work in a kaleidoscopic vortex as Alex Cline and Joe Hamilton navigate shifting meters and pulverizing downbeats.
A superlative group effort that displays their empathy for structure and form, as well as their capacity for freewheeling creative expression, House of Return is a gorgeous document from an underexposed West Coast ensemble that deserves wider acclaim.
---Troy Collins, All About Jazz [June 7, 2008]
Violinist Jeff Gauthier must be the most underappreciated jazz violinist in the Western world. A wonderfully literate and skilled technician with chops and soul to burn, Gauthier always delivers a smorgasbord of creative improvised sounds that vary from the traditional to the progressive, with many stops in between. Perhaps it is because he is somewhat isolated from the national and international scene by living in California and plays with a group of musicians with different career paths. No matter the criteria, Gauthier is a musician who should be paid attention to, and this excellent project will launch his star further onward and outward. Featuring more than able help from electric guitarist Nels Cline and Nels' brother, drummer Alex Cline, as well as unsung pianist David Witham and bassist Joel Hamilton, the Jeff Gauthier Goatette have a giant launching pad to spring forth into action. The CD starts innocently enough with the pretty waltz "Biko's Blues," shaded by Witham's piano buoying a reverent violin/guitar line, and ends with the wary, deconstructed "Dissolution," both compositions of former bandmate and bassist Eric Von Essen. But the recording gets edgy from there on as the untamed, zoological "Friends of the Animals" takes on unscripted multiple scattered and brittle voices from Gauthier, Witham's Fender Rhodes piano, and hard contrasts in a funky, soupy marinade. The title track has Nels Cline at his best, scraping and raking up gold leaves of discontent or playing tiny fragile notes informing free bop to 6/8 swing, with solos from Gauthier and Hamilton that sing. There's a definite feeling, as cued by the instrumentation, of the original Mahavishnu Orchestra, where telepathic rhythm changes occur frequently, made contemporary by noise and a jazzier order of things. Alex Cline's 12-and-a-half-minute composition "Dizang" lives up to the name of his publishing company, Singing Feather Music. Even-keeled no-time ruminations lead to heavy, louder, intense, and calmed jamming without bar lines. There is also an overall feeling of shared goals, as everyone writes and performs this music with equal balance. Other highlights include the epic, steely, space rock/British prog rock cut "Satellites and Sideburns" and the plod-funk "I.O.A.," again featuring electric instruments. The artwork depicts paintings of flash cards representing a goat, a house, an iguana, a duck, an octopus, a rhinoceros, a fiddle, and the key component -- jam. While Gauthier's previous recordings bear certain notice, this one, with such a united front of spectacular creative improvisers, deserves to be touted as it is -- one of the best CDs of 2008.
--- Michael G. Nastos, All Music Guide
Jeff Gauthier
Active Decades: '80s, '90s and '00s
Genre: Jazz
Styles: Avant-Garde Jazz, Modern Creative
Composer, producer, and improvising violinist Jeff Gauthier grew up in West L.A., where he first picked up a violin while he was still in grade school. Gauthier's first teacher on the instrument was his aunt, and in time he began studying the instrument with Armand Roth, who held the first violin chair with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In middle school Gauthier fell under the spell of improvising hard rock artists like Jimi Hendrix and the British trio Cream, which in turn led him to the jazz fusion of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew era. Following high school (he attended Beverly Hills High), Gauthier studied violin and music at the California Institute of Arts.
His career as a professional musician has been rich and varied, and he has worked with edgy artists like John Cale, Vinny Golia, Alex Cline, and Yusef Lateef as well as with the Milwaukee Symphony, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the Long Beach Symphony. His heart remains with improvisation and jazz, however, and he fronts his own group, the Jeff Gauthier Goatette, and was a founder and member of Quartet Music. He also helped found the Nine Winds and Delos record labels, and in 1998, the Cryptogramophone imprint, perhaps the premier forward-thinking jazz label on the scene. Gauthier has won numerous awards, including a pair of NEA grants, and has contributed to countless film and television show soundtracks, perhaps most notably to the Star Trek dynasty. Among his albums are 1993's Internal Memo and The Present, both on Nine Winds, and 2002's Mask and 2006's One and the Same, both on Cryptogramphone. A third album on the Cryptogramphone imprint, House of Return, appeared in 2008.
---Steve Leggett, All Music Guide |
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