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In the waning days of 2024, Julian Lage began what he calls a writing sprint. Lage has long been prolific: in the three decades since the documentary Jules at Eight identified him as a prodigy, he has made a dozen records with his own bands and duos, and collaborated on many more with artists like John Zorn, Gary Burton, and Charles Lloyd. He was preparing for a four-day residency at SFJAZZ and the premiere of a new quartet of longtime collaborators who had strangely never recorded together: Lage with bassist Jorge Roeder, drummer Kenny Wollesen, and keyboardist John Medeski. Setting a 20-minute timer, he wrote a tune, recorded it once, and began again.
He called one tune he loved from that sprint "Storyville." Its quick, flickering riff felt like an invitation for conversation — exactly what he hoped to find in the sprint. "My dream with composing, really, is to have something to talk about once we’re together," he says. Hearing what the quartet created with the piece in the studio is like watching a pot of water boil and observing not the chaos but the order, the way every molecule is pushing against the other with purpose.
That is the spirit of Scenes from Above, Lage’s second full-length album with producer Joe Henry and his first with this quartet. Where 2024’s Speak to Me was Lage’s statement as an improvising bandleader for a larger ensemble, Scenes from Above is about being a band member himself — exploring his tunes with a crew built for that purpose. Its nine tracks frame a brilliantly open experience, with four players giving and taking space in equal measure as they explore songs in the room in real time.
"Neither of us were interested in making Speak to Me II. That record has its own character, and there’s a great liberation in that," Henry says.
After his writing sprints Lage narrowed possibilities to maybe 50 pieces and began sending selections to Henry. They talked about four or five that felt essential and then considered how to add color and motion to that picture — not by filling what was missing but by emphasizing what was important for this band.
Lage was also thinking about what he calls folkloric music, from the songs of Susana Baca and early calypso to American blues and Béla Bartók’s integration of Romanian and Hungarian tunes. His writing reflected those touchstones. As the two-day session at New York’s Sear Sound neared, he thought about texture and timbre and how to use his instrument to avoid familiar guitar-trio-plus-organ pitfalls. Choosing an acoustic guitar on a particular tune, for example, could lure Medeski into unexpected spaces.
"Keyboards are often a drag — we play too many notes. I can play a lot of notes, too," Medeski says, laughing. "Julian really thinks about things, has a lot of intention. But it’s a beautiful combination of caring about the concept and direction and of being free and in the moment."
Scenes from Above radiates both qualities. Opener "Opal" is a thoughtful, patient invocation, with Lage’s lead unfurling beneath a rich rhythmic bed. Wollesen and Roeder gallop slowly and steadily as Medeski and Lage exchange thoughts, subtle shifts in the organ prompting the guitarist to move in unexpected directions. The quartet sizzles on "Talking Drum," with Medeski stabbing organ between the beat until he rides alongside Lage and, as it were, discusses the melody.
By the time they reach the end of "Something More," this quartet sounds like a band that has instantly found its rapport. Sad and sweet, the tune feels like a four-part prayer, handled with finesse and warmth even on early takes — as with every track on Scenes from Above, which were often first or second takes.
Lage says, "I came in with a desire to present this as an egalitarian thing, rather than ‘I’m the leader — let’s build something around me.’ This is music that’s connected to our own growth and development individually and within our relationships with one another, with no sense that anybody’s expecting anything."
Most tracks hover around the four-minute mark, the result of restraint in a studio where they could play quietly and still be heard. The exception is "Night Shade," the album’s seven-minute centerpiece, with a Medeski organ run that feels like gospel gold and a series of Lage solos suggesting gestural blues. Listen and you’ll notice moments where the music crests like a wave, about to crack into chaos — and then holds steady, both to be heard and to hear others.
That is what makes Scenes from Above poignant: four dazzling instrumentalists in a room, talking to one another but never actually over one another.