I often think about Holdsworth when people talk about the importance of versatility. It's basically a non-issue.

scotty anderson deserves a stronger mention, his mastery of jazz/country guitar is so great (better than anyone at playing multiple parts, basically as good as bickert at comping/voicings, lead lines insanely blistering and as advanced as benson) whatever extra versatility guys like howe, akkerman etc have is of too rudimentary a standard to compete with this level of virtuosity. they might be more versatile but scotty is the greater master. lenny was the best because he was as advanced as scotty (perhaps even moreso), but his technique is more pure, encompassing the classical and flamenco idioms and allowing him to have a wider tonal palette, and he was able to draw upon a wider scope of musical influences which combined to make him the greatest improvisor of all. id personally rate them along the lines of: lenny,,, danny, scotty, keaggy, emmanuel, EJ, akkerman

Thank you for all the info gentlemen, most helpful as always

Interestingly, earlier today I was thinking about Holdsworth while recollecting George and Nick's discussion about Hackett on the previous page. I feel the Hackett and Holdsworth have very similar approaches to the instrument, with Hackett being to Classical what Holdsworth is to Jazz.

hauso?


holdsworth is a god but he's not in the conversation here simply because of the criteria yousha has set up (technique + versatility). versatility is an issue because while there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of virtuosos within their narrow niches (holdsworth, et al), there are precious few who are masters across genres... because for most mortals it takes a lifetime to master one... you can literally count them on your fingers.
an extra criterion narrows the field by a few factors of ten, so we're talking about a few people rather than a few thousand.


i wouldn't put scotty in the bickert category as far as voicings/harmony go... he's maybe a notch more advanced than gatton in that regard, but nowhere close to approaching the jazz masters (ed, lenny, van eps, greene, pass, smith)... dunno why you'd think that, scot... wait... scot... scotty... ahh, now i see why!!!

They both attempted to create similar sounds to more traditional instruments for their preferred genre using electric guitar. In Holdsworth's case his legato-based playing mimics the saxophone, while Hackett's tapping and guitar textures are purposefully reminiscent of an organ.

forgot to thank you for the reply... i see now what you meant (-:



this isn't a great interview, but it should be of interest to followers of mclaughlin...

Saw Buckethead last night. I'll say more about it later, but know it was amazing.

You son of a bitch.

Okay, so Buckethead has been touring with a strange chap named That 1 Guy who plays some weird instrument made in his basement called the magic pipe. What it is is just something along the lines of two one stringed electric basses connected that he beats with a stick and there are some food pedals for percussion. That description is probably useless so here are some links to what it is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wGMsOhaPJs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ci6TmR2 ... ure=relmfu

He was mostly a disappointment after you get over the spectacle of watching him play. Opening act was some dude playing an electric tuba, idk.

But Buckethead himself was amazing. For someone who plays guitar, this was more than a show. Understanding how ridiculous the things he's doing are adds a whole new dimension to how great it was. I think he can probably get more distance between his ring and pinky finger than I can get between my index and pinky. This might be just because I went through a phase of Buckethead hero worship some years back before I ever really got into music, but I even loved his weird gimmicks. Robot dancing, nunchuks, foam fingers, and throwing shitty toys to the crowd from a sac like fucking Santa Claus while some obnoxious techno song plays were all on the agenda. And it was fantastic. The downside is that there was no live band, he just played over some backing tracks which made everything incredibly bassy for myself and the mob of drunk and high dudes who were patronizing the venue. Excellent night though.

Sounds pretty amazing, judging by all your wrote.

That 1 Guy was cool, imo. I liked his musical style, kinda reminded me of some weird offspring of NIN.

I'm totally jealous of you, Gray. I would kill to see Buckethead.

On an unrelated note, has anyone listened to Glen Drover's solo album Metalusion? I forgot I had downloaded it until just now. I started listening to it and I have to admit it's pretty good so far. It even features a really good cover of Di Meola's Egyptian Danza.

You actually have not seen Buckethead live Soda ? Im quite surprised, seeing that you're quite a big fan.

Yeah, but I live in Ireland and I don't think he's ever played here.

Ah, shucks. Also, had absolutely no idea you lived there. Always thought you lived in the States.