The quartet served as a reunion of Lage with Burton, who has known the guitarist since he was a teen wunderkind and has featured him in his bands up until three years ago. (During the hiatus from working together, Burton was focusing on revisiting the 1973 chamber jazz classic Crystal Silence duo with Chick Corea, while Lage finished college and worked on his long-awaited debut album, Sounding Point.) "Julian has matured so much since I first met him 10 years ago when he was 12 years old," Burton says. "Julian has kept on growing and developing a sound of his own. He's a knock out." Lage fills the quartet guitar chair that was once held by such rising-star six-stringers as Pat Metheny, John Scofield and Kurt Rosenwinkel, among others.
Formed in 2010, the new quartet's first gig took place in August at the Red Sea Jazz Festival, and then took New York by storm with a weeklong, sold-out engagement at the Blue Note from October 19-24. After that, the group toured, road tested their material and entered the studio in New York for a three-day session December 4-6 to record Common Ground. Burton and his longtime manager, Ted Kurland, approached the Mack Avenue team (many of whom are long-standing friends) - Al Pryor (EVP of A&R), Denny Stilwell (President) and Randall Kennedy (VP of Marketing) - about the new band and proposed recording an album showcasing it. "They were keenly interested," says Burton, who also serves as the album's producer. "And the band was excited. They're all talented composers and brought music to the group that really stands out."