Nels Cline’s career began in the eighties, when he joined his brother, the drummer Alex Cline, bassist Eric Von Essen and violinist Jeff Gauthier to form the group Quartet Music. Meanwhile, Cline collaborated with Charlie Haden (inclusively with the Liberation Music Orchestra) and Julius Hemphill, among others, and in 1987 he released his first album as a leader, with an ensemble featuring the influent saxophonist Tim Berne and his fellow accomplices in the recently founded Nels Cline Trio. In the following years, and in parallel with the intense activity with his trio, Cline collaborated with a wide range of musicians of distinct musical backgrounds, such as Thurston Moore, guitarist and composer of the avant-garde rock band Sonic Youth, percussionist Gregg Bendian (with whom Cline made a modern rendition of John Coltrane’s seminal work, Interstellar Space), composer and sound artist Andrea Parkins and underground vocalist and composer Carla Bozulich, with whom Cline toured extensively and composed several performance pieces. In 2004, Cline joined the band Wilco as effective member, while at the same time pursuing his career as leader and with his many different musical projects, such as the free jazz/improv band Nels Cline Singers, the Woodstcok Tapes of the group Medesky, Martin & Wood and the intermedia project in collaboration with poet David Breskin, based on the Ed Ruscha’s artistic work.

Recently, Nels Cline signed with the prestigious label Blue Note and released his work “Lovers”, a big band project inspired by the American standards and songbook, as well as by the music of Bill Evans and Henry Mancini, and which will be the theme of his performance in Guimarães Jazz. This album, considered by the guitarist as one of his most personal works, plunges into a heterodox repertoire composed both by Cline’s original compositions and by compositions and songs by very different composers, bands and musicians, such as Anette Peacock, Paul Francis Weber, Gabor Szabo, Michel Portal and Arto Lindsay, among many others. “Lovers” provides a panoramic perspective through Cline’s musical cosmology, while at the same time offering the listeners an idiosyncratic montage of the history of music of the twentieth century. Originally composed for an orchestra of twenty three musicians, in Guimarães, however, “Lovers” will be performed by a quintet, featuring the Portuguese guitarist Eurico Costa, accompanied by the Guimarães Orchestra, with musical direction by Michael Leonhart.