I've been checking out some of the videos from the recent tours these guys made. If you're a Holdsworth fan, this one will surely please.

Great to see and hear improvisational music at this level:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LSgcSPOe5U[/youtube]

RSS:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LSgcSPOe5U

If it sounds good, it is good.

Allan Holdsworth is definitively not from our earth!

Hey, I though that was Satriani

Now seriously, I'm always amazed by Holdsworth solos and legato.


Cheers, Daniel.

Clips like this make me realize that I am primarily a fan of composition and song. As much as I admire a lot of improvising musicians (Holdsworth being one of them), these kinds of clips really don't do anything for me at all.

This is actually the show that got me into the Stick. I saw them in January in Oakland for my birthday. I'm a drummer, so I primarily went to see Bozzio and Mastelotto, then Tony busted out the Stick and I was hooked.

There was a great uncut clip of one of their shows up on drumchannel.com, but it looks like all their videos are down for site maintenance. Maybe I can link it later when things get running again.

I sort of get to the same observation (thank you for your posting), when I cut through the shock and awe that inflicts on me when I watch this display of out-of-the-earth technique. Once in a while you get people that are blessed with both technique and soul, and these do get to break your heart when they play... such as Jaco Pastorius, Paco de Lucia, Jascha Heifetz, Steve Ray Vaughn and a few others...

Cheers,

I think the technique vs soul argument has merit but I also think it is separate from the point I was trying to convey here. Certainly there are incredibly soulful improvising musicians and I think Holdsworth is one of them. My point here was merely to point out that I generally love the "song form" best. The repeated melodies, the structure, etc. Maybe it's a result of coming from a background that was more classical oriented than jazz and also steeped in 60s and 70s pop music. I don't really know.

I know Metheny has historically been one of my favorite artists. By anyone's standards he would be classified as an improvising guitarist. But it struck me one day that it's "Pat the composer" that I like more than "Pat the guitarist". Of course I think he's a phenomenal guitar player but his material gets me going because his compositions are complex, beautiful, and go way beyone the head-improv-head-improv-head-improv form.

I guess I love to hear people just "go" but at the end of the day, I am looking for that melody that I am going to catch myself singing the next day.

I hear what you guys are saying, I still just love watching and listening to Holdsworth. He has the ability to create real arcs in his solos and comes up with some amazing textures as well.

gpoorman wrote:

I think the technique vs soul argument has merit but I also think it is separate from the point I was trying to convey here. Certainly there are incredibly soulful improvising musicians and I think Holdsworth is one of them. My point here was merely to point out that I generally love the "song form" best. The repeated melodies, the structure, etc. Maybe it's a result of coming from a background that was more classical oriented than jazz and also steeped in 60s and 70s pop music. I don't really know.

The clip takes me back to the shows at Musicians Institute; we'd sit there and watch these monster musicians tear up their fretboards, invariably followed by an emotional letdown of "I might as well go home and chop off my fingers now". One thing I was rarely left with was a memorable melody to hum!

I like the sound Holdsworth creates. As for the improvising, I'm not convinced that he's "hearing" what he plays, as opposed to just being an extremely fluent guitarist. But I guess that's always a fine line in improvised music, and what really matters is what we get out of it as listeners? From a bass perspective, Tony Levin's approach doesn't work for me in this piece. Someone like Gary Willis could really match Holdsworth here.

Cheers,
Andy