Max Light

[Alea]

Haven't seen him mentioned here so thought to share. Nice playing and compositions:

And playing on standards:

[James W]

He's great.

I remember first becoming aware of him from the Herbie Hancock guitar competition in 2019.

I also happen to love the tune 'Introspection'.

[j.l]

Really wonderful player—I especially enjoy his stuff with the tenor sax player Noah Preminger (and Preminger's stuff on Light's Henceforth), and they've got a duo album coming out next month. Not really the style I want to play, but inspiring to see where people are taking the instrument!

[Christian Miller]

He sounds like Kurt. I would have thought it was Kurt if I didn’t know better.


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[marcwhy]

Yeah, Max is great! He has some nice albums out, too - grab them!

[Alea]

He sounds like Kurt. I would have thought it was Kurt if I didn’t know better.

He's quite candid about his influences there (and also a POG user).

Seems like a genuinely nice person.

[Christian Miller]

Yeah I don’t know. Is saying a POG user sounds like Kurt a bit like saying an ES175 player sounds like Joe Pass or something.

Idk. He does sound a lot like Kurt to me in the note choices and articulation etc. Not just the sound. Obviously an excellent player. There’s a lot of excellent players these days. It’s great!

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[j.l]

For sure tons of Kurt in there, but a lot of Ben Monder too. Some of this is accentuated by his compositions, but Max Light's playing has always seemed to me more angular than Kurt's.

[Christian Miller]

For sure tons of Kurt in there, but a lot of Ben Monder too. Some of this is accentuated by his compositions, but Max Light's playing has always seemed to me more angular than Kurt's.

Just my immediate response. I haven’t listened much to him, tbf. This sounds less like him.

There’s always a danger in using a sound associated with another guitarist. That said he isn’t the only player who has adopted that POG tone under the influence of Kurt.

I don’t get it myself, but I’m an old fart. I don’t like the way it squashes dynamics.
The thing that amazed me about Kurt when I first heard him was how dynamic he was.

Anyway I digress. It’s very hard to define your own voice. In many ways it runs at right angles with your actual ability to play.

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[Christian Miller]

He's great.

I remember first becoming aware of him from the Herbie Hancock guitar competition in 2019.

I also happen to love the tune 'Introspection'.

You know what? I think my initial perception was wrong. I’m not hearing a Kurt imitator here.

Anyway….


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[Jimmy blue note]

I've been following him since he was a student at NEC and from the first time I heard him I knew that despite any evidence of his influences, he's the real deal. His phrasing, his linear concept, the way he chooses his notes and the very personal harmonic sophistication he paints with... all his own.
When I first heard him, I heard other horn players in his lines, but maybe it's because I'd known Kurt and Kurt's music for so long, I didn't hear a copier but instead, I heard something that said to me "This is the next voice that will shape modern jazz". This was what I thought of Kurt the first time I heard him when he was a kid at Berklee: Original voice with a deeply personal approach that comes from an obvious love for the music and the history that shaped it.

He was headed for unimaginable heights when he came to the attention of Metheny and Scofield who were both very impressed by him. Then the pandemic hit and anything that would have come from the tours that intertwine with that inertia were lost. Pretty much everybody started from square one after the shut down of audiences following tour schedules disappearing.

Love all the cats on the modern scene these days but it's Max Light that I've got my eyes on. It's the sound of surprise.

[marcwhy]

Like Samson, he might have been better with long hair!