I haven't read the whole thread - but has anyone mentioned Motown? I was watching TV and saw Stevie Wonder doing a Target commercial and remembered how much I love his music. "Songs in the Key of Life" came out my interim year and it kept me going for much of it!
He was so amazing - still is. I've always wanted to see him in concert but always seemed to miss him when he came around. I don't think he's toured in years.
And then there are the Four Tops, The Drifters, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Aretha...
I know most of Motown's early material was written from the Brill Building in NYC by Gerry Goffin and Carole King as well as Leiber and Stoller.
The Brill Building is another fogotten topic here in the music history thread. (history of the Brill Building). It's amazing how much music was written there in the 60's. Some of the greatest songs I remember from my childhood came from there. I don't think there's anyplace like that in the world anymore.
Hope R. color>size>face>
"Don't let the past remind us of what we are not now" - Stephen Stills
Yeah, Grizz, Les Paul invented and patented the first multi track recorder device and used it on his early recordings in a sound on sound setup. Ol' Edison invented audio recording but Les really made it what it is today. He also burned his own recordings on vinyl, with a mastering setup made from the flywheel of an auto engine. I seem to remember seeing a photo of him standing over this rig that looked very industrial age, all black and silver metal and wires. He really developed echo delay, the forerunner of digital delay effects we can buy today in little boxes for 30 bucks. The double-coil "hum-bucker" pickup for guitars is his baby. He was a true innovator!
Not to mention, early in his career he was in an auto accident that damaged his right arm elbow, and it had to be set permanently in to place at the time. He had his guitar brought in and he had them set his arm in to the correct position so that he could play. Pictures always show him with his right arm slightly raised up at the elbow and that's why. I'm surprised he didn't just have them weld a pick in to his hand, too.
"Idol" is a term tossed around freely in pop music, but Les is a man any aspiring musician could put on a pedestal and not feel cheap. He's the Real Deal.
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The fellow at Gibson in the 20s was Lloyd Loar, and if you have one of the F-Style mandolins Loar built in the 20s, it's worth $60 thousand plus. Loar was the Stradivarius of the mandolin.
If some one is to be picked as such an innovator and an icon that did so much to get us to the sounds and CDs we listen to, well Les Paul has to be at the top of the list!
But then I have to ask myself.........what we got here a whole bunch of commies or what? Not one mention of Chet Atkins. A few times over the years I have seen them play together on TV, great pickers the two of them........ Les and Chet. The first time I had to ask my parents who those two men were and my Dad that never showed much interest in music said those are the two greatest guitar players alive.
MoTown oh bring it on, a great part of American music history. Think I will fade away while *Baby Love* is running through my head......
Before Loar developed the first electric spanish guitar, there was a gentelman named George Beuchamp who developed the first pickup. It was used in a Hawiian lap guitar.
The first successful electric guitar was the ES-150. I have a guitar that look identical to it, made sometime in the 30's, and it's called a "Recording King". I have contacted Gibson about it, and they verified that it was a Gibson sub-division or something like that. Bottom line is, they tell me it's worth a whole lotta money! I'll never sell it for 2 reasons. It has the most beautiful unique sound I've ever heard. And, more importantly, it belonged to an uncle that I never knew, who was killed in WWII. It will get passed down to the next generation, with the hope that the love of music that I have, and that I'm told my uncle had, will go with it.
I thought my question about Les Paul was just a pretty face on the cutting room floor. I thought he was instrumental (shameless pun) in some way in developing the electric guitar, but I didn't know about all his other achievements. Heard him and his wife, Mary Ford, singing on our radio many a time as a child, and on black and white TV a little later. I remember now, Socks, the stiffness of his right arm, and I remember hearing why.
I'm no music techie, so I suspect one of you might have already said this in a way that went over my head, but didn't Les P and Mary F develop the recording technique in which they recorded her voice more than once so that, in effect, she could harmonize with herself?
Hope, that stuff about the Brill Building was fascinating. I only had time to click on a couple links, but I learned two things there that I didn't know: that Neil Sedaka and Carole King were high school friends, and that Carole King was married to her first collaborator. Interesting stuff!
bluzman, you BETTER hold on to it. That's cool, the ES 150 and the Recording King. What kind of strings have you got on it? Would love to see a pic of it. That's an oldie alright. Was it a solid or hollow body?
Grizzy, yeah! I ref'd Chet back aways in relation country music and Ted's comments. Yeah! Chet, the Country Gentlmen, was another innovator of the instrument, and extremely expressive as a voice in just about any kind of music. There's an album that he and Les Paul did, "Monsters" that's killer, can't think of the whole title. They left a lot of the comments in and it's pretty funny. I'm with you, he was great. A lot of people think of him as "country" and dismiss him. Anyone who digs in and checks him out (like Mark Knofler and a gazillion great players everywhere) learns something.
Linda, yeah, he holds the first patent on a multi track recording head setup, sorry, and that's only at half-geek, I'm not even a true geeker. It allowed him to record their voices and his guitar more than once, so they could harmonize, and he could do cool things with the guitar. It sounded like 3 Mary's and 3 Les's. Or 5, or 12. Very cool.
Thanks, Zix. I wouldn't mind having one of those!
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The Recording King that I have is not electric. But it looks identical to the ES150 hollow body...sunburst finish, f-shaped soundholes, full-length plastic "screw on" pickguard.
It's lost a lot of it's value because I had let one of my uncle's have it when I moved away from home, many years ago, with the understanding that it would come back to me when he passed away. While he had it, one of his sons noticed that a few of the machines were slipping and he put freaking Grovers on it! I now have it back, but my cousin tells me he has misplaced the original machines. So now, if I want it to be all original, I have to find some old beater that I can take the machines off of.
The value doesn't matter much to me though. It will always stay in the family as far as I'm concerned. I normally use a medium gauge phospher bronze on it. It has the most unique "twang" kind of sound, like a rockabilly sound!
When it was first given to me back in the 60's, I used Black Diamond strings that I could buy at the local drugstore(remember when drugstores used to sell those?). Bottom 3 were nylon, top 3 steel wrap. Ah, those were the days! You wanted guitar strings, that was what you got...no different brands to choose from! At least, not in the little town I grew up in!
My dad and I use to argue over who was the better guitar player. Chet Atkins or Jimi Hendrix. Today I know I was just being stuborn cause really Atkins had it over Hendrix, no contest. But I still remember our last argument about it, I said to dad "yea but can Atkins put his guitar behind his head and play it like Hendrix can?"
Dad just rolled his eyes and walked away. That was the last time we talked about who was better, think he just decided then and there I was gonna have to grow up to figure it out.
We've been down the same path, Bluzman. I can relate. Heavy guage BD's were the first strings I used too. When I finally got an electric, that's all I really knew about, so I kept putting them on. Finally the guy at the store threw me a set of flat wound Gibson's and said "try these". I knew what they were but didn't know where to get them. Aaaah....relief! I was kinda slow.
What a great guitar. Dang the tuners, though! It's a keeper though, your right. It's got time in it's pores. Aging is beautiful thing.
It reminds me of how similar the path is for so many of us. When I picked it up it was hard to get information, so I'd glom on to anything or anyone who knew anything. If I got an album, I practically turned it inside out trying to absorb what it offered.
Along the way, you're listening and learning and every little thing you learn is like gold. Musicians all over the world know what it's like to be sitting there and suddenly go "wwwwwhoooooAAAA! what was that!" and know the excitement of discovering something for the first time. Everyone learns things, but in their own way. Each musician has that sense of "ownership" that comes with practice and learning. Even when we're all learning the same things it's "ours" and we can share it with pride. "Look what I made! You made it too! Cool". I get a little overwhelmed inside thinking of what music brings to all of us. What can you say?
That's what kills me about guys like Les Paul - they're so generous. He never seems to have held any of his stuff back from the world, trying to protect it. Some musicians are secretive and don't want their stuff "stolen". With all the people doing the same thing, there's always going to be someone who's coming up with the same stuff somewhere. He's professional, but seems to get a kick out of people doing things with his ideas he never thought of. Like his humbucking pickup design. I've read interviews where he's said it never occured to him to drive them cranked up to get distortion out of a preamp, as guys like Clapton and others did. He wanted to get a CLEAN, QUIET sound out of them. But he thought it was great what people were doing with his ideas, and encouraged experimentation.
Can't beat that.
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As a non-guitar player here are my fave guitarists humbly submitted for your approval:
Kenny Burrell: clean and tasty
Pat Martino: such harmonic chops and the facility to pull them off , fastest I ever heard, improvised solos that approached novels yet never repeated an idea. Is it true he had a stroke and totally relearned how to play?
Pat Methany: IMO truly invented a new sound and approach to jazz guitar.
and my fave of all time:
Joe Pass: a master of chording and soloing all at the same time. Saw him with just a guitar, a small amp and a stool and time stood still.
I started a folder within my hundreds of music files called "Awesome Guitar Players". I have been wanting to ask some real guitar players or musicians advice on who I might put in that category.
Can you give me a few ideas Socks, Sunesis, Ted, and others who may know music? Yanagisawa, I will have to check out the ones you listed.
Or does this become a question of taste?
In my folder so far I have Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimmy Page, Pat Methaney, Johnny Winters (saw him in concert and liked it very much), Alvin Lee (Ten Years After), Carlos Santana, and a favorite Eddie Van Halen.
Taste is a large part of it as there have been so many great ones. If it as my list, I would name some of the people you did, some you named I don't consider great. But again, taste has a lot to do with it. Have you ever listened to any Frank Marino? Very awsome guitar player, in my opinion.
Igotout, Al DiMeola is an amazing guitar player. He does both acoustic and electric. Pickup up one of his "greatest hits" CDs - He has incredible counterpoint harmonies going through his stuff.
For Jazzy Blues, who else but Robben Ford? Amazing Tone. Talk to your daugher is an early one, great bluesy stuff, and anything with his Blue Line group.
Also, Eric Johnson - listen to his tone, and you have heard God (not really, but close). Pickup up his live Alien Love Child CD. Or, the one before that Venus Isle, I think its called. He's just amazing.
Also, Scott Henderson and his band Tribal Tech. Mike Stern, Pat Metheny and last but not least, John Mclaughlin - amazing guitarist. That should keep you busy for awhile.
But I think for tone, Eric Johnson is the best, a fabulous almost violinlike tone. Its just beautiful.
Rock guitar, Jimi, Randy Rhodes and Van Halen. I've seen Eddie several times, if you see him live, especially his solo slot where its just him and his guitar, he's basically a boy genius on guitar. The Bach of guitar I would think - his songs with his 30 second solos just don't do him justice. He is a true phenomenon. I really do not think anyone will top him.
Socks, when I started playing guitar I didn't know you supposed to pick up and down. No one ever told me. So I always picked down. Over the years, I just had the hammerons and pulloffs so smooth, every one assumed I was picking them individually. At my gigs with my horn/jazz band, I would often have musicians come up to me and say, what are you doing? Your right hand isn't moving hardly. I have also been told my many folks I am one of the smoothest players they have ever heard - these are by some heavy jazz guys. I was told one day, before I came into the blues jam I went to frequently, the guys at the blues jam were discussing and wondering how I played and sounded the way I do. When I told them I basically play downstrokes and use my little finger, they couldn't believe I didn't up and down pick.
For years, and even in music college, my instructors kept insisting I up and down pick. I tried for about a year then finally said, screw it. It was too late. On my interim year in the corps, I took lessons with a jazz guy named Ronnie Lee (yes, the music book guy). He tried to get me to pick up and down. Finally, I walked in one day, and he had this incredible jazz guitarist playing (I forget his name now). I said who's that? He said, I probably shouldn't be doing this, but, he doesn't up and down pick either. I wanted you to hear him. I realize, you're not going to change, so we may as well work with it.
Years later, in the '80s I was reading an article on sweep picking and a light bulb went off, hey, that's the way I normally play! Funny how you develop style and technique when left to your own devices. Although, I really don't work with arpeggios much, I need to start getting into them.
Now, though, I'd say in the last 2 years, upstroking has started coming naturally to me. I didn't try to do it, but it just started happening. I use it quite a bit now, but in an odd way. Usually during fast passages going across the fretboard towards the low E, I upstroke every note, no downstrokes. Its weird, but it works for me.
Your experience at the "academy" was similar to mine, and probably a lot of musicians who are largely self-taught.
One day a long time ago my "warped ear" started hearing an interesting concept to chord changes. I developed a system that works for me based on big leaps and patterns of 4ths and 5ths. I'm too old to shake the world...but it's my answer to the "Coltrane" problem that looms over every serious sax player. It's novel and I am told by colleagues that they know it's me within two bars of a tune.
I went to a recognized jazz pedagogue not too long ago and we mutually (and amicably) agreed we were wasting each other's time.
I think the great ones on any instrument pretty much heard something in their head and the months and years of woodshedding was for the purpose of developing the facility to get it out through their instrument. This is usually documented if one is lucky enough to hear early recordings of musical pioneers...you can hear the infantile concepts of what was to fully develop.
The "academy" usually gets it backward. They fill the aspiring musician with "orthodox" musical concepts and then enroll them in a "program" to learn how to play it.
IMO the "academization" of any art laminates it and puts it into relic status...therefore allowing the "experts" and academics to make a pretty good living expounding their wondrous views...all the while turning out clones who are afraid of an original thought.
Just thought I'd throw this one out. I know I'm jumping a few decades here, but have recently found a singer called Norah Jones. I believe I have her first CD - Come Away With Me.
I was told she was Ravi Shankar's illegitimate daughter?? Does anyone know about her. Her CD is the ultimate. Definitely jazzy/bluezy sound. The piano work and the bass is VERY VERY good.
And the other reason why I decided to post here is because I wanted to see if I'd make page 7.
Prochaine, she sounds interesting. Ravi Shankar is a master at the sitar.
Yanigawashaw(sic), I agree with what you say, although I believe any musician needs to know how to read, what makes up a scale and the chords that go with them, modes, etc. - the basics. But if you start playing young, I'd say habits are set within a year.
You're right, I have always had a definite sound in my head I wanted to hear and a definite way I wanted to play. I use quirky phrasing, string skipping, etc. Instead of many guitarists who copy licks, I never sit down and try and get that exact lick. I can noodle for hours trying to come up with original lines. Rock and blues may be simple to most, but to me the challenge is taking that framework and coming up with something different - that's not so easy.
I didn't know you were a sax player, hmm, I can think of a couple of sax players I knew in TWI.
Bluzeman, the Dolphin is still alive and well. I went to the Monday night jams for about two years when I moved back here from NYC. The jams were moved back to the Dolphin along time ago. Rick Boals hosts. The Thirsty Ear in Grandview is also a great blues club. I jam there sometimes on their Sunday afternoon jams. My blues band has hosted these jams a couple of times. The owner Jerry is a great guy. Check it out.
So Rick is back at the Dolphin, that's cool. I liked it better than Dirty Sally's.
Rick put out a tape in 90, or 91 I think called White Man's Burden that had some pretty good stuff on it. I play his version of Scotch and Soda which has some really neat chords in it.
If you were in that area in the early 90's, I bet we've crossed paths before. Email me sometime, bluzeman@hotmail.com
Yana, nice list! Those are great players for sure. Joe Pass sure made his mark. Classy, great tone. Ran across him back in the 60's when he was involved with Synanon. A band I was in played some Synanon events through a connection with one of the band members family. Great player. (Synanon was supposed to be a big drug-rehab prgram. It looked to me like that was where they kept the GOOD drugs but that may have been just my, uh, experience)
And Kenny Burrell, yes, of course! Never totally checked out Martino but like what I've heard. Al Dimeola is a name that comes to mind with that fast picking muted sound of his, Sunesis mentioned him. "land of the midnight sun" is a killer album with vintage Al sounds. I've been mistaken for him when once or twice when I was young-er. Recently daugther picked up his album one day and drug out a picture of me from long ago and said "It's you!" Oh to be young.
Gotta get back to work, and get caught up later. A la, my wife is in love with Nora Jones too. Got her cd and it's on a lot round her of late. She was on Saturday Night Live a week ago, she looks so young to have that voice! till later....
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I haven't read the whole thread - but has anyone mentioned Motown? I was watching TV and saw Stevie Wonder doing a Target commercial and remembered how much I love his music. "Songs in the Key of Life" came out my interim year and it kept me going for much of it!
He was so amazing - still is. I've always wanted to see him in concert but always seemed to miss him when he came around. I don't think he's toured in years.
And then there are the Four Tops, The Drifters, Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Aretha...
I know most of Motown's early material was written from the Brill Building in NYC by Gerry Goffin and Carole King as well as Leiber and Stoller.
The Brill Building is another fogotten topic here in the music history thread. (history of the Brill Building). It's amazing how much music was written there in the 60's. Some of the greatest songs I remember from my childhood came from there. I don't think there's anyplace like that in the world anymore.
Hope R. color>size>face>
"Don't let the past remind us of what we are not now" - Stephen Stills
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socks
Yeah, Grizz, Les Paul invented and patented the first multi track recorder device and used it on his early recordings in a sound on sound setup. Ol' Edison invented audio recording but Les really made it what it is today. He also burned his own recordings on vinyl, with a mastering setup made from the flywheel of an auto engine. I seem to remember seeing a photo of him standing over this rig that looked very industrial age, all black and silver metal and wires. He really developed echo delay, the forerunner of digital delay effects we can buy today in little boxes for 30 bucks. The double-coil "hum-bucker" pickup for guitars is his baby. He was a true innovator!
Not to mention, early in his career he was in an auto accident that damaged his right arm elbow, and it had to be set permanently in to place at the time. He had his guitar brought in and he had them set his arm in to the correct position so that he could play. Pictures always show him with his right arm slightly raised up at the elbow and that's why. I'm surprised he didn't just have them weld a pick in to his hand, too.
"Idol" is a term tossed around freely in pop music, but Les is a man any aspiring musician could put on a pedestal and not feel cheap. He's the Real Deal.
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Zixar
The fellow at Gibson in the 20s was Lloyd Loar, and if you have one of the F-Style mandolins Loar built in the 20s, it's worth $60 thousand plus. Loar was the Stradivarius of the mandolin.
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A la prochaine
Now there's a talent...
Jimmy Lee and Who's Zoomin' who - my favourites!
'til the next time...
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Grizzy
If some one is to be picked as such an innovator and an icon that did so much to get us to the sounds and CDs we listen to, well Les Paul has to be at the top of the list!
But then I have to ask myself.........what we got here a whole bunch of commies or what? Not one mention of Chet Atkins. A few times over the years I have seen them play together on TV, great pickers the two of them........ Les and Chet. The first time I had to ask my parents who those two men were and my Dad that never showed much interest in music said those are the two greatest guitar players alive.
MoTown oh bring it on, a great part of American music history. Think I will fade away while *Baby Love* is running through my head......
Grizzy COLOR>SIZE>
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Bluzeman
Before Loar developed the first electric spanish guitar, there was a gentelman named George Beuchamp who developed the first pickup. It was used in a Hawiian lap guitar.
The first successful electric guitar was the ES-150. I have a guitar that look identical to it, made sometime in the 30's, and it's called a "Recording King". I have contacted Gibson about it, and they verified that it was a Gibson sub-division or something like that. Bottom line is, they tell me it's worth a whole lotta money! I'll never sell it for 2 reasons. It has the most beautiful unique sound I've ever heard. And, more importantly, it belonged to an uncle that I never knew, who was killed in WWII. It will get passed down to the next generation, with the hope that the love of music that I have, and that I'm told my uncle had, will go with it.
Rick
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Linda Z
I thought my question about Les Paul was just a pretty face on the cutting room floor. I thought he was instrumental (shameless pun) in some way in developing the electric guitar, but I didn't know about all his other achievements. Heard him and his wife, Mary Ford, singing on our radio many a time as a child, and on black and white TV a little later. I remember now, Socks, the stiffness of his right arm, and I remember hearing why.
I'm no music techie, so I suspect one of you might have already said this in a way that went over my head, but didn't Les P and Mary F develop the recording technique in which they recorded her voice more than once so that, in effect, she could harmonize with herself?
Hope, that stuff about the Brill Building was fascinating. I only had time to click on a couple links, but I learned two things there that I didn't know: that Neil Sedaka and Carole King were high school friends, and that Carole King was married to her first collaborator. Interesting stuff!
Linda Z
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socks
bluzman, you BETTER hold on to it. That's cool, the ES 150 and the Recording King. What kind of strings have you got on it? Would love to see a pic of it. That's an oldie alright. Was it a solid or hollow body?
Grizzy, yeah! I ref'd Chet back aways in relation country music and Ted's comments. Yeah! Chet, the Country Gentlmen, was another innovator of the instrument, and extremely expressive as a voice in just about any kind of music. There's an album that he and Les Paul did, "Monsters" that's killer, can't think of the whole title. They left a lot of the comments in and it's pretty funny. I'm with you, he was great. A lot of people think of him as "country" and dismiss him. Anyone who digs in and checks him out (like Mark Knofler and a gazillion great players everywhere) learns something.
Linda, yeah, he holds the first patent on a multi track recording head setup, sorry, and that's only at half-geek, I'm not even a true geeker. It allowed him to record their voices and his guitar more than once, so they could harmonize, and he could do cool things with the guitar. It sounded like 3 Mary's and 3 Les's. Or 5, or 12. Very cool.
Thanks, Zix. I wouldn't mind having one of those!
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Bluzeman
Hi Socks
The Recording King that I have is not electric. But it looks identical to the ES150 hollow body...sunburst finish, f-shaped soundholes, full-length plastic "screw on" pickguard.
It's lost a lot of it's value because I had let one of my uncle's have it when I moved away from home, many years ago, with the understanding that it would come back to me when he passed away. While he had it, one of his sons noticed that a few of the machines were slipping and he put freaking Grovers on it! I now have it back, but my cousin tells me he has misplaced the original machines. So now, if I want it to be all original, I have to find some old beater that I can take the machines off of.
The value doesn't matter much to me though. It will always stay in the family as far as I'm concerned. I normally use a medium gauge phospher bronze on it. It has the most unique "twang" kind of sound, like a rockabilly sound!
When it was first given to me back in the 60's, I used Black Diamond strings that I could buy at the local drugstore(remember when drugstores used to sell those?). Bottom 3 were nylon, top 3 steel wrap. Ah, those were the days! You wanted guitar strings, that was what you got...no different brands to choose from! At least, not in the little town I grew up in!
Rick
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ChattyKathy
Grizzy,
My dad and I use to argue over who was the better guitar player. Chet Atkins or Jimi Hendrix. Today I know I was just being stuborn cause really Atkins had it over Hendrix, no contest. But I still remember our last argument about it, I said to dad "yea but can Atkins put his guitar behind his head and play it like Hendrix can?"
Dad just rolled his eyes and walked away. That was the last time we talked about who was better, think he just decided then and there I was gonna have to grow up to figure it out.
Kathy
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socks
We've been down the same path, Bluzman. I can relate. Heavy guage BD's were the first strings I used too. When I finally got an electric, that's all I really knew about, so I kept putting them on. Finally the guy at the store threw me a set of flat wound Gibson's and said "try these". I knew what they were but didn't know where to get them. Aaaah....relief! I was kinda slow.
What a great guitar. Dang the tuners, though! It's a keeper though, your right. It's got time in it's pores. Aging is beautiful thing.
It reminds me of how similar the path is for so many of us. When I picked it up it was hard to get information, so I'd glom on to anything or anyone who knew anything. If I got an album, I practically turned it inside out trying to absorb what it offered.
Along the way, you're listening and learning and every little thing you learn is like gold. Musicians all over the world know what it's like to be sitting there and suddenly go "wwwwwhoooooAAAA! what was that!" and know the excitement of discovering something for the first time. Everyone learns things, but in their own way. Each musician has that sense of "ownership" that comes with practice and learning. Even when we're all learning the same things it's "ours" and we can share it with pride. "Look what I made! You made it too! Cool". I get a little overwhelmed inside thinking of what music brings to all of us. What can you say?
That's what kills me about guys like Les Paul - they're so generous. He never seems to have held any of his stuff back from the world, trying to protect it. Some musicians are secretive and don't want their stuff "stolen". With all the people doing the same thing, there's always going to be someone who's coming up with the same stuff somewhere. He's professional, but seems to get a kick out of people doing things with his ideas he never thought of. Like his humbucking pickup design. I've read interviews where he's said it never occured to him to drive them cranked up to get distortion out of a preamp, as guys like Clapton and others did. He wanted to get a CLEAN, QUIET sound out of them. But he thought it was great what people were doing with his ideas, and encouraged experimentation.
Can't beat that.
--------------------------
Is the time/space meter needle supposed to be jumping around like that? *tap-tap*...sqwrkltpzfttt@#$%^&!!!!!!.....
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Yanagisawa
As a non-guitar player here are my fave guitarists humbly submitted for your approval:
Kenny Burrell: clean and tasty
Pat Martino: such harmonic chops and the facility to pull them off , fastest I ever heard, improvised solos that approached novels yet never repeated an idea. Is it true he had a stroke and totally relearned how to play?
Pat Methany: IMO truly invented a new sound and approach to jazz guitar.
and my fave of all time:
Joe Pass: a master of chording and soloing all at the same time. Saw him with just a guitar, a small amp and a stool and time stood still.
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ChattyKathy
Yana,
What a very cool vision in words.
Kathy
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igotout
I started a folder within my hundreds of music files called "Awesome Guitar Players". I have been wanting to ask some real guitar players or musicians advice on who I might put in that category.
Can you give me a few ideas Socks, Sunesis, Ted, and others who may know music? Yanagisawa, I will have to check out the ones you listed.
Or does this become a question of taste?
In my folder so far I have Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimmy Page, Pat Methaney, Johnny Winters (saw him in concert and liked it very much), Alvin Lee (Ten Years After), Carlos Santana, and a favorite Eddie Van Halen.
Who else should I add?
John R.
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ChattyKathy
John,
You don't have Clapton in your folder
I don't think he is the greatest in regards to skill but my oh my, can he make that puppy say what is in his heart.
Kathy
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Bluzeman
Igotout:
Taste is a large part of it as there have been so many great ones. If it as my list, I would name some of the people you did, some you named I don't consider great. But again, taste has a lot to do with it. Have you ever listened to any Frank Marino? Very awsome guitar player, in my opinion.
Rick
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Sunesis
Igotout, Al DiMeola is an amazing guitar player. He does both acoustic and electric. Pickup up one of his "greatest hits" CDs - He has incredible counterpoint harmonies going through his stuff.
For Jazzy Blues, who else but Robben Ford? Amazing Tone. Talk to your daugher is an early one, great bluesy stuff, and anything with his Blue Line group.
Also, Eric Johnson - listen to his tone, and you have heard God (not really, but close). Pickup up his live Alien Love Child CD. Or, the one before that Venus Isle, I think its called. He's just amazing.
Also, Scott Henderson and his band Tribal Tech. Mike Stern, Pat Metheny and last but not least, John Mclaughlin - amazing guitarist. That should keep you busy for awhile.
But I think for tone, Eric Johnson is the best, a fabulous almost violinlike tone. Its just beautiful.
Rock guitar, Jimi, Randy Rhodes and Van Halen. I've seen Eddie several times, if you see him live, especially his solo slot where its just him and his guitar, he's basically a boy genius on guitar. The Bach of guitar I would think - his songs with his 30 second solos just don't do him justice. He is a true phenomenon. I really do not think anyone will top him.
Socks, when I started playing guitar I didn't know you supposed to pick up and down. No one ever told me. So I always picked down. Over the years, I just had the hammerons and pulloffs so smooth, every one assumed I was picking them individually. At my gigs with my horn/jazz band, I would often have musicians come up to me and say, what are you doing? Your right hand isn't moving hardly. I have also been told my many folks I am one of the smoothest players they have ever heard - these are by some heavy jazz guys. I was told one day, before I came into the blues jam I went to frequently, the guys at the blues jam were discussing and wondering how I played and sounded the way I do. When I told them I basically play downstrokes and use my little finger, they couldn't believe I didn't up and down pick.
For years, and even in music college, my instructors kept insisting I up and down pick. I tried for about a year then finally said, screw it. It was too late. On my interim year in the corps, I took lessons with a jazz guy named Ronnie Lee (yes, the music book guy). He tried to get me to pick up and down. Finally, I walked in one day, and he had this incredible jazz guitarist playing (I forget his name now). I said who's that? He said, I probably shouldn't be doing this, but, he doesn't up and down pick either. I wanted you to hear him. I realize, you're not going to change, so we may as well work with it.
Years later, in the '80s I was reading an article on sweep picking and a light bulb went off, hey, that's the way I normally play! Funny how you develop style and technique when left to your own devices. Although, I really don't work with arpeggios much, I need to start getting into them.
Now, though, I'd say in the last 2 years, upstroking has started coming naturally to me. I didn't try to do it, but it just started happening. I use it quite a bit now, but in an odd way. Usually during fast passages going across the fretboard towards the low E, I upstroke every note, no downstrokes. Its weird, but it works for me.
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Bluzeman
Sunesis, you mentioned a Blues jam...did you ever go to the one at the Dolphin Club in Gahanna? Later moved to Dirty Sally's?
Rick
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Yanagisawa
Your experience at the "academy" was similar to mine, and probably a lot of musicians who are largely self-taught.
One day a long time ago my "warped ear" started hearing an interesting concept to chord changes. I developed a system that works for me based on big leaps and patterns of 4ths and 5ths. I'm too old to shake the world...but it's my answer to the "Coltrane" problem that looms over every serious sax player. It's novel and I am told by colleagues that they know it's me within two bars of a tune.
I went to a recognized jazz pedagogue not too long ago and we mutually (and amicably) agreed we were wasting each other's time.
I think the great ones on any instrument pretty much heard something in their head and the months and years of woodshedding was for the purpose of developing the facility to get it out through their instrument. This is usually documented if one is lucky enough to hear early recordings of musical pioneers...you can hear the infantile concepts of what was to fully develop.
The "academy" usually gets it backward. They fill the aspiring musician with "orthodox" musical concepts and then enroll them in a "program" to learn how to play it.
IMO the "academization" of any art laminates it and puts it into relic status...therefore allowing the "experts" and academics to make a pretty good living expounding their wondrous views...all the while turning out clones who are afraid of an original thought.
Sounds a lot like religion.
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A la prochaine
Just thought I'd throw this one out. I know I'm jumping a few decades here, but have recently found a singer called Norah Jones. I believe I have her first CD - Come Away With Me.
I was told she was Ravi Shankar's illegitimate daughter?? Does anyone know about her. Her CD is the ultimate. Definitely jazzy/bluezy sound. The piano work and the bass is VERY VERY good.
And the other reason why I decided to post here is because I wanted to see if I'd make page 7.
Ted, your CD is in the mail.
'til the next time...
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A la prochaine
Maybe next time...
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Sunesis
Prochaine, she sounds interesting. Ravi Shankar is a master at the sitar.
Yanigawashaw(sic), I agree with what you say, although I believe any musician needs to know how to read, what makes up a scale and the chords that go with them, modes, etc. - the basics. But if you start playing young, I'd say habits are set within a year.
You're right, I have always had a definite sound in my head I wanted to hear and a definite way I wanted to play. I use quirky phrasing, string skipping, etc. Instead of many guitarists who copy licks, I never sit down and try and get that exact lick. I can noodle for hours trying to come up with original lines. Rock and blues may be simple to most, but to me the challenge is taking that framework and coming up with something different - that's not so easy.
I didn't know you were a sax player, hmm, I can think of a couple of sax players I knew in TWI.
Bluzeman, the Dolphin is still alive and well. I went to the Monday night jams for about two years when I moved back here from NYC. The jams were moved back to the Dolphin along time ago. Rick Boals hosts. The Thirsty Ear in Grandview is also a great blues club. I jam there sometimes on their Sunday afternoon jams. My blues band has hosted these jams a couple of times. The owner Jerry is a great guy. Check it out.
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Bluzeman
Hi Sunesis
So Rick is back at the Dolphin, that's cool. I liked it better than Dirty Sally's.
Rick put out a tape in 90, or 91 I think called White Man's Burden that had some pretty good stuff on it. I play his version of Scotch and Soda which has some really neat chords in it.
If you were in that area in the early 90's, I bet we've crossed paths before. Email me sometime, bluzeman@hotmail.com
Rick
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socks
Wow, lots here to get caught up on!
Yana, nice list! Those are great players for sure. Joe Pass sure made his mark. Classy, great tone. Ran across him back in the 60's when he was involved with Synanon. A band I was in played some Synanon events through a connection with one of the band members family. Great player. (Synanon was supposed to be a big drug-rehab prgram. It looked to me like that was where they kept the GOOD drugs but that may have been just my, uh, experience)
And Kenny Burrell, yes, of course! Never totally checked out Martino but like what I've heard. Al Dimeola is a name that comes to mind with that fast picking muted sound of his, Sunesis mentioned him. "land of the midnight sun" is a killer album with vintage Al sounds. I've been mistaken for him when once or twice when I was young-er. Recently daugther picked up his album one day and drug out a picture of me from long ago and said "It's you!" Oh to be young.
Gotta get back to work, and get caught up later. A la, my wife is in love with Nora Jones too. Got her cd and it's on a lot round her of late. She was on Saturday Night Live a week ago, she looks so young to have that voice! till later....
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Is the time/space meter needle supposed to be jumping around like that? *tap-tap*...sqwrkltpzfttt@#$%^&!!!!!!.....
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