From Andrés Segovia to Django Reinhardt, Julian Bream to John McLaughlin, Paco de Lucía to Al Di Meola, Vicente Amigo to Tommy Emmanuel, instrumental acoustic music has long been a vehicle employed by master guitarists to telegraph stirring and intensely emotional ideas within a web of dazzling and inventive technique.
Following in this skilled tradition is contemporary guitarist Al Nesbitt, whose unique sound and style meshes fiery and impassioned playing with lush orchestral textures and modern touches to create breathtaking enveloping soundscapes.
Nesbitt’s approach is rooted as much in the works of the artists he draws influence from – McLaughlin and Amigo among them – as it is on his love for film composers like Nicholas Hooper, Hans Zimmer and Alexandre Desplat. The result is instrumental music that is transportive and evocative, be it via the exotic tones and pulsing rhythms of “One Night in Morocco,” from his 2022 album, Fantastical Adventures Between the Raindrops, or the immersive, cinematic sounds embedded into the songs on A Million Shiny Things, his new album inspired by the history and experiences of the famous Chateau Marmont hotel, which Nesbitt recorded with his band, The Alchemy.
Nesbitt’s compositional approach is stunningly varied, drawing from a deep well of music styles and history. And the cast of musicians playing alongside him is also diverse and impressive: guitarist Wayne Tapia, bassist Jeff Eason and Paul Gilbert drummer Bill Ray, as well as the legendary “Fretless Wonder,” Tony Franklin, and violinist / composer Michael A. Levine, who has played with Hans Zimmer and Harry Gregson Willams, both of whom appear on his song “Allegories and Guillotines.”
What is constant throughout is Nesbitt’s enthralling guitar playing, characterized by powerful bursts of notes, lush extended chord voicings, mesmeric exotic-scale runs and a distinctive and captivating melodic sensibility.
This is music that is playful and precise, seductive and explorative. With each song, Nesbitt crafts mini orchestral-pop masterpieces that manage to sound fully contemporary and also unconnected to any particular place or time. Like the acoustic guitar masters before him, Al Nesbitt creates instrumental music without bounds.
For more information, head to Al Nesbitt’s official website or Facebook page.
