Berklee School of Music guitar professor Julien Kasper isn’t fond of having his music called “fusion,” especially given the connotation it carries.
“I’ve never liked hearing it used when describing my music,” he said. “I understand the designation when listeners connect my roots back to electric Miles Davis, Jeff Beck, Hendrix, Mahavishnu, and John Scofield. But I think of my music as being very personal, soulful, instrumental guitar music that really doesn’t sound like anything anybody else is creating.”
At Berklee, Kasper developed three performance labs – Creative Applications, Jimi Hendrix lab, and Jeff Beck lab. He’s also the instructor for two classes in the Performance division – Harmonic Considerations in Improvisation and Recital Workshop for Performance Majors. His students have included Andrea Balestra (VG, January ’21) and Clay Cook (Zac Brown Band).
“Most-special are the students with whom I establish a lifetime mentoring relationship,” he noted. “We stay in touch, become friends, and they send their work to me. It’s incredibly rewarding to see and hear them evolve.”
Kasper’s most-recent album is a self-titled instrumental showcase that utilizes several guitars. Released in November ’23, during its recording, he meticulously focused on which guitar was appropriate for each song.
“My most-gigged guitar for the past 13 years has been a D’Pergo Signature Limited Strat copy,” he detailed. “For club gigs, I usually bring that and a korina Gibson SG or a Fender Custom Shop Tele. For concerts and recording sessions, I’ll bring out the vintage guitars.”
The vintage pieces include a few improbable models for Kasper’s style of complicated, progressive jazz.
“I used my ’63 SG Special on ‘An Upraised Hand’ and ‘Chazzskinnabaal,’ ‘The Wolf,’ ‘Big Dismal,’ and ‘King Cake’ all feature my Strat, which has a ’54 neck on a ’57 body. That’s my number one guitar. ‘Oceanides’ has a worn and beautiful-sounding ’66 Strat I’ve owned since I was 18, and I played a Custom Shop Telecaster Custom on ‘Upon a Green Hill.’ The D’Pergo makes an appearance for the second solo on ‘King Cake.’”
As for amplifiers, a ’72 Marshall 100-watt Super Lead into two vintage 4x12s are the only rig heard on the first four tracks. On later songs, he used a Marshall 1974X, a ’69 50-watt Marshall into a 4×12, and a ’64 Vox AC10.
Some of the album’s most-intriguing sounds include distorted tremolo on the opener, “The Wolf,” and a snarling treble in the left speaker on “King Cake.”
“That gets your attention, doesn’t it?” he queried. “It’s a Way Huge Atreides, which is a crazy pedal that seems like a combination fuzz, octave, ring modulator, and I don’t know what. It’s a blast to play, as it’s very sensitive to picking dynamics and accuracy. It’ll blow the wine glasses right off the table at a jazz club.”
Much of the album is improvisational.
“Every tune has one or more solo sections during which I – or we – improvise over the form or a set of similar changes written for improvisation. ‘Chazzskinnabaal’ has the open improvisation at the beginning, which is a duet between me and our drummer, Zac Casher, and there’s a group improvisation in the middle followed by another guitar solo with drums. The rubato intro to ‘Upon a Green Hill’ is a group improvisation.”
Opposite from improvisation are note-for-note unison arrangements.
“As much improv as there is on the album, there’s also a lot of concerted material,” Kasper averred. “Everything is charted and I write out bass lines that are doubled down the octave, in counterpoint, or in harmony with me. Usually, when those lines are played with the bass, and Zac will play them, too. This band has minimal rehearsal time, so committing so many details to memory is challenging. That being said, this trio has played together for a long time, so the level of musical empathy is very high and many rhythmic hits happen spontaneously.”
Kasper looks forward to touring to support the album, especially in Europe.
“Even though this isn’t jazz in the traditional sense, we are all experienced jazz musicians,” he said. “No tune is ever the same from one night to the next.”
This article originally appeared in VG’s February 2024 issue. All copyrights are by the author and Vintage Guitar magazine. Unauthorized replication or use is strictly prohibited.
