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In Reply to: RE: Gabor Szabo find posted by Frank_Locke on July 20, 2014 at 14:03:43:
Thanks, Frank.
I can understand where you're coming from. And, yes, during the heyday of his recordings (late ’50s – late ’70s), he used very heavy strings.
Just to continue the "stiff/not-stiff" conversation for a moment, even on the “Spinning Wheel” LP, his feel doesn't strike me as being stiff. To me, stiffness relates to groove and flow; I don't hear his playing as mechanical or square at all. No, he certainly wasn't playing with a rocky funk feel. But I doubt that that would have flown with the album's producer, even if Roberts had wanted to do something along that line. I can imagine an A&R guy saying, "Hey! The kids are goin' for fuzz guitar and stuff. Let's see if we can get a little of that airplay … without losing our target market." Or something equally vapid.
I wouldn't have expected him to put out an album with that sort of voice. Make no mistake: almost all of his many releases were oriented for the "smooth jazz" side of FM radio – very commercial. The tunes/arrangements were indeed creatures of the studio; the songs tended not to be part of his live performance repertoire.
If you ever want to hear something quite a bit looser from Howard Roberts, you might look for "Antelope Freeway."
Happy spinning,
-=- Charlie F.
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Follow Ups
- RE: Gabor Szabo find - Charlie F. 16:34:12 07/20/14 (0)