Rob Luft – Riser (2017) [Qobuz FLAC 24bit/48kHz]

Riser is the new album from London-born award-winning guitarist Rob Luft. A musician of incredible talent, depth and maturity, Rob Luft is set to become a name to remember. At only 23 years of age his proficiency as a guitarist and composer embodies a level of musicianship and vision well beyond his years. A winner of the prestigious Kenny Wheeler Music Prize as well as placing second in The 2016 Montreux Jazz Guitar Competition, Rob is already garnering praise from critics across Europe. The UK’s Jazzwise Magazine has highlighted his “obvious star quality” and Riser is an album that stands up to scrutiny as one of the finest debut records in many years in the burgeoning creative current UK Jazz scene.

London guitarist Rob Luft, a thoughtfully virtuosic head-turner in the National Youth Jazz Orchestra when he was only 15, has waited eight years to make his recording debut as a leader – bringing together vivid reworkings of the jazz tradition, African-inflected world improv, Celtic folk music, Nils Petter Molvær-like ambient grooving and much more, with a fine young quintet powered by versatile Laura Jurd drummer Corrie Dick and featuring the melodic and muscular tenor saxophonist Joe Wright. There’s an enticing vivacity to folky African dances such as Night Songs and the title track (with Luft’s guitar kora-toned, and Wright exuding a laid-back warmth), inventively layered electronics and a climactic dancefloor vibe to We Are All Slowly Leaving, a rock feel under a smokily elegant tenor melody on Dust Settles – and virtuosic McLaughlin-esque unison-theme burn-ups come and go all over the session, as countermelodic surprises in otherwise relaxed tunes. It’s a very sophisticated debut, but given Luft’s old-soul achievements since his teens, we should have heard it coming.

Tracklist:
01 – Night Songs
02 – Riser
03 – Beware
04 – Slow Potion
05 – Different Colours of Silence
06 – Dust Settles
07 – Shorty
08 – Blue, White and Dreaming
09 – St. Brian I
10 – We Are All Slowly Leaving

Recorded on January 9-11, 2017 at Real World Studios.
Engineered by Alex Killpartrick & Patrick Phillips.
Mixed May 3-31, 2017 by Alex Killpartrick in London.
Mastered by Mandy Parnell at Black Saloon Studios, London.

Musicians:
Rob Luft – guitar
Joe Wright – tenor saxophone
Joe Webb – Hammond organ, piano, harmonium
Tom McRedie – bass
Corrie Dick – drums

Download:

mqs.link_RbLuftRiser2017Qbuz2448.rar