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Bruce Eisenbeil

Bruce Eisenbeil is a composer, improviser, and guitar instrumentalist who has dedicated his life to the advancement of modern guitar techniques through the growth and evolution of modern improvised music. He has 6 CD's released and has performed throughout North America, Japan, Germany, Brasil, and at many festivals. Eisenbeil has performed, recorded and collaborated with some of the best musicians in the world.

Although Eisenbeil was born in Chicago, he grew up in Plainfield, NJ which is where he began playing the guitar when he was 4 years old. He has been performing professionally since he was 15. Mostly self-taught, he studied with a few great teachers including Joe Pass, Howard Roberts, Joe Diorio, and Dennis Sandole (teacher of John Coltrane and Pat Martino).

Critics have compared him not only with guitarists such as Wes Montgomery, Django Reinhardt, Grant Green, Billy Bauer, Sarnie Garrett, Sonny Sharrock, Curtis Mayfield, John McLaughlin, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck but also with saxophonists John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman and pianists McCoy Tyner and Cecil Taylor. His ensemble writing has been associated with the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Revolutionary Ensemble.

Eisenbeil has collaborated with many fine musicians including: Cecil Taylor, David Murray, Milford Graves, Evan Parker, Wolfgang Fuchs, Ellery Eskelin, Andrew Cyrille, William Parker, Katsuyuki Itakura, Micheal Manring, Blaise Siwula, Lukas Ligeti, Klaus Kugel, Shiro Onuma and many others.

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216
Album Review

Totem: Solar Forge

Read "Solar Forge" reviewed by Martin Longley


This is one of New York's most exciting improvising combos, but the Totem trio tends to ration out its gigs, rarely playing in the area. Thus, their Brooklyn-recorded disc, Solar Forgeis recommended. Even though no performance will be alike, it's a reasonable guide to the trio's general sound and strategy. Bruce Eisenbeil's guitar has a very noticeable stereo-splitting, enlarging the vistas, sound, making tiny scrapes into potentially juddering strokes. He might be a brutalist, but the guitarist ...

245
Album Review

Totem>: Solar Forge

Read "Solar Forge" reviewed by John Sharpe


The significance of the “>“ sign in the group's name is unclear, but if it was taken to suggest that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts then few would argue. With components like Brooklyn-based guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil, bassist Tom Blancarte and drummer Andrew Drury, the result is certain to bear scant resemblance to a traditional guitar and rhythm section date.

In contrast to Eisenbeil's previous disc Inner Constellation (Nemu, 2007), which showcased his distinctive fretwork in ...

250
Album Review

Totem>: Solar Forge

Read "Solar Forge" reviewed by Budd Kopman


There is an observation, which seconds as an insider joke, about free jazz and the loft scene in the sixties: “There is no such thing as a bad session. Why? Because you cannot tell...." The implication here is, given that jazz is what the players say it is and that if there are no principles on which the listener can hang his ears and mind, then there is no way to judge whether it is good or bad. However, aesthetically, ...

414
Album Review

Bruce Eisenbeil: Inner Constellation Volume 1

Read "Inner Constellation Volume 1" reviewed by Budd Kopman


The astonishing Inner Constellation Volume One most definitely qualifies as difficult music. Not due to normal reasons including complexity, intricacy, abrasiveness or lack of musical touchstones, but rather that the title track, at forty-seven-plus minutes, needs to be listened to in toto. Guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil has much to say about the compositional impulse and structure of the work, from the techniques employed to the emotions and atmosphere he desires to present to the listener. All of this ...

183
Multiple Reviews

Bruce Eisenbeil: Inner Constellation, v.1 & Nixon is Dead?

Read "Bruce Eisenbeil: Inner Constellation, v.1 & Nixon is Dead?" reviewed by Martin Longley


Bruce Eisenbeil Sextet Inner Constellation, volume one Nemu 2007 The Nabobs Nixon is Dead? Konnex 2007

Guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil is the connecting force between these two discs, also being a member of The Nabobs improvising collective. As a leader, Eisenbeil is still heartily into spontaneity, but it's less clear where his ...

268
Album Review

Bruce Eisenbeil Sextet: Inner Constellation, Volume One

Read "Inner Constellation, Volume One" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni


On Inner Constellation, his fifth release as a leader, New York-based guitarist and composer Bruce Eisenbeil attempts to link the musical worlds of John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor and Anthony Braxton with the vocabulary of contemporary classical composers such as Elliot Carter, Iannis Xenakis, György Ligeti and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Over two years, Eisenbeil composed “Inner Constellation," a composition that uses the instrumentation of Cecil Taylor's sextet from the late 1970s but alternates the piano with a loud Fender Stratocaster guitar. This ...

298
Album Review

Carnival Skin: Carnival Skin

Read "Carnival Skin" reviewed by Derek Taylor


Strong starts do not always ensure steady recording schedules. Jersey-based guitarist Bruce Eisenbeil experienced just such a surcease after a trio of laudable releases for CIMP. This new collective quintet recording on drummer Klaus Kugel's Nemu imprint puts him back in the record shop racks after a hiatus of several years. The band's name is something of a cipher. Its music is less cryptic--passionately concocted free jazz played with a strong, but never stolid, consensus of purpose.

Veteran ...

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198

Recording

New Release by Tom Hamilton/Bruce Eisenbeil

New Release by Tom Hamilton/Bruce Eisenbeil

Source: All About Jazz

SHADOW MACHINE April 2009 Release

SHADOW MACHINE is the first CD by Tom Hamilton and Bruce Eisenbeil, whobegan playing music together in 2007. Coherence without predictability,speed without tempo, direction without a roadmap - an unlikely foray intothe world of out-jazz and free improvisation.

It's a duo that thwarts expectations of its specific instrumentation. The artists hybridize the language of electronic sound through Eisenbeil's guitar and Hamilton's virtual analog synthesizer, and the live-in-the-studio tracks insure that the performances impart maximum physicality ...

104

Performance / Tour

Bruce Eisenbeil Quartet at The Stone NYC March 23, 2006

Bruce Eisenbeil Quartet at The Stone NYC March 23, 2006

Source: All About Jazz

Composer, Improviser, and Guitar instrumentalist Bruce Eisenbeil will perform with his Quartet at The Stone (two sets at 8:00 PM and 10:00 PM) on Thursday, March 23.

BRUCE EISENBEIL: electric and acoustic guitars ELLERY ESKELIN: tenor saxophone) JOHN LINDBERG: bass KLAUS KUGEL: drums, percussion

The Stone is located at the corner of avenue C and 2nd street in New York City. TICKETS are $10 For more information go ...

"About as revolutionary as music can actually get." ~ The Wire

"One of the most unique jazz guitarists to emerge in decades." ~ Harvey Pekar, JazzTimes

"Strikingly original." ~ Downbeat

"Outrageously exciting." ~ Ben Watson

"Disarmingly hypnotic." ~ Derek Taylor, All About Jazz

"a matchless voice" ~ Jazzreview.com

"This guitarist often sounds as if he's disassembling the instrument. He isn't; he's breaking down preconceived notions of harmony, melody, rhythm, and sound itself - and the effort can be as exhilarating as the results." ~ FRANCIS DAVIS, VILLAGE VOICE 2006

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Opium

CIMP Records
2015

buy

Solar Forge

ESP-Disk
2009

buy

Solar Forge

ESP-Disk
2008

buy

Carnival Skin

Emerald Green Sound
2007

buy

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