Wild Strings Musings Jean Claude (JC) Jones Lap-style classical guitar free improvisations KCR 42, 2016 Jones recorded these untitled solo improvisations without any intention to publish them but rather to share his new sonic adventure with close friends, who in their turn encouraged him to release it as a limited-edition disc. This DIY album is all homemade - the recording, mastering and even designing its cover. Its cover only mentions that on the first and eighth pieces Jones overdubbed himself so both pieces would sound like duets.   At first listening these improvisations sound abstract, flowing with free associative ideas, but with no sense of coherence. However, on later listenings you can notice how Jones incorporates into these spontaneous improvisations slide bluesy scales, explores loose, resonating percussive patterns, some bring to mind the sound African thumb-piano, kalimba, others the Japanese koto, and creates mysterious, cinematic textures. All with an insistent search of the timbral spectrum of the guitar - its body and strings, often manipulated and prepared.

By By Eyal Hareuveni
Friday, September 02, 2016 in Guitar Week

The Reincarnation of Jean Claude Jones
Israeli, Jerusalem-based musician Jean Claude (JC) Jones is one of the most influential figures in the local small and familiar scene of free-improvised music. He was a teacher and still is a mentor to many aspiring young musicians, double bass player who was eager to experiment, and later as the founder of the Kadima Collective label that offered his work and projects of great double bass players like Joelle Leandre, Mark Dresser, Barre Phillips and Tetsu Saitoh.
Jones has struggled for over a decade with Multiple Sclerosis, which forced him to give up playing the double bass last year. But as a true musician and spirited improviser, he reinvented himself as a guitarist, putting his classical guitar on his lap, and challenging himself to produce fascinating sounds from it.
Jones recorded these untitled solo improvisations without any intention to publish them but rather to share his new sonic adventure with close friends, who in their turn encouraged him to release it as a limited-edition disc. This DIY album is all homemade - the recording, mastering and even designing its cover. Its cover only mentions that on the first and eighth pieces Jones overdubbed himself so both pieces would sound like duets.
At first listening these improvisations sound abstract, flowing with free associative ideas, but with no sense of coherence. However, on later listenings you can notice how Jones incorporates into these spontaneous improvisations slide bluesy scales, explores loose, resonating percussive patterns, some bring to mind the sound African thumb-piano, kalimba, others the Japanese koto, and creates mysterious, cinematic textures. All with an insistent search of the timbral spectrum of the guitar - its body and strings, often manipulated and prepared.