Wolfgang Muthspiel
Where The River Goes

It is difficult to talk about Wolfgang Muthspiel: the Austrian guitarist who was an enfant prodige in the '80s alongside Gary Burton, settled in New York in the '90s where he formed a series of top-tier collaborations (Peter Erskine, Paul Motian, Bob Berg, and the list goes on), and towards the end of the '90s began to gradually disappear from the radar. He returned to Austria in 2002 and seemed to embark on a prestigious career but essentially distant from the upper echelons of international jazz.

This gradual stepping back also reflects a somewhat inconsistent solo discography, divided between “traditional” works and albums closer to the world of electronics, with more northern and European sounds alongside almost pop-like incursions, such as those alongside Norwegian singer Rebekka Bakken.

The spotlight shines again on this great guitarist in 2013, when he joins the ECM circle of Manfred Eicher, with which he creates a couple of excellent works before 2018’s Where The River Goes. With this album, fans and industry professionals who continued to appreciate Muthspiel's work but no longer expected a big hit are stunned: Prepared by the excellent predecessor Rising Grace, Where The River Goes is simply a perfect album, and represents the point of convergence of all that aesthetic and poetic imagination of Muthspiel which until then had appeared here and there but in a fragmented way.

The line-up is practically identical to Rising Grace and brings together the “Avengers” of contemporary jazz in a perfect mix of ingredients: There is the dreamy and traveling trumpet of Ambrose Akinmusire, the rigorous yet surprising logic of Brad Mehldau, the solid granite-like foundation of Larry Grenadier, and the ever-moving drumming of Eric Harland, replacing Brian Blade who was present on the previous album. There is little to add about the soloists and the improvisational quality; the rest is done by Muthspiel's ever so sharp and pointed pencil, capable of drawing evocative and suggestive melodies like that of the title track, austere yet ruthlessly lyrical architectures as in For Django, and finally, clear and wonderful harmonies like in the final bars of Panorama, a small gem played in a duo with Harland that closes the album.

The two albums recorded with this formation inevitably mark a before and after in Muthspiel's career, who, from then on, continued to entrust his production to ECM up to the present day—the latest release, Etudes – Quietudes, is from last year—and the author of this writing hopes he can continue at this level for as long as possible.