I Got Strings

The guitar has often seemed to take second place to other instruments in jazz, being perhaps more closely associated with other vernacular musics, the blues, pop, later rock. In her new album I Got Strings, award-winning guitarist and composer Eleonora Strino delves back into the great jazz standards, including “I Got Rhythm” and shows that even with just six strings, it’s possible to find rich new variants on the old songs. She’s more than ably assisted by Joey Baron, the most musical of drummers, and by Greg Cohen, whose workbook takes in everything from trad jazz to the avant-garde, Woody Allen to Tom Waits.  With a perfectly balanced trio and a programme of material that will seem familiar but utterly new at the same time, Eleonora Strino seems set to join a long tradition of jazz guitarists that began with Charlie Christian and reached a first peak of creativity with the work of her original inspiration Jim Hall.  Strino is set to move beyond her influences, though. This is a bright and exciting new voice, with personality and feeling as well as highly polished technique. An essential modern jazz album, all the more up to the moment by looking so fondly at the past.    (Brian Morton)

Recorded in Berlin, Germany in November 2021 at Emil Berliner Studios by Guy Sternberg

Photos by Riccardo Piccirillo

Liner notes by Brian Morton