Lately, Julian Lage has been a prolific collaborator. The 26-year-old guitarist, raised in the Northern California town of Santa Rosa, has outgrown his prodigy status and refocused his playing in a stylistically wide range of settings: a duo project with Punch Brothers guitarist Chris Eldridge, a forthcoming duo album with Nels Cline, and Rude Ruth, a Telecaster-centric project with singer-songwriter Margaret Glaspy. On July 22 he’ll appear at the Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit, in a program featuring modern folk luminaries Jeremy Kittel, Aoife O’Donovan and Paul Kowert.
Yet Lage hasn’t lost sight of his jazz roots. He appeared on five releases in 2013 as a sideman or co-leader, including Guided Tour (Mack Avenue), the latest offering from the New Gary Burton Quartet, and Free Flying (Palmetto), the most recent installation of Fred Hersch’s inspired duo collaborations.
