(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

One of the gods of the rock guitar, Duane Denison delighted listeners with astonishing passages in all his projects: Jesus Lizard, Firewater, and the DK3.

In 1994, Denison recorded an acoustic jazz album, Walls In The City (Skin Graft), accompanied only by Mule’s drummer, James Kimball. This gave birth to the Denison Kimball Trio, or Denison Kimball Three, or simply DK3.
Similar in surreal atmosphere to certain works of the Lounge Lizards, the album stands out especially for the strident timbres of the guitar (cowbell in Cold Light Of Day, Tibetan bell in One If By Land, ship’s siren in Two If By Sea) and for the rigorously swinging rhythms that propel romantic flights in Walk Away or dragging blues in Romantic Interlude. Inspired musically by nightclub orchestras, Denison performs a subtle postmodern operation, taking him far beyond the boundaries of the avant-garde.
Not only is this one of the best instrumental albums of the ’90s, but also an intimate confession revealing Denison’s true artistic personality.

On Soul Machine (Quarterstick, 1995) the trio is almost never just a trio, being joined at least by saxophonist Ken Vandermark (NGR Ensemble and Vandermark 5) and bassist Reg Shrader of the Seam. Their approach is “cool jazz,” intellectual and introspective to the fullest extent. Less “noir” and atmospheric than the first album, this time the focus is more on “groove,” as in the swinging arrangements of Soul Machine, with a breathtaking gypsy guitar fugue, and Solitaire, or (in a lively version) the free-jazz fanfare of Blueball Avenue, or (in a slow version) the radiant blues theme of Passing Blue.
Yet the ultimate goal of the album remains to create music creatively. Each track is practically performed differently: Terminal 2 is a concerto for guitar drones dropped into the void, the melody of Ad Infinitum is chimed one chord at a time, Trans-mission is an improvisation of hisses and buzzes, and Framed is even a piece in which the guitar imitates African percussion. Denison’s vocabulary constantly reinvents itself.

Duane Denison’s guitar art reigns supreme on Neutrons (Quarterstick, 1997). One only needs to savor his ineffable touches amidst the percussive chaos of Downriver, or in Heavy Water, announced by a ghostly flute, his dark narration of dissonances in a percussive crescendo, or his clownish sobbing in Neutrons, to realize the distance separating him from the rest of rock guitarists. His style is subtle, to be savored without getting too caught up, conducted through imperceptible, polished metamorphoses, seemingly inert, almost devoid of personality, yet in fact full of thought—the guitar equivalent of Cecil Taylor’s pianism. In short, a post-punk, post-industrial, post-environmental Peter Green. Lullaby closes the album brilliantly, with a Renaissance madrigal melody strummed nonchalantly.
Drummer James Kimball is no less virtuosic (he is now a permanent member of Jesus Lizard, after Mac McNeilly stepped aside). For those who thought this was Denison’s solo project, Traveling Salesman is actually Kimball’s personal showcase. Saxophonist Ken Vandermark (NGR Ensemble and Vandermark 5) gives Landshark a strongly jazzed tone, which pairs beautifully with Kimball’s style, but perhaps not with Denison’s, much subtler. Tracks like Monte’s Casino are so “forced” toward gratuitous exhibitionism that they could not be further from the shy guitarist’s personality. A similar thing happened to McLaughlin in the Mahavishnu Orchestra, mutatis mutandis…