Intakt CD 090

The guitarist Elliott Sharp belongs to one of the most striking personalities of the New York Downtown scene. Since the eighties, along with John Zorn, Arto Lindsay, Bill Frisell, Zeena Parkins, Marc Ribot and Christian Marclay, Sharp has influenced the innovations at the limits where improvised, composed and electronic music, where jazz, blues and rock meet. From this time onwards, Sharp has been expanding his musical radius. In addition to jazz, Sharp plays in hardcore groups, cyberpunk bands and has composed string quartets, music for the theatre and symphonic works. «But again and again, the guitarist returns to the blues, the great love of his youth,» the German daily newspaper «Süddeutsche Zeitung» wrote in a portrait of Sharp (January 7, 2004).

With the bassist Melvin Gibbs and the drummer Lance Carter, Elliott Sharp has formed a trio that cultivates the pleasure of playing, of sound, drive and expression. At the first performances in New York clubs and at the Jazzfestival in Leipzig, Germany in 2003, the three made a name for themselves: a power-guitar trio with enthralling excursions in the adventurous tonal landscapes based on blues, rock and free music. In the Spring of 2003, the three musicians went into the New York studio LoHo for Intakt Records and recorded the record Raw Meet.