James Emery Music

Recording, Mixing, and Mastering: Ed Petersen, based in Santa Fe, NM, played a crucial role in bringing Inside Outlier to life, handling the recording, mixing, and mastering processes.

By Glenn Astarita

Emerging in the 1970s, renowned guitarist James Emeryquickly became a name to drop in the jazz scene, synonymous with that 'new jazz smell' of innovation. A founding member of the String Trio of New York, his career has been an outstanding potluck of collaborations, bringing to the table dishes seasoned with the genius of Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, and Roscoe Mitchell. His style? Imagine if Bach had an affair with bebop and raised their lovechild on a strict diet of avant-garde jazz, sprinkled with a generous helping of classical technique for seasoning.

Emery's acoustic musings gently remind us of the instrument's more soulful roots, whispering sweet nothings about its humble beginnings. "Inside Outlier"—a title that smirks at convention, winks at the avant-garde, and tips its hat to the traditions it cheekily deviates from—is a blend of solos and duos with bassist Cyrus Campbell that flaunts dexterity and musical intuition as if it were strolling down the runway.

With his 9th album as a leader, Emery has donned the cap of a musical alchemist. His fingers waltz across the fretboard, spinning straw into sonic gold. The guitar under his command becomes less an instrument and more a philosopher's stone, crafting sound waves that resonate not just with the ear, but with the soul. Emery's secret sauce? A delightful mix of precision and spontaneity, as though he's gently cajoling the strings into spilling their deepest, darkest secrets.

It is in the duos that Emery thoroughly cranks up the heat in his musical kitchen, experimenting with the ingredients of collaboration to serve up a dazzling genre-blending feast. In these moments, the album morphs into a symphony of conversations, each musician taking turns to lead and follow, crafting a harmonious dialogue that stretches the very fabric of genre and expectation.

Emery strums his tales on an acoustic archtop guitar, perfectly coordinated with Campbell on several tracks. The "Inside" portion of the album's name hints at his playful spins on tunes by venerable composers like Richard Rodgers, Billy Strayhorn, and jazz legends John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk. Meanwhile, the "Outlier" bit is a nod to his improv-based compositions. From the get-go with the title track "Inside Outlier," Emery invites us on a joyride of improvisational depth, navigating through quicksilver narratives with Campbell, displaying a mastery that makes it look like child's play.

His interpretation of Parker's "Meandering" unfolds at a pace that is almost leisurely, if not for the tender yet sprightly execution of the main theme, peppered with quick bop phrasings. Yet, it is Emery's "Percussive Guitar 1" that shows off a brief but multifaceted display of improvisation where he's tapping, scraping, and twirling like a dancer on the guitar's body and strings. And with Monk's "Crepuscule with Nellie," he strolls with a slow-walking groove, only to leap into spirited improvisations, turning the theme on its head. Moreover, Emery's riffs and single-note lines are performed with nearly light speed.

"Inside Outlier" toys with the edges of jazz, seducing the avant-garde without ever fully falling into its arms, maintaining control over the instrument that whispers of decades spent in the woodshed and winks at those daring enough to wander off the beaten path. This album is a bold declaration from a musician who's spent a lifetime honing his craft, not just a celebration of the guitar's possibilities but a showcase of Emery's sheer musical genius. So, if you're on the hunt for an album that is a perfect match for a glass of fine wine and an evening steeped in contemplation, your search ends here. But be forewarned: you might emerge on the other side a tad more of an outlier than you bargained for.

DMG
By Bruce Lee Gallanter

Featuring James Emery on guitar and Cyrus Campbell on contrabass. In a recent donation/collection of CD’s that we got in, there were around a half dozen discs from the String Trio of New York. This unique string trio started in 1979 and featured two constant members: James Emery on guitar and John Lindberg on contrabass plus several different violinists over their three decade run: Billy Bang, Charles Burnham & Regina Carter. I recently listened to three of these discs and was knocked out by each one. What I find most interesting about Mr. Emery is that he is a gifted guitarist who plays a variety of acoustic and electric guitars and rarely stays within one genre or style, drawing from a wide variety of directions. For this disc, Mr. Emery plays D’Aquisto guitars and Acoustic Image amps. I knew that Mr. Emery used to live in New England for many years and has since relocated to New Mexico.  At first, I thought that I hadn’t heard anything new from Mr. Emery in many years but it turns out that there is a String Trio of New York discs with Jay Clayton on vocals & Marty Ehrlich on clarinet that was released in 2018. I can’t say that I had heard of bassist Cyris Campbell before now.This discs contains 20 songs, 12 of which are covers by Thelonious Monk (5 by!), Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Billy Strayhorn, two standards plus eight original by Mr. Emery.  The title track, “Inside Outlier” is first and Emery shows his more outside, oddly inventive playing. “Played Twice” is the first Monk song that the duo play. I like the way this song sounds as just a guitar and bass duo. Mr. Campbell keeps the rhythmic groove at the center with Mr. Emery playing a series of Monkian bent notes or chords, nailing the theme right on the head. Emery’s “Acceptance” has James spinning a series of difficult, quick flights of fancy with the bass playing a skeletal version in one part and then speeding up as Emery also speeds up, both players exchanging furious yet tight lines together or around one another. Mr. Emery then plays a rare Charlie Parker song known as “Meandering”, which I could only find one version of. The theme does sound a bit familiar and I dig the way Emery embellishes it with some exquisite chords. Emery’s own “Understanding” has an intense, nervous energy which the duo play at a high speed, never losing sight of how they are connected or where they are going. Monk’s “Four in One” shows how the duo can play the theme and then take off playing in fast flurries at a superhuman rate. In between several of the duo sections bassist Campbell plays a series of solos which bridge the flow of the song as one long thread. Emery does some oddball tapping on the strings (Doc Chad-like) on “Percussive Guitar 1” which shows that he isn’t afraid to go pretty far out and does a fine job of making music from these odd sounds. Emery covers an old standard called, “Autumn in New York”, which was originally covered by Jo Stafford. He plays a series of exquisite harp-like chords here which do ring true. “Off Minor” is another fine Monk song which the duo play with their own bent-note beauty. “Percussive Guitar 2” is even stranger than “Part 1”, yet it still works since Emery and Campbell do a good job of exchanging ideas and building upon it. This disc is a real tour-de-force showing more than four decades later that James Emery is still one of the best, most original and distinctive guitarists we have.