What: Nels Cline with Julian Lage
When: Friday, 8 p.m.
Where: The Jazz Room at the Harbour Towers Hotel, 345 Quebec St.
Tickets: $25
Note: Cline is also giving free clinic/workshop at 4 p.m. in the Jazz Room at the Harbour Towers Hotel
Nels Cline isn’t unaware of trends in the music business, nor is he oblivious to changes in the way artists make their living nowadays.
He’s up to date on all that. But for the most part, Cline could not care less.
“I don’t really have any strategy,” Cline said recently from his home in New York. “I don’t think about the marketplace hardly at all.”
Cline, known to indie rock fans as the expressive, inventive guitarist for Grammy-winning Chicago rockers Wilco, has been a standout of the improvisational music community for more than three decades. He joined Wilco in 2004 shortly before their record, A Ghost Is Born, was released, and has been with them ever since. But the group is far from his only project.
The Los Angeles native began making his mark in the late ’70s with a number of avant-garde artists, including jazz bassist Eric Von Essen, with whom he co-founded the group Quartet Music. It was in that setup, Cline said, that he developed a way of working that remains a core part of his personality today.
“I try to have my cake and eat it, too,” Cline, 58, said with a laugh. “I like to combine structure with freedom. It’s enjoyable and inspiring for me, but I think it’s also fun for people to hear. It’s not aimless, it’s actually very focused. And it’s different every time. There’s an immediacy and a constant voyage of discovery, but at the same time I’m trying to engage people emotionally as well.”
He applies that philosophy to one of his recent projects, a guitar duo with Julian Lage. The pair will perform Friday at the Jazz Room at the Harbour Towers Hotel as part of the annual Victoria International Jazz Festival. Cline has only played Victoria once before, with Wilco, for a raucous 2010 date at the Royal Theatre.
His upcoming appearance with Lage, a prodigious 26-year-old New Yorker, will have little in common with his previous local date. For starters, there’s only two of them. Also, Cline said the on-stage effects — guitar pedals, for example — will be non-existent. “We need fresh socks and that’s about it.”
Cline has reached a level of visibility few improvising jazz-rock guitarists ever do, thanks in part to his association with Wilco. In the years pre-dating Wilco, however, he put in spectacular work outside of the group, with artists ranging from rockers Mike Watt and Thurston Moore to fellow experimentalists Marc Ribot and Charlie Haden. For his efforts, he was crowned one of Rolling Stone magazine’s greatest guitarists of all-time, coming at No. 82 on a list of 100 and ahead of legends such as Bonnie Raitt, Carl Perkins and Joe Perry from Aerosmith.
He has appeared on more than 130 recordings, roughly 30 of which are his own. He is easily adaptable, to say the least.
“As long as I feel adequately prepared, knowing what material is going to be performed, and what the repertoire is, the actual conceptual side of playing is not hard for me,” he said.
Cline’s fondness for boundary-pushing music has kept his eye firmly fixed on underground musicians who eschew straightforward fare.
One of his favourite guitar duos of years past was Ralph Towner and John Abercrombie, who combined both classical music and jazz during the ’70s. He is attempting a similar foray with Lage, although in much more of a jazz-centric capacity. The project is “one of my favourite things I’ve ever done,” Cline said, because their styles are so complementary.
“It’s a conversation of sorts. Yes, there are parts when one person solos and the other accompanies. But there is a lot of free improvisation in the music. It’s a constant counterpoint to get it so that it sounds spontaneous and organized and structured.”
Though they have been collaborating for three years, concerts are few and far between. He and Lage last did a run of consecutive dates together a year-and-a-half ago, Cline said.
Both musicians are incredibly busy, with multiple projects in play simultaneously. Cline’s schedule, in particular, requires intense scheduling simply to make it all work. He has two recordings out this year (including one with Medeski, Martin & Wood), and has another two coming.
If it feels right to do so, Cline said he will always put recordings out, regardless of a schedule. “I’ve always had that urge, since the ’70s. I never released recordings to make a statement, I released them to further the work. You put out a record, someone might hear it, someone might like it, they might let you gig in their town, and you get to play more.”