Jim McAuley

Jim McAuley's The Ultimate Frog is a two-CD collection of duets between the guitarist and four great musicians: Leroy Jenkins (violin, viola), Nels Cline (guitars), Ken Filiano (bass) and Alex Cline (drums/percussion). The result of these pairings is a diverse and richly textured set of music, which includes quick-witted open improvisations, freeform folk and blues tunes, aching ballads and earthy modal pieces. McAuley is one of those few musicians who are (as Ellington put it) genuinely "beyond category"; his playing is an intensely personal distillation of a huge range of influences--from fingerpicked blues to free jazz, not to mention Arabic oud music and Renaissance lute-song. The Ultimate Frog is a long-overdue collection of work from this too rarely documented master guitarist.