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Jeff Gauthier

Violinist, composer, and producer Jeff Gauthier has worked with a wide range of musicians in a variety of creative contexts in a career that has spanned over 40 years. As an improvising violinist, he has performed and recorded with Yusef Lateef & Adam Rudolph on the album The World At Peace for Meta Records, The Alex Cline Ensemble on albums for ECM & Cryptogramophone, and Nels Cline's Lovers project. His own ensemble, the Jeff Gauthier Goatette has recorded six CDs including Internal Memo and The Present for Nine Winds Records, Mask, One and the Same, House of Return and Open Source for Cryptogramophone. Mask was nominated for a 2002 AFIM Indie Award. He has also performed in ensembles with bassist Mark Dresser (The Banquet) and drummer Gregg Bendian (Bone Structure). As a founding member with Nels Cline, Alex Cline and Eric von Essen of the ensemble Quartet Music, a creative presence in Los Angeles for 12 years, He has also been named a "Rising Star" several times as both violinist and Producer in the Downbeat Critic's Poll. Gauthier has worked with such luminaries as Alan Broadbent, Nels Cline, Mark Dresser, Peter Erskine, Jimmy Rowles, Stacy Rowles, Alan Pasqua, Taylor Ho-Bynum, Todd Sickafoose and many others recording CDs for Cryptogramophone, Delos and Nine Winds Records. As a classical violinist Gauthier has performed with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Music Center Opera, Long Beach Symphony, the Oregon Bach Festival and the Carmel Bach Festival. He performed on the 2000 Grammy Award winning CD Credo, by Kristoph Penderecki with the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra and Chorus. He has also performed on countless films and TV shows, including almost every Star Trek film and TV show spin-off known to man. Gauthier is a graduate of California Institute of the Arts.

Gauthier and his wife, cellist Maggie Parkins will release "Song and Call" by The Smudges on Cryptogramophone Records beginning February 18, 2022.

Jeff Gauthier: Open

by Ian Patterson
January 3, 2012

Violinist Jeff Gauthier has been a leading figure in cutting-edge jazz on the West Coast since the mid-'70s. As a leader, he's produced half a dozen compelling works with his band of 20 years, The Jeff Gauthier Goatette. Open Source (Cryptogramophone, 2011) finds the quartet grown to a quintet, with trumpeter John Fumo bringing added fire to what was already one of the most exciting combos in modern jazz. Open Source blends folkish, pastoral airs with a very modern jazz ...

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Album Review

The Jeff Gauthier Goatette: Open Source

Read "Open Source" reviewed by Ian Patterson

by Ian Patterson
December 11, 2011

Open Source would have made a good alternative name for violinist Jeff Gauthier's ensemble, as it draws inspiration from myriad sources. Goatette continues its near twenty-year journey into territory ranging from avant-garde and sci-fi soundscapes, and deep funk grooves colored by searing electric guitar, to an altogether more pastoral melodicism reminiscent of the Mahavishnu Orchestra at its most serene. Now a sextet with the addition of trumpeter John Fumo, the widely traveled musician steers a course between post-bop and electric ...

137

Album Review

The Jeff Gauthier Goatette: Open Source

Read "Open Source" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
October 27, 2011

When two-thirds of a group has “effects" in their instrumental credits, it's a safe bet this ain't your granddaddy's jazz. When it's violinist Jeff Gauthier's Goatette, punctuating the quirky theme in the first moments of “40 Lashes (With Mascara)" with thundering drums and high-octane power chords, it's clear that Open Source is going to make plenty of demands--and not just on the musicians who play it. Any group featuring the intrepid Cline twins--guitarist Nels and drummer Alex--is ...

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Album Review

The Jeff Gauthier Goatette: House of Return

Read "House of Return" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
July 23, 2008

Violinist/producer Jeff Gauthier is well-known for his cutting-edge solo work and being a proponent of his label's crystalline, sonic engineering process, where most all the details and nuances can be detected, even with low-budget stereo equipment. The Goatette's third release continues to demonstrate the musicians' nearly telepathic interactions amid an abundance of structured and improvisational components.

The quintet clearly projects a mark of distinction and from a stylistic perspective it might be somewhat of an anomaly to rigidly ...

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Interview

Jeff Gauthier: Fiddling with the Future

by Rex Butters
June 30, 2008

With over three decades playing in some of L.A.'s most innovative and interesting musical projects, violinist/composer Jeff Gauthier threatens to succumb to the irony of being better known as the founder/CEO of Cryptogramophone Records. Now in their tenth year, Cryptogramophone has outgrown underground status, even meriting a feature in trendy Details magazine. Boasting a roster including Nels Cline, Vinny Golia, Peter Erskine, Don Preston, Steuart Liebig, Alex Cline, and Gauthier's Goatette, Cryptogramophone also provided a safe haven for the long ...

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Album Review

The Jeff Gauthier Goatette: House of Return

Read "House of Return" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
June 7, 2008

Los Angeles based violinist Jeff Gauthier's fifth recording as a leader, House of Return is the third album to feature the capable talents of his self-coined Goatette. A veteran quintet of stellar West Coast improvisers, Gauthier and company work from a varied palette to explore a mix of sound worlds, ranging from thorny progressive fusion and unfettered psychedelia to folksy introspection and lush ballads.

As founder and producer of the adventurous Cryptogramophone label and co-founder of the influential ...

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Opinion

Musical Community

by AAJ Staff
April 5, 2008

By Jeff Gauthier Music is all about community. The jazz musicians of New York are a musical community. Individual ensembles within that larger community are musical communities. However, so are social networking sites, record companies and the readers of All About Jazz. We can generally break communities down into two specific types: physical and virtual. Both communities can reflect specific musical styles. Physical communities and virtual communities have been interacting ever since people started banging rocks ...

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Recording

The Jeff Gauthier Goatette - Open Source (2011)

Source: Something Else!
October 30, 2011

Long, long before Nels Cline had attained his current status as one of the most original, fearless and bad-assed electric guitarists around, he was an obscure twenty-something acoustic guitarist playing in a small, acoustic combo called Quartet Music, that made four record in the 80s, all currently our of print. This “mini-orchestra" also had in it Nels' twin brother Alex on drums, the late, great Eric von Essen on acoustic bass, and a violinist named Jeff Gauthier. In the early ...
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Recording

The Jeff Gauthier Goatette - Open Source (Cryptogramophone, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland
October 14, 2011

Violinist and composer Jeff Gauthier wears a diverse array of hats in the jazz and improvised music world. Founder of the well-regarded Cryptogrampohone record label, and an in demand producer, he still finds time to record his own music. Gauthier states that his vision of Open Source means drawing from a diverse well of creativity, and he has assembled a fine crew for the achievement of this mission. He is joined by John Fumo on trumpet, Nels Cline on guitar, ...
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