For Contact and Booking email Dan Lambert at Coordinate
NEWS FLASH! Some of Dan's early work from the 1970's has recently been released on a NUMERO RECORDS anthology, Wayfaring Strangers - Guitar Soli
You can find out more about Dan's 4 acoustic instrumental COORDINATE RECORDS releases The Clearing, Plaids, Melodies/Improvisations, and his latest, The Blue Hand at the guitar nine website.
Dan's guitar playing is an eclectic blend of everything he has listened to and studied - jazz, rock, world music from other cultures and countries - youll find it all in his playing. James Sallis, in the book THE GUITAR IN JAZZ writes, Dan Lamberts playing is highly individualistic - sometimes relaxed and in a groove, often full of stabbing odd turns - and immediately recognizable.
Favorite venues where Dan appears regularly with his duo or trio are:
The High Desert Brewing Co
The Magic Pan
Mesa Street Grill
St Clair Winery & Bistro-Las Cruces-Deming-Albuquerque
Ripe
Mix Pacific Rim Cuisine
Silver City Brewing Co
Zin Valle Vineyards
Dan got his start in suburban Chicago and later at the University of Illinois, playing in rock bands, folk groups, and jazz ensembles. Upon moving to Kent, Ohio, he started playing solo at every “college, folk club, and vegetarian restaurant†in Northeast Ohio. El Paso, Texas has been his home for the last 32 years. He performs regularly at venues in West Texas and New Mexico along with touring. His recordings are heard all over the US and in Europe. His music can be found on NPR’s All Things Considered.
Dan Lambert's band is all-instrumental unit featuring Dan's guitar and sarod, as well as bass and when the venue is right, drums. The dialog (trialog?) between the players as they dart and weave, support and inspire, turning tunes upside down and inside out, is a marvel to experience. Jason Blackmond, Gordon Butler, and Tim Kilpatrick take turns at bass, while a variety of drummers fill the percussion chair. Gordon, who also plays violin in the El Paso and Las Cruces Symphony Orchestras, sometimes augment's his Dan Lambert gigs with his violin.
The show consists of his Dan's wildly original compositions, with names like If Dogs Wore Hats, Tartan Swing, Howling Wilderness, Used To Be Such A Nice Boy, and Into It, along with arrangements of all sorts of music - the Zombies' Time of the Season and She's Not There, a bunch of Beatles tunes, jazz standards like Autumn Leaves, On Green Dolphin Street, Fly Me To The Moon, How High The Moon, The Pink Panther, and Take Five, Carole King's Its Too Late, Van Morrison's Moondance and Brown Eyed Girl, the list goes on forever. Lately Chicago's Colour My World, 25 or 6 to 4, and Make Me Smile have been getting a run through onstage, as well as a killer King Crimson medley.
Dan is a creative, entertaining guy, and the band takes this idea of anything goes in the music and stretches it to the nth degree. Listen to them go from the BeeGees I Started A Joke, to Dan's own Telepathy, then roar into The James Bond Theme.
In January, 2004, he went on a playing trip to London that included 5 dates, one at the Windsor Platfest. A story about the shows was featured in WHATS UP, a southwest entertainment weekly, in February. Dan now writes an entertaining monthly music column,The Final Note, for WHAT'S UP
Reviews:
The cat can play! Bill Milkowski, GUITAR WORLD
...most delightful is how effortlessly Lambert combines his varied influences. Complex rhythms, hot rock licks, a touch of the blues and blazing fingerwork make every composition distinctive... rich, sexy, and not the least of all, beautifully coherent. Susan Mihalic, TAOS NEWS
Every now and then I get my hands on a CD where the music transports me elsewhere. The Clearing by Dan Lambert is one such CD. Somewhere hidden in the songs is the touch of starlight and a brightly burning fire...Dan Lambert managed to create poems using music for words...Paul de Bruijn, RAMBLES
I went away from Melodies/Improvisations with the impression that the final piece (..15) Song within A Song, is more than just a tune title for Mr. Lambert. Woven together, Dans simple strands of folk tradition and blustery, zig-zagging jazz overlays create a complicated pattern of deeply textured material. Inside every one of them lies a bit of himself. Unconstrained imagination in human form, just wanting to try it all. Tammy D. Moon, FOLK AND ACOUSTIC MUSIC EXCHANGE
Its straight guitar music, meticulously performed, very virtuostic, immaculately clean. Nils Jacobson from a review of The Clearing, CD REVIEW
Being a fingerstyle player myself, I threw Dans CD on the player. I have to tell you it is amazing...It reminded me a lot of Eric Saties piano works: You are listening to something that is so simple it is hypnotic... Carlos Alden, THE NACHO CELTIC HOUR, WPBX FM, Spokane WA
Three purely instrumental acoustic guitar albums from an American who plays steel-stringed guitar with an admirable light touch. My personal favorite is Plaids which has a few truly wonderful tunes...theyre all worth seeking out for acoustic music fans. Anja Beinroth, FOLK WORLD
...There are so many beautiful tunes that it is always a hard choice to decide which ones to play on my radio programme...Dan is really a great player, the kind of virtuoso who cannot allow his technique to to prevail on the sensibility of the tunes. Massimo Ferro, RADIO VOCE SPAZIO, Diocesi di Alessandria, Italy
Ive just played Plaids all the way through, and feel I have been transported from the city to the great outdoors. Dr. Elizabeth Goring, NATIONAL MUSEUMS OF SCOTLAND
MORE HIP LINKS
Amjad Ali Khan Dan's favorite sarod player
JJ Plasencio One of Dan's playing buddies from way back, and a magnificent bass player
Amrit Sond A fascinating guitarist from the UK
Rob Levit The Rob Levit Trio cd, "Uncertain Path" is classic improvisational music...Rob is one creative, deep thinking cat
Erkan Ogur An in depth interview with this Turkish player who specializes in fretless guitar
JazzGuitarLife.com A treasure trove of interviews with working jazz players on music and making a living
Pimentel & Sons Guitars Dan plays a couple of instruments from these gifted Albuquerque luthiers
Joe Boyd Has been in the biz forever, worked with Nick Drake, Sandy Denny, Richard Thompson, Trio Bulgarka...several interviews and articles from a guy who's been there
Guitar Nine Records Dan and a ton of other instrumental players sell their CDs here, a lot of information and a great newsletter that Dan writes for
Mike's Oud Website If you're interested in oud music, this is THE site
The Pentangle A 1970 interview with Bert Jansch, John Renbourn, and Jacqui McShee
Tim Sparks An interview at acousticguitarworkshop.com with this fingerstyle guitarist known for his skill at blending (and bending) styles
Blind Faith A site devoted to one of the bands that Dan cut his teeth on - historic rehearsal photos, guides to recordings and gigs, history, bios
What's Up A weekly El Paso entertainment publication for the younger crowd - this is where to find Dan's column, "The Final Note"
Baden Powell Over sixty of this Brazilian legend's tunes and improvisations written out note for note
Manband The band MAN from Wales, a wild jam band with an interesting history and lineage
John Cipollina This guy's sound was as unique as it gets - a story and interview
John Etheridge An instructional (practical theory), entertaining interview with this well-travelled English player
Charlie Hunter A long bio and interview with this 8-string pioneer
Ian Anderson a real "brass tacks" working musician's interterview with the leader of Jethro Tull
