Between Lines - Jonathan Bratoëff Quartet - F-IRECD07 (2005)
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French-born guitarist Jonathan Bratoëff and his quartet's second album, Between Lines, is a reminder that London's F-IRE Collective is neither monochrome nor monolith, but a multicoloured assembly of individuals and aesthetics. The twenty or so musicians at the collective's core are indeed all card-carrying apostles of experiment, adventure, and, to varying degrees, inclusion, but there are evolutionists as well as revolutionists amongst them, each taking his or her own path towards a new jazz nirvana.

In this context Bratoëff is an evolutionist, with one foot in the future and the other in the tradition. His clean-picked, mostly FX-free, rapid-fire runs carry echoes of Johnny Smith and Jimmy Raney, while his taste for abstraction and astringency is reminiscent of Lee Konitz and Lennie Tristano—and a fellow F-IRE artist, saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock. Between Lines is unadorned, uncompromising, mostly through- improvised music, and like Laubrock's river deep recent album Forensic is by turns, and sometimes simultaneously, warm and edgy, sunlit and dark cornered, passionate and cerebral.
- Chris May, All About Jazz

PERSONNEL

TRACK-LIST

TECHNICAL INFO

REVIEWS

“Bratoëff's brittle phrasing and rhythmic energy put him up there with leading UK guitarists.”
- 10/06/2005 John Forham, The Guardian **** 4 star

"Bratoëff's voice is touched by an enigmatic, introspective quality and stands out on a set of sombre, serpentine elegance."
- July 2005 Kevin Le Gendre, Jazzwise

“Immeasuraly more enlivening than the great weight of major label jazz releases, F-IRE maintains its status as a label to watch and Bratoëff take place at the table.”
- Straight no Chaser

LINKS

www.jonathanbratoeff.com