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I would love to see John Petrucci, one of these days, have some fun with Jon McLaughlin. I bet he would be one of the few folks that can keep up with him, and might even do better. The main difference might be that Mac is way more versed and comfortable in improvisation and experiment than John is.
Would be a nice ... fun ... battle of the guitars! But it has to be a fun battle!
I'm sorry Moshkito for coming across so harshly . It's not your fault...but my problem. I find guitar contests repulsive...but of course I can understand how people would like it and how it would excite them. Please understand....I hold you in the highest regard.
Yep, these chop battles are tantamount to 'Ebony & Ivory' for speed typists..
Just wanted to say that the Mahavishnu Orchestra represent for me what Fusion should have been and not the hollow victory for accuracy it degenerated into very quickly
It's interesting that you mention this. On Miles Davis' Bitches Brew..each musician takes a turn in improvising. It gets very boring for some people, but the point is..it is not about showboating..but expression. Sometimes in the fusion days of the 70's, 1 guitarist would play a fast passage of notes and in return the other guitarist would attempt to play their passage in hopes of simply keeping up to the level of challenge. Before it was over..I wanted to knock their heads together like Moe would proceed to do with Larry and Curly. The reason being that the music was lost due to the masturbation represented on stage. Jan Hammer used to have that kind of interplay with John McLaughlin, but it had more to do with Hammer wanting to be a guitarist. So...we are back to square 1 in assuming that people and musicians attach egotistical mentalities to one particular instrument.
Joined: October 29 2008
Status: Offline
Points: 573
Posted: January 09 2014 at 13:25
Did the fusion scene really get that bad? I'm familiar with the usual suspects (Mahavishnu, Weather Report, Santana, Return to Forever, electric Miles, etc) but then kind of tuned out until recently.
The fusion scene in the late 70's and part of the early 80's had this attitude or programming in the minds of young fusion guitarists. I played 5 to 6 nights a week, traveling from state to state, and had to deal with this ignorant attitude especially in N.Y. and Philadelphia. Guitarists would finish college and hit the road to show everyone what they had learned from their little modern guitar method college books...instead of thinking more about what "free form" expression really was. Every guitarist ...at that time...with the exception of a few...was programmed to upstage all guitarists on the road. This was a mentality that developed within the musician's society and the more snooty type of Jazz fusion fan who attended shows to see a contest of "cutting heads". There was no real need for it except to get the attention of fast women and egotistical Jazz fans who thought a gymnastic contest was the answer to life and music.
People have mentioned the musical mind expansion of Popol Vuh. I can reassure you that there is no contest in that. There is no contest in expressing "free form" which is what the great Miles Davis taught us. I was always being put on the spot. I had played Bucky Pizzarelli and Johnny Smith Jazz arrangements at age 13 and was classically trained playing nylon string the Charlie Byrd style. I was playing a lot of Pat Metheny and John McLaughlin style improvisation on guitar in my early 20's when I use to open for Doc Severson Band. Fusion guitarists tried to put the pressure on me then. If they couldn't play faster or more technical than me...they would attempt to pay off the sound tech to muddle my guitar sound or place an abundance of echo so that my right hand alternate picking sounded like unprofessional nonsense. It was bad....I mean really bad when guitarists felt they had to go that distance. I imagine Fusion guitarists back then with recording contracts found this attitude laughable.
There was this attitude about Rock music that made little sense to me. In the 70's prior to the "Stadium Rock" movement..there wasn't anything negative to remark about in Rock music. Ten Years After had a Jazz mentality kind of playing, Deep Purple fused Classical and Rock, Humble Pie colored their Rock songs with harmonica, piano, harmony vocals, and Frampton style leads with slight Jazzy reflections. Why would a bunch of fusion guitarists make fun of that? That was when Rock music actually had something to offer in the musicianship department. They just closed their minds off from anything eclectic about Rock and the importance of composition. What about Happy the Man? They used to take solos , taking turns...but on different instruments. They were disregarded when I traveled the circuit because their ideology about music revolved around the emphasis put on composition and true honest expression and not some contest of "cutting heads". This is another reason why those type of bands fell by the wayside. They simply were not interested in contests during the fusion period when it was so dominet.
Joined: April 29 2006
Location: Atlantais
Status: Offline
Points: 29630
Posted: January 11 2014 at 09:29
Evolver wrote:
Any of the albums up to "Visions Of The Emerald Beyond" have merit. After that, the quality is greatly diminished.
You may want to check out the earlier McLaughlin albums, as well.
You know I would have agreed with that when I first got into prog. But Inner Worlds is damn good, too.
And then I didn't have high regard for the new version that formed in 1984.
Then I got the Live at Montreaux DVD, and I've warmed up to that incarnation.
Jonas Hellborg is a monster bassist.
I got Like Children at a used record store many years ago and Jan Hammer Group's Oh Yeah! and they pair up nicely. Used to have them copied on opposite sides of a 90 minute cassette.
Edited by Slartibartfast - January 11 2014 at 09:32
Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
Joined: January 04 2007
Location: Grok City
Status: Offline
Points: 17487
Posted: January 12 2014 at 11:45
TODDLER wrote:
moshkito wrote:
Hi,
I would love to see John Petrucci, one of these days, have some fun with Jon McLaughlin. I bet he would be one of the few folks that can keep up with him, and might even do better. The main difference might be that Mac is way more versed and comfortable in improvisation and experiment than John is.
Would be a nice ... fun ... battle of the guitars! But it has to be a fun battle!
I'm sorry Moshkito for coming across so harshly . It's not your fault...but my problem. I find guitar contests repulsive...but of course I can understand how people would like it and how it would excite them. Please understand....I hold you in the highest regard.
No offense taken. I was not thinking of a guitar battle at all.
So we can not imagine two guitars playing together anymore? A guitar has to be a single instrument and it can not talk? So listening to Eric and Duane ... is a guitar duel?
I kinda disagree, specially as so much progressive and prog music is about the instruments playing together and creating something new. Both John and Jon do not have to prove to anyone anything, and they can just play.
I'm not sure that John P is not as well versed in the jazz traditions, I think he is, though he might not be using these as openly as we think, though the changes in many pieces are very much jazz like, a lot more than the setup that most rock bands have for the chorus or the bs or the theme or the more bs and so on. In that sense, I would say that John P would probably do just fine, as soon as he got a handle on it.
Don't forget that John P is very well schooled in music, even if it is Berklee, which you could say was the equivalent of the Berlin schools of music, though they ended up creating a different style of music! But the musicianship involved is not in question, and should not be!
Edited by moshkito - January 12 2014 at 11:45
Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com
I would love to see John Petrucci, one of these days, have some fun with Jon McLaughlin. I bet he would be one of the few folks that can keep up with him, and might even do better. The main difference might be that Mac is way more versed and comfortable in improvisation and experiment than John is.
Would be a nice ... fun ... battle of the guitars! But it has to be a fun battle!
I'm sorry Moshkito for coming across so harshly . It's not your fault...but my problem. I find guitar contests repulsive...but of course I can understand how people would like it and how it would excite them. Please understand....I hold you in the highest regard.
No offense taken. I was not thinking of a guitar battle at all.
So we can not imagine two guitars playing together anymore? A guitar has to be a single instrument and it can not talk? So listening to Eric and Duane ... is a guitar duel?Who is Eric and Duane? Do you mean Dicky Betts and Duane Allman? If so...that was a rarity. They never stepped on each other and blended well on the Fillmore East concerts.
I kinda disagree, specially as so much progressive and prog music is about the instruments playing together and creating something new. Both John and Jon do not have to prove to anyone anything, and they can just play.
I'm not sure that John P is not as well versed in the jazz traditions, I think he is, though he might not be using these as openly as we think, though the changes in many pieces are very much jazz like, a lot more than the setup that most rock bands have for the chorus or the bs or the theme or the more bs and so on. In that sense, I would say that John P would probably do just fine, as soon as he got a handle on it.
Don't forget that John P is very well schooled in music, even if it is Berklee, which you could say was the equivalent of the Berlin schools of music, though they ended up creating a different style of music! But the musicianship involved is not in question, and should not be! I agree. He is a fine player
Joined: July 20 2009
Location: Tucson, AZ USA
Status: Offline
Points: 7264
Posted: January 12 2014 at 23:12
TODDLER wrote:
The fusion scene in the late 70's and part of the early 80's had this attitude or programming in the minds of young fusion guitarists. I played 5 to 6 nights a week, traveling from state to state, and had to deal with this ignorant attitude especially in N.Y. and Philadelphia. Guitarists would finish college and hit the road to show everyone what they had learned from their little modern guitar method college books...instead of thinking more about what "free form" expression really was. Every guitarist ...at that time...with the exception of a few...was programmed to upstage all guitarists on the road. This was a mentality that developed within the musician's society and the more snooty type of Jazz fusion fan who attended shows to see a contest of "cutting heads". There was no real need for it except to get the attention of fast women and egotistical Jazz fans who thought a gymnastic contest was the answer to life and music.
Interesting perspective! Chicago fans LOVED our jazz-rock fusion guitar, the wilder, the better! Our homespun scene didn't have a school like Berklee or GIT, so our guys were either self-taught, schooled with private lessons, or obtained degrees from schools like University of Illinois or DePaul, which had strong jazz programs.
Local heroes include Father John Moulder (a priest/jazzer!), Dave Onderdonk (a UI-degreed classical guitarist who crosses over to jazz & fusion), Chris Siebold (formerly of the Brand X-flavored "Kick the Cat"), and some kids about 1979-80 named "Apprentice" who blazed! Can't find them anywhere on the web! Also Spyro Gyra and a lot of blues-flavored fusion outfits.
Chicago was held back because we didn't have the TV/radio jingle, orchestra pit/Broadway show and recording opportunities of the East and West coasts. We've tried mightily, we even had a "Third Coast" record company that came and went! Even today, we lag in local music production....most folks head out for more money, warmer weather etc.
This is a nice town to be a fan because we get nearly all the touring fusion guys coming through...we have a wide range of venues from tiny bars to auditoriums. Fusion still lives, although it isn't as prevalent as it was in the late 1970s.
The fusion scene in the late 70's and part of the early 80's had this attitude or programming in the minds of young fusion guitarists. I played 5 to 6 nights a week, traveling from state to state, and had to deal with this ignorant attitude especially in N.Y. and Philadelphia. Guitarists would finish college and hit the road to show everyone what they had learned from their little modern guitar method college books...instead of thinking more about what "free form" expression really was. Every guitarist ...at that time...with the exception of a few...was programmed to upstage all guitarists on the road. This was a mentality that developed within the musician's society and the more snooty type of Jazz fusion fan who attended shows to see a contest of "cutting heads". There was no real need for it except to get the attention of fast women and egotistical Jazz fans who thought a gymnastic contest was the answer to life and music.
Interesting perspective! Chicago fans LOVED our jazz-rock fusion guitar, the wilder, the better! Our homespun scene didn't have a school like Berklee or GIT, so our guys were either self-taught, schooled with private lessons, or obtained degrees from schools like University of Illinois or DePaul, which had strong jazz programs.
Local heroes include Father John Moulder (a priest/jazzer!), Dave Onderdonk (a UI-degreed classical guitarist who crosses over to jazz & fusion), Chris Siebold (formerly of the Brand X-flavored "Kick the Cat"), and some kids about 1979-80 named "Apprentice" who blazed! Can't find them anywhere on the web! Also Spyro Gyra and a lot of blues-flavored fusion outfits.
Chicago was held back because we didn't have the TV/radio jingle, orchestra pit/Broadway show and recording opportunities of the East and West coasts. We've tried mightily, we even had a "Third Coast" record company that came and went! Even today, we lag in local music production....most folks head out for more money, warmer weather etc.
This is a nice town to be a fan because we get nearly all the touring fusion guys coming through...we have a wide range of venues from tiny bars to auditoriums. Fusion still lives, although it isn't as prevalent as it was in the late 1970s.
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