Hendrix and jazz (again)

[van]

Since I'm the only one on this NG that apparently reads books; - ), I just finished "Hendrix On Hendrix" a new book by Steven Roby that compiles chronologically every interview JH ever did.
On the subject of JH and jazz there were numerous statements of admiration for Roland Kirk, and the fact that he did play with him at Ronnie Scott's -quote
"Oh yeah, I had a jam with him (Kirk) at Ronnie Scott's in London (March 8, 1969, Vernon Martin bass, Jimmy Hopps, drums, and Ron Burton, piano) and I really got off. It was great. It was really great. I was so scared! It's really funny. I mean ROLAND (laughs). That cat gets all those sounds. I might just hit one note, and it might be interfering, but like we got along great I thought. He told me I should have turned it up or something."
Add this to the fact that Bob Bruno said that he and Larry Young used to jam with JH at a rehearsal studio in NYC, and that JH was also playing with some avant garde jazz musicians in the UK, and you can make a case for definite jazz involvement on JH's part.
Towards the end, JH was definitely moving away from the rock and/or roll music, but we'll never know what the "big band" he wanted to form would play, but it was going to be new music; not his hits as played by Gil Evans.

[Mark Kleinhaut]

Well, there are some that believe Rahsaan wasn't even playing jazz, so conferring credit to jimi by association won't go far.

[John A.]

There are recordings of Larry Young and Hendrix -- a posthumous Alan Douglas album called "9 to the Universe" and various bootlegs; a fair amount of this is on youtube. John McLaughlin has spoken in interviews about playing with Hendrix many times. Jimi and Miles also played together a number of times, and according to Miles, had a definite commitment to make a record together. There's no question that Jimi was interested in playing with jazz musicians. Still, I'm skeptical about claims that he was turning into a "jazz" musician. Jimi was constantly composing and recording, and there's a lot of material on tape from right up to the end. A very small portion of this is instrumental, vocal-less improv. I think the reality is that he had broad, eclectic interests that he wanted to pursue, but exactly how this would have wound up is a question mark.

John

[Joe Finn]

"John A." wrote in message
news:b04ae603-0a9f-4530...@googlegroups.com...

Interesting thread. What McLaughlin, Young, Miles and certain other "jazz"
players were doing in those days was initially called jazz-rock. Hendrix
would have been a perfect fit in this context. It was also true that Miles
et. al. were interested in playing the big festivals for the big bucks that
Hendrix was commanding. There was something of a coming together in terms of
the audience as well. I can recall hearing Miles, McLaughlin, Corea and many
others in concert settings where they were billed alongside rock bands and
playing to what appeared to be a young rock oriented crowd. That was pretty
typical in that era. I agree that it's hard to imagine Hendrix abandoning
his singer/songwriter performance persona in favor of some instrumental
style of music. ......joe

[Greger Hoel]

On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 17:23:41 +0100, Joe Finn <J...@joefinn.net> wrote:

> I agree that it's hard to imagine Hendrix abandoning his
> singer/songwriter performance persona in favor of some instrumental
> style of music.

0_0


--
Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/

[van]

On Friday, January 11, 2013 11:23:41 AM UTC-5, Joe Finn wrote:
> "John A." wrote in message news:b04ae603-0a9f-4530...@googlegroups.com... On Friday, January 11, 2013 12:53:52 AM UTC-5, van wrote: > Since I'm the only one on this NG that apparently reads books; - ), I just > finished "Hendrix On Hendrix" a new book by Steven Roby that compiles > chronologically every interview JH ever did. > > On the subject of JH and jazz there were numerous statements of admiration > for Roland Kirk, and the fact that he did play with him at Ronnie > Scott's -quote > > "Oh yeah, I had a jam with him (Kirk) at Ronnie Scott's in London (March > 8, 1969, Vernon Martin bass, Jimmy Hopps, drums, and Ron Burton, piano) > and I really got off. It was great. It was really great. I was so scared! > It's really funny. I mean ROLAND (laughs). That cat gets all those sounds. > I might just hit one note, and it might be interfering, but like we got > along great I thought. He told me I should have turned it up or > something." > > Add this to the fact that Bob Bruno said that he and Larry Young used to > jam with JH at a rehearsal studio in NYC, and that JH was also playing > with some avant garde jazz musicians in the UK, and you can make a case > for definite jazz involvement on JH's part. > > Towards the end, JH was definitely moving away from the rock and/or roll > music, but we'll never know what the "big band" he wanted to form would > play, but it was going to be new music; not his hits as played by Gil > Evans. >>There are recordings of Larry Young and Hendrix -- a posthumous Alan >>Douglas album called "9 to the Universe" and various bootlegs; a fair >>amount >>of this is on youtube. John McLaughlin has spoken in interviews >>about playing with Hendrix many times. Jimi and Miles also played >>together a >>number of times, and according to Miles, had a definite >>commitment to make a record together. There's no question that Jimi was >>interested in >>playing with jazz musicians. Still, I'm skeptical about >>claims that he was turning into a "jazz" musician. Jimi was constantly >>composing and >>recording, and there's a lot of material on tape from >>right up to the end. A very small portion of this is instrumental, >>vocal-less improv. I think the >>reality is that he had broad, eclectic >>interests that he wanted to pursue, but exactly how this would have wound >>up is a question mark. >>John Interesting thread. What McLaughlin, Young, Miles and certain other "jazz" players were doing in those days was initially called jazz-rock. Hendrix would have been a perfect fit in this context. It was also true that Miles et. al. were interested in playing the big festivals for the big bucks that Hendrix was commanding. There was something of a coming together in terms of the audience as well. I can recall hearing Miles, McLaughlin, Corea and many others in concert settings where they were billed alongside rock bands and playing to what appeared to be a young rock oriented crowd. That was pretty typical in that era. I agree that it's hard to imagine Hendrix abandoning his singer/songwriter performance persona in favor of some instrumental style of music. ......joe

In Rolling Stone, Nov. 15, 1969 Hendrix was quoted as saying:
"I don't want to be a clown anymore. I don't want to be a rock and roll star."
Hendrix was fed up with the rock scene in the US towards the end of his life, and was living in the UK at the time of his death.
He definitely saw himself a guitarist more than a singer, but his producer insisted that he should sing on his first LP, even though he didn't want to. Although I wouldn't call him a jazz musician, I don't think there would have been a huge difference in what he probably would have done had he lived, and the more rock-oriented music of such "jazz" musicians as Mike Stern, Scofield, Abercrombie, Fitch ; - ) Coryell, etc..., if he had different rhythm sections.
Although Roland Kirk recorded some music that wasn't jazz, most of what I've heard was definitely jazz. I've worked with a musician who was a protege of Kirk's, and I'll mention your comment to him, and see what he thinks.
Basically, this book was Hendrix in his own words, not what other people said, so it's at least a little more reliable than the stories of others.

[John A.]

On Friday, January 11, 2013 11:23:41 AM UTC-5, Joe Finn wrote:

With Miles, I don't think it was exclusively a matter of wanting to reap the payday of a rock audience. I think he really thought that there was a new kind of improvisatory music to be made that captured there was a common artistic essence (specifically) of James Brown, Jimi, Sly Stone, and (at the end) Prince; he felt that he could capture this and put it into a more artistically avant gard and challenging form. There's a lot about this in his autobiography, and I think the entire "electric Miles" oeuvre is his quest for this. There's no question that Miles was a businessman and an egotist who craved money and popular acclaim, and this is a big part of the picture, but he could have had more of both by following a much simpler artistic path than he did.

John

[TD]

I believe that he had a much better ear than his contemporaries. He certainly knew how to comp, an area where as the Brit rockers seemed extremely weak (concentrating on soloing mostly). His comping and feel in Up From the Skies, revealed, at least to me, a capability towards jazz. He used sus and #9 voicings. He used octaves. He demonstrated chord melody capability. Others mostly did not at that time for that genre. The drugs and the temptations that business opened up to,cut him short. Mitch Mitchell's drumming was also a telltale sign of an easy segue towards jazz. Mitch was not really a soloist per se, but he definitely had a jazz feel. It would have been much hipper (my opinion) if they had say, Steve Swallow on bass.

[John A.]

On Friday, January 11, 2013 1:08:34 PM UTC-5, van wrote:

> He definitely saw himself a guitarist more than a singer, but his producer insisted that he should sing on his first LP, even though he didn't want to. Although I wouldn't call him a jazz musician, I don't think there would have been a huge difference in what he probably would have done had he lived, and the more rock-oriented music of such "jazz" musicians as Mike Stern, Scofield, Abercrombie, Fitch ; - ) Coryell, etc..., if he had different rhythm sections.

I disagree. Except for that Fitch guy, Hendrix's whole musical education and evolution was completely different.

John

[Gerry]

Agreed, Jimi didn't come up the same way at all, so I don't think he
would have (could have) migrated to the areas that the above guitarists
found. Think of all the guitar gods from that time and where they went.
None migrated into modern jazz gutiarists. Say I.
--
Music is the best means we have of digesting time. -- W. H. Auden

[van]

Yes, Hendrix did all those R&B gigs back then, while Gerry's "guitar gods" never had that experience, so JH had hipper ears than those guys.
In one interview he put down Eric Clapton because all he played was single string lead, and never played the "pretty chords" that JH used to play.
You're right about Mitch Mitchell; he is constantly referred to as a jazz drummer in the book, and was always turning Hendrix on to 'Trane, Miles and Roland Kirk.
Noel Redding was a Pop bass player, and Hendrix replaced him after a while with Billy Cox, whom he felt better playing with.
He used Buddy Miles for a while, but went back to Mitchell. He never used Redding again. One waitress I knew fucked the entire Experience- she said Redding had a tiny, skinny cock- maybe that's why;- )

[Mr Maj6th]

It is easy to forget how creative JH really was, who can forget how he
used to set his guitar on fire with lighter fluid. I'll bet that Tal
Farlow never even thought about doing that!

Maj6th

[patmp...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, January 12, 2013 12:23:41 AM UTC+8, Joe Finn wrote:
>
> I agree that it's hard to imagine Hendrix abandoning
>
> his singer/songwriter performance persona in favor of some instrumental
>
> style of music. ......joe

Au contraire, that's pretty much what he did. He gave up on singing, songwriting, and performing and got into instrumental music. He wanted to make "electric church music" but ran out of time.

Would he have ever learned to play over "I Got Rhythm?" We'll never know. I doubt it.

[TD]

Redding was a guitarist, who agreed to play bass for Jimi. And it sounded like that. Chas Chandler put the trio together from his musical (or non-musical) viewpoint/ business perspective at that time. Because of the drugs, Jimi turned to mostly bullshit playing at the doorway to his death, but while in his early prime and not nearly as messed up, I thought he was enormously creative in comparison to what was going on back in that crazy decade. One would have had been around then for the more 'potent' perspective. Would he have been able to blow on advanced changes? I believe so. He had an ear and that showed too. His contemporaries were mostly re-frying what the original black blues and r@b artists had been doing for years before. They merely tip toed in and out of the tradition while playing safe. Burning guitars is a bad thing, but when you come up poor, you may do oddball things to attract attention sometimes. Gil Evans, Miles, Kirk, as well as the upcoming fusion heads, for example didn't merely take a blind interest. It is was it is and was what it was.

[Mr Maj6th]

About Al, his father:

Al took notice of Jimmy's interest in the guitar, recalling, "I used
to have Jimmy clean up the bedroom all the time while I was gone, and
when I would come home I would find a lot of broom straws around the
foot of the bed. I'd say to him, `Well didn't you sweep up the floor?'
and he'd say, `Oh yeah,' he did. But I'd find out later that he used
to be sitting at the end of the bed there and strumming the broom like
he was playing a guitar." Al found an old one-string ukulele, which he
gave to Jimmy to play a huge improvement over the broom.

Jimmy was 16 when Al (his dad) bought him a guitar. It was then he
decided to switch from one-string ukulele to guitar. There is no
information that I could find that states when he went from broom to
one-string uke.

Maj6th

[thomas]

That would explain his innovations in sweep picking.

[van]

On Saturday, January 12, 2013 8:38:18> On Friday, January 11, 2013 10:42:06 PM UTC-5, van wrote:
> >
> >
>
> > You're right about Mitch Mitchell; he is constantly referred to as a jazz drummer in the book, and was always turning Hendrix on to 'Trane, Miles and Roland Kirk.
>
> >
>
> > Noel Redding was a Pop bass player, and Hendrix replaced him after a while with Billy Cox, whom he felt better playing with.
>
> >
>
> > He used Buddy Miles for a while, but went back to Mitchell. He never used Redding again. One waitress I knew fucked the entire Experience- she said Redding had a tiny, skinny cock- maybe that's why;- )
>
>
>
> Redding was a guitarist, who agreed to play bass for Jimi. And it sounded like that. Chas Chandler put the trio together from his musical (or non-musical) viewpoint/ business perspective at that time. Because of the drugs, Jimi turned to mostly bullshit playing at the doorway to his death, but while in his early prime and not nearly as messed up, I thought he was enormously creative in comparison to what was going on back in that crazy decade. One would have had been around then for the more 'potent' perspective. Would he have been able to blow on advanced changes? I believe so. He had an ear and that showed too. His contemporaries were mostly re-frying what the original black blues and r@b artists had been doing for years before. They merely tip toed in and out of the tradition while playing safe. Burning guitars is a bad thing, but when you come up poor, you may do oddball things to attract attention sometimes. Gil Evans, Miles, Kirk, as well as the upcoming fusion heads, for example didn't merely take a blind interest. It is was it is and was what it was.

Yeah, there were some jazzers who totally lost it over JH. I saw Roland Kirk destroy a folding chair during a performance on that WNET TV show "Soul".
This excellent bop pianist I have some tapes of went out and bought a Strat after he heard Hendrix on the radio. He wanted to quit playing the piano.
Another monster jazz keyboard player I did a gig with flipped me out by taking out his Strat in the middle of the gig, and then wailing some Hendrix tunes, while I comped for him with my archtop, in disbelief!

[Gerry]

On 2013-01-12 23:42:17 +0000, van said:

> Yeah, there were some jazzers who totally lost it over JH. I saw Roland
> Kirk destroy a folding chair during a performance on that WNET TV show
> "Soul".

I did too and still tell a story about it. I thought it was one of
those Chip Monk shows. It was crazy--took him about 10 minutes to
destroy it, a durable samsonite folding chair like my folks had. In the
end he only managed to bend it flat the wrong way but then he tore out
the seat-cushion with his hands held it aloft in triumph and go a
resounding ovation.

[TD]

You're poking fun at me.

[Mr Maj6th]

There are so many legends; when I first moved to the west coast in the
seventies I heard that JH had invented an engine that ran on
carbonated water. There was a conspiracy by the giant auto
manufactures to steal it from him and get him hooked on drugs. It is
truly hard to believe, but it does explain the rage.

Maj6th

[Joe Finn]

"John A." wrote in message

news:856b8f2a-3409-42d8...@googlegroups.com...

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

There may be something to that.

However......

I seem to recall the autobiography and various other comments. Hendrix was
the number one, highest paid act in showbiz at the time. Not even Sinatra
commanded the same fee. IIRC the number was $75k/ show. This would have been
1967-68 or thereabouts. When Miles found out about this he confronted his
management demanding the same. Sorry for the inside baseball stuff but I
think it's accurate. ....joe

[Joe Finn]

wrote in message
news:1c864d10-be82-4c38...@googlegroups.com...

====================================================================================================


HHHhhhmmmm............

I'm of the generation to have seen him perform and to have known something
of the phenomenon itself.
When you say that Hendrix "gave up singing, songwriting, and performing"
exactly what might you be alluding to? Clue me in. ...joe

[RS]

On Thu, 10 Jan 2013 21:53:52 -0800 (PST), van <sg...@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>Since I'm the only one on this NG that apparently reads books; - ), I just finished "Hendrix On Hendrix" a new book by Steven Roby that compiles chronologically every interview JH ever did.

I'm a huge Hendrix fan. I'll have to get that.

>On the subject of JH and jazz there were numerous statements of admiration for Roland Kirk, and the fact that he did play with him at Ronnie Scott's -quote
>"Oh yeah, I had a jam with him (Kirk) at Ronnie Scott's in London (March 8, 1969, Vernon Martin bass, Jimmy Hopps, drums, and Ron Burton, piano) and I really got off. It was great. It was really great. I was so scared! It's really funny. I mean ROLAND (laughs). That cat gets all those sounds. I might just hit one note, and it might be interfering, but like we got along great I thought. He told me I should have turned it up or something."
>Add this to the fact that Bob Bruno said that he and Larry Young used to jam with JH at a rehearsal studio in NYC, and that JH was also playing with some avant garde jazz musicians in the UK, and you can make a case for definite jazz involvement on JH's part.
>Towards the end, JH was definitely moving away from the rock and/or roll music, but we'll never know what the "big band" he wanted to form would play, but it was going to be new music; not his hits as played by Gil Evans.

I love Jimi and I love Gil, but I didn't like that album at all.
Sounded very forced and disjointed.

I don't think Hendrix would have developed into a conventional jazz
player or anything close, but one of the things that set him apart was
that he did float through changes (just not jazz-type changes).
Everything was pulled out of the underlying chords--both the beautiful
light-touch Mayfield-like fills, and the heavier solo lines over
(mostly-diatonic) changes (Axis, Little Wing). Most of that was
probably a combination of ear and pure hand-visual-pattern. And of
course that's what eludes most rockers that are looking to do Hendrix.

[RS]

On Fri, 11 Jan 2013 07:17:07 -0800 (PST), Mark Kleinhaut
<markkl...@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Well, there are some that believe Rahsaan wasn't even playing jazz, so conferring credit to jimi by association won't go far.

I dunno, Mark. Jazz is a pretty large tent. Most genres have the
defining middle ground and then the more interesting boundary-pushing
stuff on the outskirts. You could argue that Coltrane, Ornette, and
even Parker weren't considered jazz by some. There's Zappa for rock
(it's rock cause it isn't anything else and there's fuzz guitar. :-)
John Cage for classical music (there's sheet music and orchestral
scores--it must be classical.) etc. Rahsaan wasn't really anything
else, and he improvised and played sax-like instruments. Hence jazz.
Categories are convenient but often suck anyway.

Strangely enough, I got a look at Rahsaan's record collection,. It was
all good jazz. Very strange circumstance. I had just moved to NYC a
couple years after Rahsaan had died. I was looking at jazz albums at a
flea market.--nice lady had tons of Rahsaan recordings and some other
great jazz stuff. I asked her why she had so many Rahsaan albums. The
guy next to her pulled me aside and told me it was Rahsaan's wife!

What a sad thing--a shame she had to sell her husband's work. I
bought a bunch of albums from her, but I didn't know whether to buy
her Rahsaan albums or not. Guilty feeling about that.

[patmp...@gmail.com]

He still did those things but with a very marked lack of enthusiasm. I get the impression that he hated playing his hits over and over. There is a performance in Stockholm where he is so bored that he screws up a blues. He says he'd rather be playing his "electric church music."

JH made a feature-length movie in which he is obviously embarrassed by his own act. He hated it so much that the movie was never released and he never did that stuff on stage again. He hired a singer (Buddy Miles). His songwriting went way downhill possibly because he concentrated on guitar playing. He wanted to be taken seriously, stopped the between-the-legs and other showmanship (I should have used that word instead of "performance"), and got booed for it.

He concentrated on his guitar playing and was getting good results with that. He starts modulating into other keys and doing some sophisticated stuff that rock has yet to see again. It's hip, if you can deal with the extreme screaming tone. Jim Hall it ain't.

[TD]

No one would ever expect it to be "Jim Hall." And vice versa. Real music ( writing this looks pompous, sure) doesn't make that kind of money, anyhow. I think that the drugs, which I believe included heroin along with infinite acid trips, stymied him or, at least overshadowed his guitar playing and musical direction. Other guitarists were mentioned on this thread as 'coming up different" , when in fact they were all rockers before getting educated. Jimi was what?...27 when he took a cab? If he wanted to get into jazz and had he lived, who is to say he couldn't? I was no great fan, mind you, but I can hear. A lot of what I heard from him was utter crap. Up from the Skies, and Third Stone from the Sun were hints at additional possibilities. He had natural talent, big ears, and, compared to his contemporaries on both sides of the ocean, a superior sense of rhythm.

[Joe Finn]

wrote in message
news:40638cca-b900-4ffa...@googlegroups.com...

========================================================================================

I had thought that the "lack of enthusiasm" and things like screwing up a
blues were due to his prodigious appetite for drugs, etc. , no? ...joe

[Tomek Sphere]

On Friday, January 11, 2013 7:17:07 AM UTC-8, Mark Kleinhaut wrote:
> Well, there are some that believe Rahsaan wasn't even playing jazz, so conferring credit to jimi by association won't go far.

I wouldn't worry about their opinion then, because they're full of it, and not at all familiar with the work of Rahsaan Roland Kirk.
Of course I doubt Jimi would be getting into mainstream jazz, recording standards etc., but I think it's very likely we'd see him in the context similiar to what Davis was doing in the 70's, or Mahavishnu, Wethaer Report, Williams, Cobham etc.

[Greger Hoel]

On Sat, 12 Jan 2013 06:33:46 +0100, Mr Maj6th <maj...@dslextreme.com>
wrote:

> It is easy to forget how creative JH really was, who can forget how he
> used to set his guitar on fire with lighter fluid. I'll bet that Tal
> Farlow never even thought about doing that!

That is the measure of it, yeah. Those who remember the lighter fluid best
forgot how creative JH really was, a long time ago.

[Gerry]

I'd be surprised to find jazz fans who don't think Kirk's genre was
jazz. I don't know what else it could be. He certainly played his fair
share "outside", but played as much "inside" as well. If Albert Ayler,
Marion Brown, and Pharoah Sanders get called "jazz", certainly Kirk was.

[dunlop212]

Trying to think of an innovative "star" rock guitarist from that era that went on to do anything as a serious jazz player. Hank Garland sort of comes to mind. Hendrix' career path would likely have been that of Sly Stone.

[Gerry]

On 2013-01-13 22:32:52 +0000, dunlop212 said:

> Trying to think of an innovative "star" rock guitarist from that era
> that went on to do anything as a serious jazz player. Hank Garland sort
> of comes to mind.

I wonder why; he was never a "star" rock guitarist. He was greatly
admired in the Nashville studio, though. I'd hate to figure out who
would be a good correlary but I assume we first have to define "star
rock guitarist". It would easily include Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Eric
Clapton, Johnny Winter, Duane Allman, maybe Dickie Betts and Michael
Bloomfield. Since blues figured so prominently in the "star rock
guitarist" paradigm I figure we mighy include Pete Green and Mick
Taylor.

Checking a web page I find names like Eddied Van Halen, Angus Young,
Randy Rhodes, Steve Vai, Stevie Ray Vaughn and Joe Satriani. B.B. King
is listed there as well. If we're including BB, I figure we ought to
include Albert and Freddie King as well as Albert Collins and Buddy Guy.

Terry Kath died very young, and I wasn't really a fan but had friends
that idolized him. I wondered what he might have accomplish. Once,
Chicago underbilled Hendrix in Oklahoma and all my guitar pals came
away astounded by Kath and unimpressed by Hendrix. This would have been
quite late in his Jimi's life.

> Hendrix' career path would likely have been that of Sly Stone.

Why do you think so? A vast class of folks seemed to do plenty of drugs
then, but the vast majority of us moved on with lifee and lived fairly
normally. Hendrix *seemed* to be a little less self-destructive than
Sly to my way of thinking.

I think of Sly's career as becoming a thoroughly undependable cocaine
addict that generally self-destructed. With each of many comebacks he's
been a no-show or played a 15 minute set and such. Additionally he
never really progressed much out of his original approach, arguably
inventing what we now call "funk" now in conjunction with Larry Graham,
but working the same old tunes for over 40 years. Jimi always seemed
to be more progressive than that.

Nevertheless I can't think of any dedicated rock/blues guitarists that
morphed into jazz guitarists. Except me, of course. And sadly I wasn't
a rock star to anyone but the girls in the piney woods. Which worked
well enough for me anyway.

[Paul K]

On 1/13/13 5:32 PM, dunlop212 wrote:
> Trying to think of an innovative "star" rock guitarist from that era that went on to do anything as a serious jazz player. Hank Garland sort of comes to mind. Hendrix' career path would likely have been that of Sly Stone.

we coudl start a list, although maybe few of these were really rock
"stars" and by "era" I'm including 70s and maybe 80s
some that come to mind

terje rypdal
tommy bolin (remember that great billy cobham recording "spectrum"?)
I've heard vic juris refer to himself as an old rocker a few times,
although I've never heard any of it.)
larry coryell (his stuff with the mingus big band was rockin)
Andy summers
Mike stern (played with blood,sweat & tears),
Holdsworth (played on a couple of Genesis records)
Nick Moroch (obscure: check out the lenny white fusion records)
One fusion guy I always liked that is now a great straight ahead guy
is karl Ratzer.

I'm sure there are a bunch more. anybody?
--
Paul K
http://www.youtube.com/user/fibrationboy
http://www.soundclick.com/paulkirk
http://mypage.iu.edu/~pkirk/

[Gerry]

On 2013-01-14 01:24:33 +0000, Paul K said:

> we coudl start a list, although maybe few of these were really rock
> "stars" and by "era" I'm including 70s and maybe 80s
> some that come to mind
>
> terje rypdal
> tommy bolin (remember that great billy cobham recording "spectrum"?)
> I've heard vic juris refer to himself as an old rocker a few times,
> although I've never heard any of it.)
> larry coryell (his stuff with the mingus big band was rockin)
> Andy summers
> Mike stern (played with blood,sweat & tears),
> Holdsworth (played on a couple of Genesis records)
> Nick Moroch (obscure: check out the lenny white fusion records)
> One fusion guy I always liked that is now a great straight ahead guy
> is karl Ratzer.
>
> I'm sure there are a bunch more. anybody?

No, I don't thik these would be called "star" rock guitarists, so I'm
not sure what it is a list of. Early fusionists? Guys that were
influenced by Jimi?

[van]

On Saturday, January 12, 2013 7:43:01 PM UTC-5, TD wrote:
> On Saturday, January 12, 2013 6:42:17 PM UTC-5, van wrote: > On Saturday, January 12, 2013 8:38:18> On Friday, January 11, 2013 10:42:06 PM UTC-5, van wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > You're right about Mitch Mitchell; he is constantly referred to as a jazz drummer in the book, and was always turning Hendrix on to 'Trane, Miles and Roland Kirk. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Noel Redding was a Pop bass player, and Hendrix replaced him after a while with Billy Cox, whom he felt better playing with. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > He used Buddy Miles for a while, but went back to Mitchell. He never used Redding again. One waitress I knew fucked the entire Experience- she said Redding had a tiny, skinny cock- maybe that's why;- ) > > > > > > > > > > > > Redding was a guitarist, who agreed to play bass for Jimi. And it sounded like that. Chas Chandler put the trio together from his musical (or non-musical) viewpoint/ business perspective at that time. Because of the drugs, Jimi turned to mostly bullshit playing at the doorway to his death, but while in his early prime and not nearly as messed up, I thought he was enormously creative in comparison to what was going on back in that crazy decade. One would have had been around then for the more 'potent' perspective. Would he have been able to blow on advanced changes? I believe so. He had an ear and that showed too. His contemporaries were mostly re-frying what the original black blues and r@b artists had been doing for years before. They merely tip toed in and out of the tradition while playing safe. Burning guitars is a bad thing, but when you come up poor, you may do oddball things to attract attention sometimes. Gil Evans, Miles, Kirk, as well as the upcoming fusion heads, for example didn't merely take a blind interest. It is was it is and was what it was. > > > > Yeah, there were some jazzers who totally lost it over JH. I saw Roland Kirk destroy a folding chair during a performance on that WNET TV show "Soul". > > This excellent bop pianist I have some tapes of went out and bought a Strat after he heard Hendrix on the radio. He wanted to quit playing the piano. > > Another monster jazz keyboard player I did a gig with flipped me out by taking out his Strat in the middle of the gig, and then wailing some Hendrix tunes, while I comped for him with my archtop, in disbelief! You're poking fun at me.

I don't know if that was one of your famous esoteric puns we all know and love, but I wasn't poking fun at you. Those were three true stories; Gerry even verified the Kirk one.
The bop pianist was a cat named Bob Harris, who was in the Mothers of Invention for a short time, played with Gabor Szabo, toured with Ray Charles, and arranged for people like Judee Sill, The Friends of Distinction, Jack Jones, etc...
The West Coast jazz/studio guitarist, Art Johnson, emailed me and told me that Bob Harris came over his house during a session with a white Strat that he bought, and told him to show him how to play like Hendrix. He kept bothering him, and said he was quitting the piano and switching to guitar so he could play like Hendrix.
That surrealistic gig where the keyboard player started playing Hendrix tunes in the middle of a standards gig, really took place.
I don'r really care too much about that type of music, but I like what Hendrix did with Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower".

[TD]

Wild (thang).

[patmp...@gmail.com]

On Monday, January 14, 2013 12:39:27 PM UTC+7, TD wrote:
>
> > The West Coast jazz/studio guitarist, Art Johnson, emailed me and told me that Bob Harris came over his house during a session with a white Strat that he bought, and told him to show him how to play like Hendrix. He kept bothering him, and said he was quitting the piano and switching to guitar so he could play like Hendrix.
>

When Tony Tedesco heard the Mahavishnu Orchestra he bought a Marshall stack and tried to do the McLaughlin thing. I wonder what his wife thought.

[David J. Littleboy]

"van" wrote:
I don'r really care too much about that type of music, but I like what
Hendrix did with Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower".
<<<<<<<<<<

There are a lot of other great JH tunes: The Wind Cries Mary, the national
anthem, Castles Made of Sand. Maybe more fun for people who were just into
folk and rock and missed jazz at the time.

I think that you had it right in a previous note when you essentially said
that JH was a true virtuoso and had a much greater fluency on the instrument
than his rock contemporaries. Somehow, everyone else just seems so plodding
by comparison.

So there's really no one else to look at to consider where his playing might
have gone.

-- David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

[Greger Hoel]

On Mon, 14 Jan 2013 02:24:33 +0100, Paul K <fake...@none.com> wrote:

> On 1/13/13 5:32 PM, dunlop212 wrote:
>> Trying to think of an innovative "star" rock guitarist from that era
>> that went on to do anything as a serious jazz player. Hank Garland sort
>> of comes to mind. Hendrix' career path would likely have been that of
>> Sly Stone.
> we coudl start a list, although maybe few of these were really rock
> "stars" and by "era" I'm including 70s and maybe 80s
> some that come to mind
>
> terje rypdal
> tommy bolin (remember that great billy cobham recording "spectrum"?)
> I've heard vic juris refer to himself as an old rocker a few times,
> although I've never heard any of it.)
> larry coryell (his stuff with the mingus big band was rockin)
> Andy summers
> Mike stern (played with blood,sweat & tears),
> Holdsworth (played on a couple of Genesis records)
> Nick Moroch (obscure: check out the lenny white fusion records)
> One fusion guy I always liked that is now a great straight ahead guy
> is karl Ratzer.
>
> I'm sure there are a bunch more. anybody?

Er.. Jeff Beck?

Anyhow, none of these guy, not even Beck, were rock stars quite of
Hendrix' caliber.

[thomas]

On Monday, January 14, 2013 2:38:00 AM UTC-5, patmp...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> When Tony Tedesco heard the Mahavishnu Orchestra he bought a Marshall stack and tried to do the McLaughlin thing. I wonder what his wife thought.>

If by Tony you meant Tommy, that was actually a real concern. A lot of people were scared of her, even her boss.

[RS]

On Sun, 13 Jan 2013 20:24:33 -0500, Paul K <fake...@none.com> wrote:

>On 1/13/13 5:32 PM, dunlop212 wrote:
>> Trying to think of an innovative "star" rock guitarist from that era that went on to do anything as a serious jazz player. Hank Garland sort of comes to mind. Hendrix' career path would likely have been that of Sly Stone.
>we coudl start a list, although maybe few of these were really rock
>"stars" and by "era" I'm including 70s and maybe 80s
>some that come to mind
>
>terje rypdal
>tommy bolin (remember that great billy cobham recording "spectrum"?)
>I've heard vic juris refer to himself as an old rocker a few times,
>although I've never heard any of it.)
>larry coryell (his stuff with the mingus big band was rockin)
>Andy summers
>Mike stern (played with blood,sweat & tears),
>Holdsworth (played on a couple of Genesis records)
>Nick Moroch (obscure: check out the lenny white fusion records)
>One fusion guy I always liked that is now a great straight ahead guy
>is karl Ratzer.
>
>I'm sure there are a bunch more. anybody?

Some good ones above.

Holdsworth also played with "UK" which was a Crimson-like rock band.
I really liked Nick Moroch on the Lenny White stuff, but I hadn't even
thought of him for a long while.

Of course there are a ton of young jazz guitarists who started as rock
and fusion players. Maybe not 'rock stars' but competent.. Jonathan
Kreissberg was into Holdsworth. I even talked with Adam Rogers about
Lynyrd Skynyrd one night. Adam was/is a fan. Me, not so much. And of
course Adam does Hendrix tunes from time to time.

Past couple weeks I've been listening to an Australian guitarist named
"James Muller" who did a sortof Holdsworth thing on Chad Wackerman's
albums. First casual listen he sounds just like Holdsworth but after a
while you can tell he's got his own thing. Anyway, he's been mentioned
here as a very good straight-ahead player.

BTW, Hendrix did a melodic octave tune at Woodstock called "Villanova
Junction" that I've always thought was his reflection of Wes. It
doesn't sound like Wes, but it's a nice melodic tune.

[patmp...@gmail.com]

On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 3:53:03 PM UTC+7, RS wrote:
>
>
> >> Trying to think of an innovative "star" rock guitarist from that era that went on to do anything as a serious jazz player.

It's kind of backward, but Eddie van Halen started out as a jazz player. He learned from his Dad, and that's what Dad did. 20's and 30's stuff. Eddie can strum old-style jazz chords just fine, and I'd bet a good sum of money he can solo too.

By the way, his Mom was/is Indonesian. That's how brother Alex van Halen got those eyes.

[Tomek Sphere]

>
>
> Er.. Jeff Beck?
>
>

I believe this is the correct answer, Beck actually was a rock star of a somewhat comparable caliber, especially while still with the Yardbirds.

[John A.]

On Monday, January 14, 2013 6:26:46 AM UTC-5, Greger Hoel wrote:
> On Mon, 14 Jan 2013 02:24:33 +0100, Paul K <fake...@none.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On 1/13/13 5:32 PM, dunlop212 wrote:
>
> >> Trying to think of an innovative "star" rock guitarist from that era
>
> >> that went on to do anything as a serious jazz player. Hank Garland sort
>
> >> of comes to mind. Hendrix' career path would likely have been that of
>
> >> Sly Stone.
>
> > we coudl start a list, although maybe few of these were really rock
>
> > "stars" and by "era" I'm including 70s and maybe 80s
>
> > some that come to mind
>
> >
>
> > terje rypdal
>
> > tommy bolin (remember that great billy cobham recording "spectrum"?)
>
> > I've heard vic juris refer to himself as an old rocker a few times,
>
> > although I've never heard any of it.)
>
> > larry coryell (his stuff with the mingus big band was rockin)
>
> > Andy summers
>
> > Mike stern (played with blood,sweat & tears),
>
> > Holdsworth (played on a couple of Genesis records)
>
> > Nick Moroch (obscure: check out the lenny white fusion records)
>
> > One fusion guy I always liked that is now a great straight ahead guy
>
> > is karl Ratzer.
>

Andy Summers was a jazz and classical player before he was a rock star; his jazz career is a return to his real interest. In his career Mike Stern has pretty much always been a jazz player who did some rock gigs and, not a rock player who became a jazz player. Obviously, he's very rock influenced and presumably pre-Berklee played a lot of rock, but that's not the same as being a rock star (he was just a sideman in a past-its-prime incarnation of BS&T). My sense of Coryell is that he's a true fusion player -- someone who grew up playing and learning both. I don't know enough about the others you list to comment


It's tough for me to think of big-name rock players who transformed themselves into "serious" (whatever that means) jazz musicians. Brian Setzer is the only name I'm coming up with. There are lots of people who've had their feet in multiple camps, e.g., studio cats like Larry Carlton or Lee Ritenour, Robben Ford, a lot of the Nashville guys, Danny Gatton, Bill Frisell. But career arc from true rock star to dedicated jazzer seems like a real rarity.


> Er.. Jeff Beck?

Kind of, though even at his most jazziest (e.g., the Jan Hammer era), his basic aesthetic seems more rock to me, or like Hendrix his own thing that doesn't really fit neatly into categories.


John

[TD]

I would say that this is not a true statement. Nothing personal.

[Greger Hoel]

On Wed, 16 Jan 2013 17:06:37 +0100, John A. <ja...@nyc.rr.com> wrote:

> It's tough for me to think of big-name rock players who transformed
> themselves into "serious" (whatever that means) jazz musicians. Brian
> Setzer is the only name I'm coming up with.

I'll raise your Brian Setzer with an Alex Skolnick.

[John A.]

Why would you say that? (apart from the obvious personal reasons)?

John

[TD]

Many things seem obvious to you. Stay with that.

[John A.]

On Wednesday, January 16, 2013 9:37:23 PM UTC-5, TD wrote:

[some context snipped]

>
> > > "Andy Summers was a jazz and classical player before he was a rock star; his jazz career is a return to his real interest. In his career Mike Stern has pretty much always been a jazz player who did some rock gigs and, not a rock player who became a jazz player".
>

>
> > > I would say that this is not a true statement. Nothing personal.
>

>
> > Why would you say that? (apart from the obvious personal reasons)?
>
>
> > John
>
>
>
> Many things seem obvious to you. Stay with that.

OK Mr. Miyagi. [sweep sweep]

John

[sbgt...@yahoo.com]

since the topic is here, I thought I'd share this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHVPKHArCkU

I didn't really change much, except the time signature, and modifying a few voicings - he was already there!
peace:
SB

[rpjazzguitar]

I'd add this small point.

I heard Jimmy James and the Blue Flame at the Cafe Wha? That was the gig that Chas (bassist of the Animals, who were in town to play Central Park) heard Hendrix at.

They played rock and maybe some folk rock type music. I specifically recall Wild Thing.

He played a white Strat and had a lot of very showy moves, all of which made great sounds. Bumping the guitar with his hip, blowing on the strings to play a chord, whipping the back of his arm down the fingerboard, playing with his teeth, behind his neck and so forth. All improvised and all creative.

If I could define "jazz" I could tell if it was jazz. I suspect that if a horn player had played a lot of the same lines (to the extent they could be played on horn) we might think of it as jazz, maybe.

[SB]

>> I was no great fan, mind you, but I can hear. A lot of what I heard from him was utter crap.

+1

nice clothes and a free spirit