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Jazz Guitar: Kenny Burrell; George Barnes.
Jazz Fusion/Crossover Guitar: Larry Carlton.
Classical Guitar: Christopher Parkening.
Flamenco Guitar: Oscar Lopez.
Blues Guitar: Sarasota Slim.
Country/Rockabilly Guitar: Danny Gatton.
Folk Guitar: Leo Kottke.
Rock Guitar: Eddie Van Halen; Jeff Beck; Michael Schenker; Gary Moore;
Vito Bratta.
Jazz Saxophone: Stanley Turrentine; Lester Young.
Blues/Rock Saxophone: John Almond.
Jazz Piano: Hampton Hawes; Tommy Flanagan.
Jazz Guitar: Marc Antoine, Jonathon Butler, Peter White
Jazz Sax: Dave Koz, Nelson Rangell, Kirk Whalum
Jazz Piano: Russ Freeman, David Benoit, Bob JamesThat's "Smooth Jazz"
For the "Oldies" you can't leave out:
Sax: Paul Desmond, Gerry Mulligan
Trumpet: Chet Baker
Piano: Brubeck, Oscar Peterson
nt
Jah. Oscar Lopez is nice. Several better flamenco guitarists, though. Paco Pena comes to mind pronto. Oscar is more nuevo, crossover fusion. But that would seem to be closer to your preference.
Hi Jim,
Yes, Pena, Sabicas, and de Lucia are more traditional and probably better in the technical sense; however, Lopez's phrasing and touch fall
very favorably upon my ears.Musically Yours,
AudioHead
It's great to see another post on Gatton. While Gatton certainly did play country and rockabilly, he played a lot of other styles too. For jazz, check out "New York Stories," featuring a very young Joshua Redman. "Live 9/9/94" (yes, this is the 5th anniversary of that great gig) shows how many genres Gatton could cover in the space of one solo, not to mention one album.
I will have to check this album out. Any other D. Gatton suggestions? I have two of his albums- the one with Joey D'Francesco which is pretty good. But nothing prepared me for "The Redneck Jazz Explosion"- I think its a nlive newyears 1978? show which is absolutely amazing. I will out New York Stories. Any others that are near as good as RJE?
Danny was a bit put out upon hearing the final mix of N Y stories,he sed they put him down in the mix,great guitarist tho,him & Roy Bucananhan the original greatest unknown guitarist.
regards rod
Hi Jim,
Too bad the world lost a great player to suicide at age 49; he was
severly depressed. Never got the full story on it; I often wonder if it
was because he never got into a commercially successful niche. One of
the popular guitar mags labeled him, "The World's Greatest Unknown Guitar
Player".
Musically Yours,
AudioHeadP.S. - Just informed Mike K. about "New York Stories".
I don't think there has been a public explanation for Gatton's suicide. I'm not sure whether an "explanation" can ever suffice anyway when somebody takes their own life. To the extent logic enters into suicide, your surmise is logical, and it's the one I hear most often.RIP, Danny.
Some good choices. Kenny Burrel is enjoyable. They play him on the jazz station quite a bit. I think he is playing a show nearby I might have to check out, since I have to miss Ray Brown because of bloody school! Some other guitar stuff to check out would be the early Sonic Youth, Day Dream Nation is a must. The guitar playing is very progressive, and different from the typical garage rockers. Its obvious you like jazz... I'm sure you know of Charlie Mingus and Paul Chambers... Gotta love those two! I don't like The Miles Davis album Kinda Blue too much but the bass playing I like. Ah and Lee Morgan on Coltranes Blue Train that man has some strong chops! I like to take the weany approach to trumpet playing like Miles Davis and make the most of 2 or 3 notes (flames a coming for that one) Dizzy Gillespie on the other hand... what a player.
Could it be that I detect someone else besides myself who believes
that St. Miles is over-rated? My, my. And yes, Lee Morgan and
Dizzy were phenomenal (if you've ever tried to play 16th notes on
a trumpet you will appreciate Dizzy all the more!).With the exception of Kind of Blue and Something Else, I find almost
everything that Miles did after he signed with Columbia to be of
little musical interest. And everything that he did starting with
Bitches Brew and after is of no interest to me at all. That, as
Lou Donaldson once said, is when Miles quit playing jazz. I get
flack for this all the time, and my standard response is: Listen
to Miles' contemporaries on trumpet, such as Lee Morgan, Dizzy,
Clark Terry, Brownie, Blue Mitchell, Kenny Dorham, as well as
some of the swing era veterans like Harry Edison. These guys
all had more chops and played more interesting stuff.Mike.
I agree with those who think Miles was most interesting in his early days, though his tone remained remarkable. What he did with John Coltrane in the early 50-ies is still my favourite jazz. Live in Stockholm and it rocks, enabled to hear them walk towards the microphone, every attack on the notes right, both freewheeling like they were hallucinating. Still wonderful, but I don't really like the Tutu-stuff and that latest hip-hop experiment. His postmortem released 'Miles in Montreux' with Chaka Kahn among others actually is quite good if you like his rewritten version of that Michael Jackson number which I can't remember that easily, being stoned myself in Miles' honour.:-)Rob
IMHO "Bitches Brew" and "In a silent way" are amonng the best music records ever made.
;)
You talk about aesthetics in music as if it were concrete material objects that could be compared in equal terms to one another.Let Miles rest in peace. Time will tell.
Doesn't anyone here have any regard for "Nefertiti" and "Miles Smiles"? I would not want to be without those two cds (in addition to "Kind of Blue" and "Something Else").
As I said below, you will better off if invest on the boxed 6 Cd set.
Hey,
I'm with you on that!!When one of the posters spoke of later Columbia Miles inferior to Terry, Morgan and associates, I can't disagree more. To me, Miles got better when he signed with Columbia-here's my proof. Take some version of his Prestige work, and find the sheet music for it. It's pretty much straight-forward music. Now, take Miles when he was in the second quintet '1964-1968', and take a piece there and analyze. Being avid in jazz, Morgan could never set so many seperate melodies to one piece-and I'll let you even have a album with Herbie Hancock on a ballad (the name escapes me). Or, want 'The Sidewinder'??
I understand you have a diffence of opinion, and I respect that. I am only here to offer what makes Miles so great...his improv mind. While I give credit to George Russell for modal jazz, Miles really stretched it.....and will be remembered for it.
Hey, should I goto Classic Records and ask them to re-issue some albums from Miles' Columbia years? My favs so far are KOB, Round Midnight (the original mono album is so clean....), and Seven Steps to Heaven (Victor Feldman should have gotten more popular....he is so close to Herbies style it's unreal!).
What cha think..
Martin
I agree that Miles Smiles is great. I haven't heard Nefertiti, but I'll have to try it. I love "In a Silent Way". I also like Bitches Brew a lot, when I'm in the right mood.I heard Shirley Horn yesterday, "You Won't Forget Me", with Miles' muted trumpet prominently featured. It was recorded in 1990 and it was too beautiful for words.
Dan
Do yourself a favour and buy the boxed set Miles Davis Quintet 65-68
I have to agree with you, Mike. The Prestige recordings are wonderful, as was "Birth of the Cool" on Captiol. But things went rapidly downhill after the Plugged Nickel sessions.And guys like Sweets and Roy Eldridge played much more interesting music much longer. And you forgot Pops. The Hot Fives and Hot Sevens disc are some of the best jazz ecordings ever.
Phil - actually I didn't forget Pops. I just wanted to keep the
discussion on the more modern players who surfaced about the same
time as Miles. I was reluctant to mention any of the swing era
guys because I didn't want to chance having the discussion degenerate
into god knows what. My actual preference is for the swing era
players - Sweets, Roy, Buck Clayton, Louis, Bill Coleman, Hackett,
Butterfield, Berrigan, Bix, Snooky Young (still with us, by the way,
although apparently not in good health and deaf as a post), Red
Allen, et. al. If we are going to debate Miles, then we should be
debating him in the context of his contemporaries - Dizzy, Clark,
Thad Jones, Kenny Dorham, Brownie, Lee Morgan, Hubbard, etc., etc,
all of whom I find to have superior chops and ideas. Mike.
Even though I agree with everything you said, I still listed Miles.
Why?His early stuff was THAT good. Some of the stuff he did on the Prestige label was wonderful. And even some of his Columbia stuff is good (I know Milestones is overplayed, but that's because it's a classic that's never been out of print. It does have Red Garland playing Billy Boy, though).
Basically, the way I look at it is that Miles died in the mid 60's. The problem is that he kept recording afterwards :-)
I agree with you Mike, after "Kind of Blue","Something Else" and a few ballads I haven't heard any other Miles
that I like. Like your other choices, however you left out
the remarkable Donald Byrd. Try "Byrd in Flight".
nt
Jazz guitar: Did you mean to leave out Joe Pass?Jazz Saxophone: No Coltrane? Or Bird? Or Cannonball Adderly? Sonny Rollins?
For Jazz Piano, I like Red Garland (no particular reason, I just like his style). Although you've got to give Oscar Peterson credit - he's phenomenal, and he's played with everyone.
Jazz Trumpet: Miles is obvious. How about Donald Byrd? Or Dizzy?
Jazz Trombone: Curtis Fuller. Although JJ Johnson isn't exactly a slouch.
And no list of Jazz musicians would be complete without Mingus - more for his writing than his playing (although that wasn't bad, either). Same could be said for Monk.
Hi Dave,
Thanks for the comments; please note these were some of my favorite
players, not a list of objectively great ones. I will give credit where
it's due, however, and acknowledge all the players you mentioned are
superb musicians. Just because I didn't mention them doesn't mean I
don't like them, they just aren't my favorites - it's a subjective thing.
As for not mentioning players of all types of instruments, I admit I
am biased toward guitar(extremely), piano and sax.
I admire Joe Pass' playing and Bireli Lagrenes too for that matter, they
are guitar wizards; their playing just doesn't appeal to me as much as
Barnes and Burrell - just a matter of taste, that's all.
Now I will tell you I do not like the playing of Monk, Cecil Taylor, John
McLaughlin, Larry Coryell and certain others, but if they happen to be
your favorites, that's fine with me, as I said, just a matter of taste.Musically Yours,
AudioHead
I kind of got the impression that this was a "personal favorites" list (which is why I included Red Garland - technically not the best, but I like his playing). I just happen to like Joe Pass, John Coltrane, etc.As for Monk, I agree that I'm not overly fond of his playing. But a lot of the tunes he wrote keep getting played, mostly because they're both great tunes and they have interesting changes to ride on.
That was very informative. Thank you.
nt
I like your list for the most part, particularly the inclusion of
George Barnes (not many people know of him or his abilities) and
Christopher Parkening. I must, however, profess ignorance of the
Rock guitarists and saxaphonist. Was also pleased to see that you
included Hampton Hawes. I dont find personally that Stanley
Turrentine is in the same league with Lester Young, but then again
you did say these guys were your favorites.I have been listening to a lot of Lester Young lately, having recently
acquired a 6 disc set of his small group recordings up to 1951. God,
after many years of listening to him, I am just now starting to
understand and appreciate just how great he really was, thanks to these
discs. My next listening "project", if you will, may have to be
Charlie Parker, Lester's chief disciple.Mike
Mike
Hi Mike,
Johnny Almond is a British blues-rock alto/tenor sax player and flutist
who played in John Mayall's Bluebreakers Band; he later teamed up with
Bluesbreakers guitarist, Jon Mark, to form the Mark-Almond Band. If you
are into that kind of sound, check out Johnnys playing on Mayalls excellent
live recording, "The Turning Point" - very seductive and bluesy. Strong
performances and compositions on that record.
As for the guitarists, I don't think you would care for them as they
are hard rockers, very talented though. I have this thing for certain
type of tone and playing in rock, the player must be melodic and have
a full, "meaty" tone; the kind of tone one gets from Gibson guitars for instance. I've got to feel it in my bones!
Danny Gatton is a versatile player in country/rockabilly and blues; he also
made a nice strictly jazz record, "New York Stories".
I believe I've already recommended a rock guitarist to you, Eric Johnson,
called "The Master of Tone"; ironically he isn't one of my favorites, he
is a little too soft for me, but I believe you might like him - a phenomenal player with classical training and country influences.
If you get a chance to hear his "Ah Via Musicom", give it a listen, one
of the singles on it, "Cliffs Of Dover", was in the top ten of the pop
charts I believe.Musically Yours,
AudioHead
I've been hanging out over in the Rave Recordings board for the most part and have only started to check out the Aslyum, but this is the first I've heard anyone mention Mark-Almond. I got the vinyl versions of To the Heart and The Best Of, and really like them. They got lost in the stacks over the years, along with so many others. That's why I like these things, you guys remind me of all the good old stuff I have, and how good my taste in music is, regardless of what my friends think! ;-)
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