What is it about guitarists? It’s like the Wild Wild West-as soon as a new gunslinger rolls into town, all of the established six shooters come to check him out. The Blue Whale was PACKED with not only fans, but at least a quorum of all of the local studio guitarists and their students to check out the NYC-based Julian Lage and his team of Jorge Roeder/b and Tupac Mantilla. By the time the smoke cleared, Lage showed the townsfolk of Dodge City that he 
may not only be the fastest gun in the territory, but he can do some trick shooting that could win a ribbon at the Mid State Fair.
Playing brand new material with freshly made 357 Mags, Lage mixed fluid melodic lines with heavy metal chops on “233 Butler” and “Up From The North” while Mantilla created percussive counterplay and interplay with a collection made up of hand drums, cymbals, shells, whisk brooms, glockenspiels and even buccinators (look THAT one up in your medical dictionary!) while Roeder ‘s bass was bowed, plucked and slapped creating a three way ping pong tournament. On “Here to There,” Lage mixed his strumming and picking that included melding dashes of Mediterranea, gypsy, Metheny and post bop jazz into forming a personal and tasty multi-toned bouillabaisse. A gracious paux de deux between Lage and Roeder on the folksy “Fake Standard” created a lighthearted and mirthful melody, with deceptively simple themes floating back and forth while the two took turns soloing and supplying rhythm. In contrast a song like the percussive “Welcoming Committee” had the band feel like it was racing up and down a steep mountain grade on a narrow dirt road, keeping on the path but coming ever so close to the edge and tipping over into the narrow canyon. Interplay like this was an audible white knuckler while the closing ballad featured Lage’s ectomorphic fingers dancing and gliding over the neck ending the evening with all of the old time shooters keeping their revolvers in their holsters for now. The stranger from the east and his posse left the packed house with a feeling that a new six stringer’s here to be dealt with.
Upcoming at the Blue Whale this month is Rez Abassi, Vardan Ovsepian, and Gary Smulyan’s trio with Joe La Barbara