Posted: Thu Oct 10, 2013 4:50 pm Post subject: Rock players and jazz
Hi Scott
I hope your tour is going well.
I was wondering what rock guitar players you enjoyed who emerged after the Beck/Blackmore/Page guys I know you loved and still enjoy. One thing I have noticed is that the younger guys you mention from time to time are pretty much all jazz and fusion players, not rock guys which I can certainly understand of course.
I would imagine that for many people Michael Schenker and Uli Jon Roth and perhaps Gary Moore and Steve Morse were the next guys on that list (and Van Halen whom I have heard you mention here and there) but I can't recall you citing rock guitar players after the earlier guys except to say that you aren't much of a fan (Johnson, Satriani, Vai etc). I also wondered what your thoughts were on rock guys like Brett Garsed and Greg Howe who cite you as an important influence as well.
It occurs to me that when the guys I cited above were blooming you were getting more into jazz and fusion and perhaps less inclined to listen to rockier players as much (though I assume with Morse in Miami and him being a bit fusiony at time you might have been more aware of him?).
So basically I was wondering if you heard much of them (or perhaps some others I didn't mention or who came later) at all, had any thoughts on them and what your thoughts are as to whether as one ages (and also learns more about harmony etc) it becomes less appealing to listen to newer players in rock or whether the genre itself became less appealing in a more general sense.
Thanks again for all your beautiful music and of course keeping up with the forum too
During the Tribal Tech years I guess I did kinda loose interest in rock guitar. I like Steve Morse but to me he's more of a prog/fusion player than straight ahead rock. Eddie Van Halen came along and I really liked his playing, but then the "age of shred" started, and to my ears, a lot of guys were copying the technique but missing the heart. I have some bootlegs of Eddie before he was doing the two hand tapping thing, and believe me he didn't need it. That was just the icing on the cake. During the 80's, rock guitar solos got faster and faster and I became less and less interested.
Of course there are exceptions, but the guitarists who interest me the most are about phrasing and tone, not chops. That lets out most of the shredders, and I'm not really into the alternative rockers who don't improvise much. I love blues guitar, but where are the young blues players? I'm not talking about the youngsters who sound like SRV, but young guys playing blues with their own voice or putting a new twist on the music. I listen to Mike Landau, Kirk Fletcher, Joe Bonamassa, Ronnie Earl, but they've been around - I'm wondering where the young players are who are further developing the blues-rock style.
That being said, I might be totally ignorant because I don't follow what's going on much and I don't listen to the radio either. There are probably some great young players out there I don't know about.
During the Tribal Tech years I guess I did kinda loose interest in rock guitar. I like Steve Morse but to me he's more of a prog/fusion player than straight ahead rock. Eddie Van Halen came along and I really liked his playing, but then the "age of shred" started, and to my ears, a lot of guys were copying the technique but missing the heart. I have some bootlegs of Eddie before he was doing the two hand tapping thing, and believe me he didn't need it. That was just the icing on the cake. During the 80's, rock guitar solos got faster and faster and I became less and less interested.
Of course there are exceptions, but the guitarists who interest me the most are about phrasing and tone, not chops. That lets out most of the shredders, and I'm not really into the alternative rockers who don't improvise much. I love blues guitar, but where are the young blues players? I'm not talking about the youngsters who sound like SRV, but young guys playing blues with their own voice or putting a new twist on the music. I listen to Mike Landau, Kirk Fletcher, Joe Bonamassa, Ronnie Earl, but they've been around - I'm wondering where the young players are who are further developing the blues-rock style.
That being said, I might be totally ignorant because I don't follow what's going on much and I don't listen to the radio either. There are probably some great young players out there I don't know about.
Thanks very much for the reply. I am curious though: you don't listen to the radio but still you know the contemporary or younger jazz and fusion players very well (some of whom are pretty obscure like Steve Topping). Do you think that you and your tastes changed as well and it makes it harder for you to like rock than it would have been previously?
One of the things that made me wonder about this is that you often mentioned Blackmore in Deep Purple but I can't recall you ever mentioning Rainbow or Schenker or Uli Roth which are the things that many Blackmore fans typically got into following Purple, so much so that they are often mentioned all together.
Did you find that rock in the second half of the 70s already too shred oriented for your tastes?
Yes, and I probably just lost interest. The rock guitarists from the old days - Page, Hendrix, Beck, Blackmore…. for my taste that was a tough act to follow - no rock guitarist or group managed to make me into a fan after that. It doesn't mean that I don't acknowledge and respect many talented rock players who followed, only that I didn't spend as much time listening to them. I became a big fan of Weather Report and Miles Davis instead.
Do you think it might be to do with the fact that the basic structure and format of rock (at least the more popular variety) hasn't changed that much since the 70s?
From the little I know, jazz fundamentally changes (swing to bebop to modern, etc ..) every few decades, and we get new great artists with new sounds. If everyone sticks to bebop perhaps it'd be impossible to do anything that Bird or Trane hasn't done?
In other words, maybe it's impossible to sound any better than Jeff Beck and the likes within the traditional rock format?
The basic structure of rock music hasn't changed much, but the way it's being played changes just as much as jazz does in my opinion. You have a point that when staying with the 60's & 70's style of playing rock, players like Hendrix and Beck raised the bar so high that no one wants to compete in that style anymore, and I can't say I blame them. Instead, blazing fast notes took over for awhile, then no solos at all, then seriously wicked bass & drum grooves with devil voice vocals. I'd say the face of rock keeps changing. I find some of it really cool, but I still prefer the days of melodic guitar solos.
Interesting how we develop taste for melodies instead shredding solos with age. My taste for melodies always overtakes a 'solo by itself'. I always prefer a 'song writer' than a 'guitar player'. Obviously, there are many guitar players much better than song writers, even on Rock or Jazz.
I believe the Jazz universe more receptive for inventive or "unique" tones. I cant imagine John Mclaughlin playing with any recent "Radio Artist". During 60's, 70's, even 80's, the Rock universe accepts these inventive tones (talking about guitar). Maybe, because of that, some of my heroes came from these decades.
My all time hero is Mark Knopfler, he is not properly a 'guitar player', but, for me, his sense of melody is incredible. And he is the only who can find a real good tone with EMGs pickups!
Scott, talking about EMGs and Knopfler, long time ago i saw a picture of you, John Suhr and a guitar similar to the Knopfler's Pensa Suhr. Its a great guitar? Or sound to much artificial?
Yeah Mark Knopfler is a great player and very melodic. He's about the only guy I've heard who gets a great tone from EMG's - maybe he plays through a dark amp. Those pickups are too sparkly for what I do - with distortion the top end gets fizzy sounding.
I don't remember that photo - I've never seen a Pensa Suhr guitar, so I'm not sure how much different it is from the guitars he's making now. It probably has the same strat shape but with different hardware & pickups. John's guitars keep getting better and better, if that's possible!
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