Wolfgang Muthspiel Shares New Song From New Album

Master guitarist Wolfgang Muthspiel has shared the title track from his soon-to-be-released new album. "Dance of the Elders" is streaming at all DSPs now.

The album, Dance of the Elders, sees the award-winning Austrian musician accompanied by bassist Scott Colley (Jim Hall, Andrew Hill, Donny McCaslin) and drummer Brian Blade (Joni Mitchell, Chick Corea, Christian McBride).

It arrives digitally and on CD via ECM Records on Friday, September 29. Limited-edition vinyl will follow on Friday, November 3. Pre-orders are available now.

Dance of the Elders was announced last month alongside the release of the vibrant new rendition of Joni Mitchell’s classic “Amelia."

The Wolfgang Muthspiel Trio will mark the arrival of Dance of the Elders with a robust international touring schedule. North American dates will be announced soon.

Hailed as one of the most influential guitarists of his generation, Wolfgang Muthspiel reaches a new creative peak on Dance of the Elders, his unique compositional signature – heavily folk-induced but equally inspired by classical music – once again expertly fused to animated interchanges with his trio colleagues.

Produced and mixed by ECM founder Manfred Eicher (Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, Jan Garbarek) with Muthspiel and Gérard de Haro at France’s famed Studios La Buissonne in March 2023, the album manifests the guitarist’s extraordinary musical familiarity with partners Colley and Blade following extensive 2022 touring throughout the US, Europe, and Japan.

Blade’s floating percussive injections and Colley’s nimble counterpoint on bass further complement Muthspiel’s acoustic and electric playing in fluid interplay over intricate polyrhythms and adventurous harmonic landscapes.

The trio’s seamless chemistry and spontaneous sense of creation is in full bloom throughout, from the meditative, two-part opener “Invocation” to the twisting title track, the latter driven by exhaustive melodic development while at the same time, a polyrhythmic playground for Colley and Blade to stretch their mathematical muscles.

“I’m constantly learning from Brian and Scott,” says Muthspiel. “It’s always exciting to bring new music to them and see how they approach it because it’s never what I’d expect. The remembrance of their sound, while I compose, is an inspiration for the music I end up coming up with.”

Classically trained on the violin, Wolfgang Muthspiel discovered his love for guitar at the age of 15. An interest in both his own and improvised music eventually led him to focus on jazz. After studying with Mick Goodrick at the New England Conservatory and then later at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, Muthspiel made an auspicious debut as a touring guitarist in the Gary Burton Quintet – a chair occupied at one time or another by such six-string giants as Pat Metheny, John Scofield, and Julian Lage.

Muthspiel spent much of the 1990s living and working in the jazz capital of New York, collaborating with a diverse span of artists including Youssou N’Dour, Maria Joao, Dave Liebman, Peter Erskine, Paul Motian, Bob Berg, Gary Peacock, Don Alias, the Vienna Art Orchestra, and many more.

Among his many projects, Muthspiel made his ECM debut as a band leader with 2014’s trio recording, Driftwood (with Brian Blade and Larry Grenadier). 2016’s Rising Grace – a quintet recording with Blade, Grenadier, Brad Mehldau, and Ambrose Akinmusire – earned five out of five stars from DownBeat and placement on year-end lists around the world. Recorded during a joint tour of Japan in 2018 with Scott Colley and Brian Blade, Angular Blues was released in 2020 to universal applause.

“(Angular Blues) displays to full advantage Muthspiel’s fingerpicking precision, attractively beady tone, melodic abilities and attention to group dynamics that gives his repertoire drama, color and shape,” wrote DownBeat. “Sure to interest guitarists and guitar aficionados.” “The most beautiful moments here stay with you long after the album ends,” raved PopMatters, “and you’ll find yourself returning to them many times, each time finding something new to explore.”

Photo Credit: Nino Fernandez

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