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In 2002, Norwegian guitarist and composer Lage Lund came to New York on a Fulbright scholarship to become
the rst guitarist in Juiliards budding jazz program. 13 years later, Lund nds himself fresh o a European jaunt
with drummer Jochen Rueckert, balancing his time between raising baby girls, releasing two new trio records,
and evolving his craft. Noted as a deftly imaginative guitarist by The New York Times, the 2005 Theloniuous
Monk Competition winner has now released seven albums as a leader. His most recent release Idlewild (Criss
Cross), came out in February and featured the stout rhythm team of Bill Stewart and Ben Street.

This April marks the release of Arts and Letters: the second installment of OWL trio, a co-led project between
Lund, Orlando le Fleming, and Will Vinson that seeks to explore conversation in dierent acoustic environments.
This Friday, he takes the stage with friends and musical companions le Fleming, Aaron Parks, and Craig Weinrib
for a dierent discussion in the quartet setting. For a moment of refuge, Lund sat down with us over toasties
at Brooklyns Milk Bar to talk about his varied musicaland non-musicalactivities.

The Jazz Gallery: You have just released two dierent trio recordsIdlewild and Arts and Letters. Can you share a
bit about those experiences?

Lage Lund: Ive been playing a lot of trio over the past few years. Most of the touring I have done as a leader has
been for trio gigs. It was something I started doing, both because I wanted to and because its easier to put
together than a quartet or a quintet. I started enjoying it more and began thinking about how I could take more
advantage of that space. The trio with bass and drums is basically about showcasing my stu whereas the OWL
Trio is a dierent thing in that its completely co-led. Obviously, not having drums gives it a dierent kind of
sonic feel. Part of what we also wanted to do with that group was play in spaces other than the clubs we usually
play in. The rst record was recorded in a church. The new album was recorded at The American Academy of Arts
and Letters. They have this gorgeous old theatre that a lot of classical people have recorded inpeople like
Yo-Yo Ma. Except for my amp, it was totally acoustic with one stereo pair of microphones. We were trying to use
the room as part of the soundit was a live sounding room that isnt really be suitable for drums. It changes how
we play a bit, it changes the repertoire, all kinds of stu.

TJG: What about the material for the quartet show coming up at the Gallery?

LL: There will be some new things that I havent recorded yet. Basically, I have almost an albums worth of
quartet music that I havent recorded yet that Im still, gig to gig, trying to boil down to its essence. Its that and
its all people that I have a pretty long history with. Ive been playing with Orlando and Aaron since I came here. I
started playing with Craig Weinrib three or four years ago and immediately loved it. Its a long history but the
four of us actually havent played together yet.

TJG: You mentioned previously that you compose at the piano. Is this still the case and was it always that way?

LL: When I started music at age thirteen, it was on the guitar. I didnt really start playing piano until high school
and college. I can play some chords and stu but I cant really play piano. I think at some point I just found it
easier to write on piano. The guitar can be too familiar sometimes. I might play a chord on guitar and get bored
immediately. On the piano, I can play the exact same voicing but I might visualize the next step in a way that I
wouldnt see on the guitar. Because Im less familiar with piano, it sparks my curiosity more as to what harmonic
or melodic changes I might make. I also like to write away from instruments, so Im not writing something only
because its coming from my ngers. But, Im trying to write more on guitar because I might write something
away from it but need to gure out how to apply it to the guitar. The whole process is sort of abstract. Its like Im

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hearing something and Im just trying to uncover it. Its devoid of any method. Its hard for me to devote time to
it, particularly now with a family. Often, when Im on the road and have some hours in a hotel, Ill devote some
time to it but its not like I always have a set aside time for it.

TJG: Is there a practice routine you follow?

LL: These days [laughs] its pretty slim. Once you have two kids, whenever you get a chance its like whoa!
Organizing your time is really tough. A lot of it is about the next gig or tour. Whats the music I have to learn?
Usually I have one or two things maximum, some things that Im working on for a longer period of time. It could
be a specic harmonic idea, a certain chord or rhythmic motif. Whenever I do have time to practice, some
amount of time is going to be spent on that. If I have an hour, then maybe twenty minutes gets spent on that,
but if I have seven minutes before sound check, then Ill do it for three minutes. Just to check-in every time.
The idea can be very small or very specic. If Im listening to some Messiaen thing and there is a certain sound,
maybe Ill boil it down to one particular chord. Then, if I have these four notes: what are all of the twenty-eight
dierent ways I can play those notes on the guitar? What are all the inversions of those? What is every possible
way I could play this or use this? I think that works the best for me as opposed to working on a lot of dierent
things. When I was younger, a lot of it was transcribing.

TJG: Can you expand on that? How did you learn to develop your musical vocabulary?

LL: When I was thirteen, I was playing things like Dinosaur Jr. I got into music through skateboard videosMinor
Threat and stu like that. Then I got into slightly more technical stu like Pantera and Sepultura. I started
playing with some friends. I went through a bit of Steve Vai phase that started funneling into John Scoeld and
Pat Metheny. My dad has a huge collection of vinylthousands of records. He wasnt necessarily a jazz fan but
he had some Bird, Billie Holiday, and a good amount of Wes Montgomery. So I just started checking that out,
trying to gure it out. I remember trying to transcribe some Bird. I could sort of nd the notes but really had no
idea, it just seemed like all 12 notes at the same time. That was kind of the start of it. I just kept transcribing a lot
of things.
Im from a really small town. I had a drummer and bassist I played with and I started writing a bit. We would play
local bars and stu like that. After high school, I went to Berklee and all of sudden there were all of these people
my age playing acoustic jazz at a high level. I honestly didnt really know it all existed. I remember hearing these
guys and thinking, Wow, that sounds like that one record Ive heardhow are they? What? So then, it was just
about guring out what I needed to know to play with thempeople I still play with like Jaleel Shaw, Kendrick
Scott, Walter Smith III. I knew I wanted to play like that.

TJG: Are there any specic records that were inuential?

LL: I always loved A Love Supreme for some reason. I had no idea what was going on when I rst heard it but I
liked it. Being from Norway, Keith Jarretts European Quartetthats your Miles Davis or Louis Armstrong. Thats
tradition. I grew up with those records; I like those records. Though [laughs] I would say that the American
Quartet actually trumps that now for me. Kind of Blue was important.

TJG: Jim Hall has been noted as a hero of yours

LL: Jim Hall was actually later for me. At rst, I thought it was nice but not super exciting. It was too subtle; too
deep. I was more into Allan Holdsworth [laughs]. It took me a long time to be like, Oh shit, now I see.

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Obviously I had The Bridge, but later when I heard the Paul Desmond and Bill Evans stu, I really started to see. I
went through a super big Andrew Hill phase at Berklee. I just found some records in the library with Joe
Hendersonit just blew my mind. I had just never heard music like that before. All of those Blue Note records,
they were all killing. Just discovering all of the greats, one after another. Some of them didnt stick the rst time.
I think that the rst time I heard Monk or Bud Powell, I wasnt feeling it. Now, that would be some of my favorite
music in the world by far. I remember the rst time I heard Django Reinhardt, I thought of old movie
musicCute. Haha. Vibrato! Thats funny. A couple years later I heard it again and was like, Dear Lord! How
could I not hear that? I couldnt believe it.

TJG: Youre a fan of Hari Kondabolus critique on American racism: Telling me that Im obsessed with talking
about racism in America is like telling me Im obsessed with swimming when Im drowning. As a jazz musician,
what is your relationship to this discussion?

LL: As a white European dude, coming to play jazz, I am always surprised whenever people seem to have a
problem with it being described as black American music. You know, [laughs] what else would it be? Where else
did it come from? Thats just clearly wrong. All the great heroes are black American musicians.
Part of me realizes Im not a native speaker but there is something there that I love. I think I can be part of that
and do something, but of course Im going to have some kind of accent speaking it. To call it something dierent
or to then say, Yeah Ive taken jazz to the next level, or Ive taken jazz and diluted it, is wrong. Again, the
word jazz is meaningless. In a lot of places, that basically means that we improvise. But when you start to label
things, people want to take ownership, or they dont want anything to do with it. Thats where it can get really
convoluted.
The music that I would think of as jazz; if you want to partake in or be part of that discussion, there is a history
there. There is a language. To ignore that and say, Oh I dont want to know, I just want to do my own thing. You
just kind of end up recreating the wheel over and over because somebody has already done it or youve taken
away all the elements of that music except for the improvisation, so then why do you want to associate with
that? It can take on ugly implications of white people making things their own. I can see how that can be very
oensive. Its clearly not white European music. Music is not separated from society. With what weve been
seeing happen recently, especially in the last year, it shows how far back that shit is. Were not that far from the
1960s. That can oat under the radar; people are like, Oh yeah its a post racial society. Its clearly not. I think
most black Americans would never say that. White people say that.
This music that I love is from a specic culture, so obviously there is a lot more connected to that than I know
about. Since I love that music and want to try to reference it or understand it through my own music, then I cant
separate it from that part of it. But at the end of the day, when I go to play, I dont think of any of that stu. I just
try to play whats honest to me. Im not necessarily thinking, Lets give it up to Charlie Christian. Obviously
[laughs] Ive transcribed him and I love him, but when it comes time to play, its whatever Im hearing that night
or whatever works with the people Im playing with.

TJG: Was your family musical growing up? Is that something you hope to engender in your own family?

LL: My dad was a big music fan. He had a huge record collection as I mentioned. He does play guitar but not too
much any more. When I was growing up he always had guitars around the house and was basically playing the
blues. I grew up listening to Jimi Hendrix, Albert Collins, Stevie Ray Vaughanall of these blues-rock guitar
players. I hated it! [laughs] To me, that was the sound of boredom. When I was little and he was listening to
those records, I was bored and wanted to play. So I just associate that music with boredom. Matt Brewer was
playing some Hendrix stu recently; people have done that before, and I couldnt, but Im starting to get it. I

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think for a long time I was avoiding blues guitar vocabulary because I just wasnt hearing it.
My wife Joy is great singer and shes always constantly singing to them. Obviously Im listening to music at home
and sometimes I practice a bit so theyre always around it. My oldest daughter is just starting to get into it. I have
a friend who does kids records called Jeremy Plays Guitar. Weve gone to see his show a couple of times and my
daughter just goes nuts! Shes looking around like, Can you guys believe this shit? She just completely ips out.
She denitely appreciates music.