MontyVeda
a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
- Location
- Lancaster... the little city.
not necessarily 
The Bassist and Guitarist thread
- Thread starter Drago
- Start date
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delb0y
Legendary Member
- Location
- Quedgeley, Glos
@bluenotebob, you've just listed a whole slew of my favourite artists :-)
Out of all the hundreds of players I've listened to and learned from Stefan Grossman is probably the most influential (partly because he's such a great teacher and partly because his music, though brilliant, is at least accessible). Only this morning I've been transferring his four CD set "Live at the BBC" onto my iPod. He, along with Leo Kottke, was responsible for taking me down a lifelong route of great music when I first heard their music at the age of around 16. I can safely say I never really listened to rock or pop music in any great sense since. Before then I was listening to Bachman Turner Overdrive and Status Quo...
John Fahey is responsible for my favourite ever acoustic guitar tune (and one of my top tunes with any instrumentation) - Jaya Shiva Shankara. It's a tremendous duet with the recently departed Woody Mann. I have loads of Fahey CDs and enjoy getting "lost" in his music.
John James - oh yes, a great ragtime player. He was recently selling a guitar online and I wished I bought it, if only for the excuse to meet him :-)
Many years ago, in the days of cassettes, I bought a Blue Note sampler and that led me to Kenny Burrell, Lou Donaldson, Horace Silver, Lee Morgan, Dexter Gordon, Herbie Hancock etc etc. The best 99p I ever spent!
Out of all the hundreds of players I've listened to and learned from Stefan Grossman is probably the most influential (partly because he's such a great teacher and partly because his music, though brilliant, is at least accessible). Only this morning I've been transferring his four CD set "Live at the BBC" onto my iPod. He, along with Leo Kottke, was responsible for taking me down a lifelong route of great music when I first heard their music at the age of around 16. I can safely say I never really listened to rock or pop music in any great sense since. Before then I was listening to Bachman Turner Overdrive and Status Quo...
John Fahey is responsible for my favourite ever acoustic guitar tune (and one of my top tunes with any instrumentation) - Jaya Shiva Shankara. It's a tremendous duet with the recently departed Woody Mann. I have loads of Fahey CDs and enjoy getting "lost" in his music.
John James - oh yes, a great ragtime player. He was recently selling a guitar online and I wished I bought it, if only for the excuse to meet him :-)
Many years ago, in the days of cassettes, I bought a Blue Note sampler and that led me to Kenny Burrell, Lou Donaldson, Horace Silver, Lee Morgan, Dexter Gordon, Herbie Hancock etc etc. The best 99p I ever spent!
bluenotebob
Veteran
- Location
- France
@delb0y ... that's a nice read!
I'm very pleased to know that John James is still alive - and hopefully still playing music. I had a couple of his Transatlantic LPs once upon a time but they're long gone. He was living in the Kingston/Teddington area in the early 1970s - possibly on a houseboat - but he moved away and I lost track of him. Yes - he is/was an excellent ragtime guitarist.
Samplers were a great and cheap intro into "other" music - and as for that Blue Note sampler you mention, once you've heard Lee Morgan and the rest, how could you not want to hear more?
Grossman as a teacher - yes, I also seem to recall that free transcriptions were supplied along with his LPs back in the day.
Of the hundreds of guitarists that I've listened to over the years, if pushed into a 'Desert Island' situation I'd have to choose some Fahey recordings and probably two early John McLaughlin albums ("Extrapolation" and "My Goal's Beyond") if that was all I was allowed.
Have you listened to any acoustic Larry Coryell music? He's a maddening artist - a lot of indifferent music alongside some classics. "Spaces" and "The Restful Mind" are probably two of his best - if you've not heard him.
I too stopped listening to rock/pop decades ago. There's so much more interesting and engaging music out there - and you can spend several lifetimes tracking it all down.
I'm very pleased to know that John James is still alive - and hopefully still playing music. I had a couple of his Transatlantic LPs once upon a time but they're long gone. He was living in the Kingston/Teddington area in the early 1970s - possibly on a houseboat - but he moved away and I lost track of him. Yes - he is/was an excellent ragtime guitarist.
Samplers were a great and cheap intro into "other" music - and as for that Blue Note sampler you mention, once you've heard Lee Morgan and the rest, how could you not want to hear more?
Grossman as a teacher - yes, I also seem to recall that free transcriptions were supplied along with his LPs back in the day.
Of the hundreds of guitarists that I've listened to over the years, if pushed into a 'Desert Island' situation I'd have to choose some Fahey recordings and probably two early John McLaughlin albums ("Extrapolation" and "My Goal's Beyond") if that was all I was allowed.
Have you listened to any acoustic Larry Coryell music? He's a maddening artist - a lot of indifferent music alongside some classics. "Spaces" and "The Restful Mind" are probably two of his best - if you've not heard him.
I too stopped listening to rock/pop decades ago. There's so much more interesting and engaging music out there - and you can spend several lifetimes tracking it all down.
Grant Fondo
Guru
- Location
- Cheshire
Really? I couldn't survive without a bit of Beck or Clapton now and again, though blues-rock I guess. Really like Roy Buchanan at the moment, but Wes and Joe Pass also getting decent airplay.
bluenotebob
Veteran
- Location
- France
Good to know you're listening to Wes M and Joe Pass. Someone mentioned Joe Pass on a CC thread the other day which brought a smile to my lips - perhaps it was you.
I've listened to quite a lot of blues-rock over the years but I find it so predictable that it's hard to stay connected with the music. I quite like to listen to some Deborah Coleman or Joe Louis Walker occasionally - otherwise I'm happy to ignore most of it.
Perhaps it's just me but, whilst I think Roy Buchanan is a technically gifted guitarist, his music seems utterly lacking in feel or soul.
But .... each to their own - and if the music moves you then that's what's important.
Grant Fondo
Guru
- Location
- Cheshire
I think it may have been? More recently been listening to him in the Oscar Peterson trio's .... fabulous!
GuyBoden
Guru
- Location
- Warrington
I'm a big Jazz fan, but my listening has moved towards more modern Jazz.
I did play Jazz standards in small groups and big bands for too many years.
I prefer more harmonically adventurous players, like John Stowell.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G7eE2JgJgI
I have a nice 1949 Gibson L4, but I mainly play headless guitar nowadays.
Grant Fondo
Guru
- Location
- Cheshire
Certainly not. And I think there are a few of us around? Took me a long time to really appreciate the 'standards' but finally got there. A Derek Bailey gig years ago hooked me onto the interesting stuff.
bluenotebob
Veteran
- Location
- France
Derek Bailey ? ... oh, wow. I thought I was the only person left alive who knew about him. He was light years ahead of everyone in terms of technical modifications to his guitars and what he played. I also liked that he was perfectly happy to perform his gig even if no-one turned up to listen.
He used to play a lot around Stockwell and the Elephant & Castle. Was that where you saw him?
I do have a couple of his LPs - one solo and one with Evan Parker .. on the (probably) long-forgotten Incus label. If memory serves (and it is wobbly these days) I don't think Incus could afford record sleeves and they sold their LPs in plastic wraps..
Pleased that I'm not the only jazzer on CC - and delighted that someone else knows about Derek Bailey and his music.
Grant Fondo
Guru
- Location
- Cheshire
No, I think it was a pub in north London, maybe Islington? Not many there, 15 or so?
bluenotebob
Veteran
- Location
- France
Yes - sounds about right. If you'd gone back to see him somewhere else a few days later, it would probably have been the same 15 people..
I don't know when you saw him - early/mid 70s, perhaps? I went to lots of small jazz gigs in London at that time - can't remember all the locations now - but definitely a pub at the Seven Dials, one near Cavendish Square and one near the Roundhouse in Camden, the ICA in the Mall - and it was almost always the same 15/20-odd people who came. The London jazz scene probably had more musicians than audiences - different if say, Keith Jarrett was playing the QEH - hundreds would turn out for that .. but otherwise very few people would turn up. I think the Arts Council subsidised at lot of those pub gigs (directly or indirectly).
Anyway, seeing Derek Bailey - and appreciating what he was doing - would have been a life-changing moment musically for you. As a non-musician, I'm a tad envious.
Grant Fondo
Guru
- Location
- Cheshire
It would have been later than that '83/'84?
Another good venue was the Bass Clef in Hoxton, once saw Alan Holdsworth there, but rammed unlike the DB gig, you literally could hardly get in the door.
MontyVeda
a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
- Location
- Lancaster... the little city.
I went to see a jazz trio last year at Lancaster Music Festival. It was Sunday lunch time so was never going to be busy, but at one point there were more people in the band than the audience, then it transpired that the other member of the audience was the band's driver, so it was just me 
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Grant Fondo
Guru
- Location
- Cheshire
I always loved seeing jazz in new york. You could stroll down to east or west village after a few ales and catch a late set at 1 or 2am, usually pretty busy as well.
