The love which cannot speak its name
Posted by Twangothan on 30 March 2008 - 1:39am.
Like a long lost brother, jazz rock has crept back into my life. Soft Machine, Al Di Meola, John Stevens, Return to Forever, Brand X, Billy Cobham, Mahavishnu, Nucleus, Isotope....love 'em all. Much as I love a great song well played, there is a bit of me that likes great musos blowing like fuck.
Like this....
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Wow... wow... wow...
that's John Etheridge on guitar! He was my first guitar teacher when I was 13 years old!
I've never seen footage of him playing with Soft Machine before... amazing.
John is an incredible musician. When I was having lessons with him, I asked him to teach me to play... wait for it... 'Stairway To Heaven'. There, I've said it. Thing is, John swore to me that he'd never heard it so he asked me to bring in a tape. I played it for him once, and he played it back to me almost perfectly. He even got the guitar solo right! After one listen!
I was blown away and asked him how the hell he could do that. He said with no hint of arrogance that it was easy for him to remember the chords, changes and solo because he was used to playing ridiculously complex jazz rock numbers. The 13 year old me was in awe.
Very nice bloke, too...
Thanks for posting this!
I am green with envy
I saw this line up of the Softs on some pop show in about 77 and was blown away by JE (it might even have been this clip) - I've seen him live a few times with different formats and he is always sooooooooo musical and such a great player. I prefer him over Alan Holdsworth - though AH is great too - cos JE has such fantastic phrasing and sense of melody.
What I'd give for a few lessons from the great man.
The 50 year old in me is in awe!
Well...
give him some money and he'll teach you! I used to bump into him every so often and I think he still teaches... not that it did me any good... I'm rubbish at playing guitar.
Mr. Jeff. Beck.
I would suggest that...
Mr Beck's audience is predominantly male.
Bill Oddie and jazz-rock
Just remembered... when I was in the habit of watching gigs played by men wearing jackets with the sleeves rolled up and leather ties with piano keys on, I would invariably see Bill Oddie. He likes his jazz-rock fusion, does our beloved twitcher / humourist.
Every single time... there he was. If there was a noodly solo to be heard in somewhere in London in the 1980s, he'd be drawn to it like a moth to a flame.
Love it...
...well the 60s/70s stuff at least. Weather Report, Soft Machine, Colosseum and Mahavishnu Orchestra are my favourites. That clip of Soft Machine was when they didn't have any original members left, but that track 'The Tale Of Taliesyn' is really excellent and I'd take it over most of what they did post-'Third', personally.
There was a radio show I used to listen to which played more modern jazz rock but most of it was seriously excessive noodling to the point you could not remember a damn thing about it!
Bruford
What about Bill Bruford's first two albums, Feel's Good To Me and One Of A Kind? Classics of a much-maligned genre.
Birdland
Great ensemble playing on that clip Twangothan. Indulgent stuff!
Here's Weather Report with their most famous piece:
Nothing indugent about that!
Lean as a pound of best mince and tight as a gnat's chuff. Not a note too many (or too few) - perfect.
Bill Oddie
would love it
But a lot of it is really rather noodly nonsense.......
......and I have all the requisite Weather Report, Mahavishnu Orchestra LPs to vouch for my opinion, usually worth their purchase for the 1-2 sublime moment, annoyingly all to often in the middle of a godawful Jan Hammer squealing synth solo, probably played on a "keytar" at that!
The British end is far more manageable. Colosseum and (let me put up a rocket for) If: fabulous stuff.
Please don't anyone raise the worst ever ever ever ever noise, namely that Bitches Brew cacophony........................
Of course
jazz players are most prone to noodle excess, generally because they are much better musicians than their pop or rock brethren and are actually capable of playing endless widdly solos (though obviously there are exceptions in both camps) and some of them can't control it. Fun though!
Sorry but I have to take issue here...
"jazz players are most prone to noodle excess, generally because they are much better musicians than their pop or rock brethren"
Just because you can noodle does not make you a great musician, it just means you've practised your scales. A great musician knows that how you play a note is more important than how many notes you play. And as Martin Simpson will tell you, playing a slow air with true feeling is much harder than all manner of frenetic noodling.
Fair cop
OK, better in the sense of more technically able - not necessarily more tasteful or musical - though Martin S can shed like a bugger when it souits him! It's more than scales though obviously. There is a whole harmonic vocabulary which jazzers learn and by and large the pop/rock layers don't. Don't get me wrongthough, this isn't a jazzers are "better" thread!
All technique, no soul...
I give you Mr Tommy Emmanuel. ZZzzzzz...
Dull dull dull
I agree - though I know people who think he's the greatest acoustic guitarist on the planet. Takes all sorts!
Yaaaaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwwwnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn....
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
your fancy chops bore the pants off me, Sir...
Jazz Rock Noodling
Less is sometimes more and for every wrong note played, there is always a right note coming soon.
School Days
Not here though, a master at work.