An Interview with Jazz Guitarist Jay Umble

Jazz Guitarist Jay Umble

Guitarist, composer and educator Jay Umble is the author of several jazz guitar books on Mel Bay Publications and is a featured instructor on online jazz education site Mike's Masterclasses. Jay is also an adjunct faculty member of Bucknell University and Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania.

An active performer and recording artist, his latest CD is entitled Spirit Crossing.

Jay was kind enough to grant The Guitar Column this email interview recently.

The Guitar Column:  Who were your guitar heroes when you were growing up?

Jay Umble:  I grew up in the rock genre so I was really into Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, etc.  I was always more interested in the instrumental, improvisational side of music.  I recently went to a Jeff Beck concert and was totally blown away.  Jeff is as relevant today as he was many years ago.

TGC:  What sparked your interest in jazz?

JU:  A friend of mine asked me if I had ever heard of George Benson and I said that I knew his name but that was about it.  So he put on this album called Body Talk and it totally changed my way of thinking about what the guitar could do.  I remember upon my first listening of this album thinking, 'I can’t believe somebody can play so hip without distortion!'  It just knocked me out!  So from that point, I started gravitating towards the jazz side of things.

TGC:  Who were some of your early teachers and mentors?

JU:  I studied with some great teachers/players in my area, early on in my development.  Kenny Gehret was one of those teachers -- he is now playing a ten-string guitar -- who was really coming from the artistic side of things.  I also studied with Marty Bonk who was so wonderful at explaining the process of jazz thinking.  Both were great teachers, but having totally different perspectives.

Of course, I was constantly transcribing licks off of records -- all the great jazz players of the day – Tal Farlow, Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis, etc.  You learn so much from the transcribing process.  Someone once told me that all of the answers are on the records.

TGC:  You went on the road with the Ron Smith Trio, an organ-based group, when you were still in your 20’s.  Did you enjoy playing in a Hammond B3 based trio?

JU:  Yeah, there’s nothing like the Hammond B3 sound and it was an awesome experience overall.  Ron’s feel was so 'in the pocket' and he was such a master player.  He knew all of the tunes -- one of those guys ya know! -- so it was a real workout for me, a lot of on the job ear training.  I’ve always been appreciative to Ron for that opportunity because I was just a young, inexperienced player - but I really wanted it man!

TGC:  You eventually went on to study with Pat Martino – one of our great masters.  How did you get the opportunity to study with him?

JU:  Actually it came about from my involvement with the organ trio.  Through Ron Smith I met Chris Jones (son of Philly Joe Jones) who introduced me to Pat Martino.  It was really weird and funny because me and a friend of mine went to meet Chris in south Philadelphia.  We met at this old abandoned warehouse.   It was a total trip – it was like out of a movie!   And then Chris calls Pat and tells Pat that this guy wants to study with him.  So Chris gets off the phone with Pat and gives me Pat’s phone number. And that was it.  It’s really funny how this came about! 

The funny thing is, is that after studying with Pat for a while I asked him one day about getting in touch with him and Pat said, "You could have just looked me up in the phone book"!  Now you gotta love that!

TGC:  What was a typical lesson with Pat Martino like?

JU:  Studying with Pat was a phenomenal experience.  Lessons were a combination of music and philosophy – totally integrated.  Pat liked to discuss concepts in addition to writing out specific musical ideas.  He also shared a lot of his music with me.  Much of this music hasn’t been released to the public.  But anyway, Pat presented so much information for me to study.  Every lesson was intense and I would leave each lesson being totally exhausted! 

Of course we worked with his Nature of Guitar concept, learning the entire neck from a minor perspective, chord substitution, phrasing, compositional techniques and so on.  Studying with Pat was one of the best things I’ve ever done.

TGC:  Do you have any great Pat Martino stories for our readers?

JU:  I have so many great Martino stories and I often share these stories with my students.

    
Here’s a great example:  Pat showed me an orchestral work that he had written called Opus 126 -- it was something like this -- I don’t remember the exact number.  The obvious implication is that there must be 125 other opuses that precede Opus 126!  I made a comment to this effect and Pat looked at me with this smile on his face and said, “It’s just a title!"  Then we both started laughing.  It was great!

    
In this same orchestral work, Pat pointed out the tempo of the first movement which was quarter note equals 96.  Then Pat said, check this out – he turned ahead to the second movement and pointed to the tempo which was quarter note equals 97!  That’s funny stuff!

TGC:  You’ve written a number of jazz guitar books.  Your Mel Bay book Jazz Guitar Licks In Tablature was interesting for me as it was devoted entirely to the use of the whole-tone scale.  Not your usual compendium of ii-V-I licks as the title would suggest.  Which was cool as the whole-tone scale doesn’t even get it’s own chapter in most jazz method books out there.

JU:  Well that’s interesting about the title of the book.  I had wanted to call the book something specific to the whole-tone scale but it came down to a corporate decision and that’s ok too.  So anyway, I was working a lot with the whole-tone scale at the time and decided to put the ideas in a book format. 

The whole-tone scale is, to me, nothing more than a sound texture.  Sometimes as musicians, we can get too locked into theoretical considerations and lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with art.  So for me,  the whole-tone scale can be used in other harmonic contexts to create an effect, in addition to being used in the dominant 7th b5 or dominant 7th #5 harmonic areas.

TGC:  You must have a pretty good relationship with Mel Bay Publications judging by the number of books you have in their catalog – Jazz Guitar Licks In Tablature, Improvisational Techniques For Jazz Guitar, Melodic Junction, The Jazz Guitarist’s Thesaurus and Payin’ Your Dues With The Blues.

JU:  Yes, I have a good relationship with Mel Bay which I’m very appreciative to have.  They are an excellent publishing company and treat their writers with respect.  As far as publishing goes, I think that as long as you have something to say and can present your book concept to a publisher in a coherent fashion, they will give you serious consideration for publication.

Only two of my books remain in print --  'Improvisational Techniques For Jazz Guitar' and 'Payin' Your Dues With The Blues'. 

Improvisational Techniques For Jazz Guitar presents many concepts such as Double Stops, Arpeggios, Chromaticism, Random Open Strings, Side-Slipping and more. 

Payin’ Your Dues With The Blues takes an in-depth look at the jazz blues idiom and covers such things as comping, soloing, various harmonic blues forms, walking bass lines, chord soloing and more.

TGC:  I haven't gotten a hold of Improvisational Techniques For Jazz Guitar yet, but I did get a lot of mileage out of Payin’ Your Dues With The Blues – lots of great substitution ideas that I found myself using immediately on the bandstand.  I think it was Hal Galper who said that if you get one usable idea out of a book, it was a good book; and if you get two or more usable ideas out of a book, it was a great book!

JU:  Thanks so much!  I put a lot of effort into this book.  I really wanted the material to be real music, things that you would actually want to play as opposed to generic type of information.  I’ve gotten many positive responses to the book in this regard.

    
I totally agree with Hal Galper.  Now that you mentioned Hal, I encourage everybody to check out his YouTube master class videos.  These videos are ESSENTIAL to any serious minded musician.

TGC:  Do you have any new books coming out?

JU:  A lot of people ask me this question.  No new book concepts at the present.  I do have other book ideas but haven’t moved in that direction for the time being. 

TGC:  To date, you have six videos on Mike’s Masterclasses.  How did your association with Mike Gellar come about?

JU:  I met Mike many years ago at a jazz festival.  He was staying at the hotel where the festival was held during the festival weekend so we did some playing in his hotel room.  Years later, after Mike started this Master Class concept, he called me and asked me if I would like to be involved, so I said 'Sure'!  Mike has developed a wonderful jazz video lesson company and I am honored to be a part of his venture.

    
I will be doing two Master Classes soon that deal with the psychological aspects of performance, philosophy and methodology.  These two classes will be quite interesting.  I’ll be covering many things that you almost never hear about and some things you never hear about!  I’m very excited to be presenting these concepts.  The classes will be called 'Let’s Talk:  Music, Psychology, Methodology and More, Vol. 1 & 2'.

TGC:  You teach at both Bucknell University and Susquehanna University.  Could you describe the courses you teach there? 

JU:  I’m an adjunct faculty member and I’m teaching studio guitar, which really means teaching students one on one.  I see my role, while at the universities, to impart as much knowledge as I can about the entire musical experience.  So my students get a lot from me!

TGC:  What is your approach to teaching jazz guitar and what are some of the personal musical philosophies you hope to pass on to your students?

JU:  I place a heavy emphasis on harmony which is an area that most students need a lot of help with.  I provide a healthy dose of traditional and modern harmonic systems with practical applications.

I also work on soloing over changes.  Most students feel pretty comfortable soloing over a static vamp -- and some students are incredible at this -- but are totally lost when given an actual jazz chord progression.  One of the techniques I find helpful is the concept of 'soloing off of the chord' – in addition to the obvious things such as scales, arpeggios and the like.

    
The most important thing I can convey to a student is this:  The guitar is not music, it is just a piece of wood with six metal wires.  It’s just a tool, an “instrument” if you will.  That’s all!  You are the music: the tool simply gives you a means to process what is in your heart and soul.  The guitar is a canvas on which we paint with sound – sound that comes from within our being.  We ARE the music!

    
This shift in our perception, in relation to the guitar, makes all the difference in the world.  If you make this shift in perception, you will be a far more creative musician.  Instantly.

TGC:  Tell us a bit about your current groups, String Theory and The Jay Umble Jazz Trio.

JU:  String Theory is one of my groups where it’s all about original music.  I love playing jazz standards and I also love having the outlet to play my own tunes.  So it’s very rewarding.

    
The Jay Umble Jazz Trio is a standards trio with my own modern flair thrown into the mix.  Playing standards really keeps me 'in tune' with music.  To me, jazz standards are so very important.

TGC:  You also have a duo with guitarist Bill Druck.

JU:  Yes, I work in a jazz guitar duo project with guitarist Bill Druck.  We get into a lot of textural type of music and avant-garde material, some of which is totally improvised.  So these three groups offer quite a spectrum of concepts.

TGC:  You also have a new CD out, Spirit Crossing?

JU:  Yes, it’s a project of original compositions that I wanted to do for a long time.

TGC:  What was your compositional process like for writing Spirit Crossing?

JU:  I had worked with some Ralph Towner harmonic concepts over the years and kind of developed those concepts into my own thing.  I built tunes around various chordal ideas from a finger style perspective.

    
The original plan was to do the album based upon a two guitar concept.  But you know how these things go – it morphed into something much larger than originally conceived.  But I like the way it turned out.  It has a very unique world vibe throughout.  Jamey Haddad played percussion on the album which really helped to give it that common thread.

TGC:  What did you use on that recording by way of guitars, pedals and amps?

JU:  I used a lot of stuff man!  Guitar wise, I used my Gibson ES175-T, Carvin SCS-90, Larrivee acoustic, Fender Strat, banjo and a few other guitars that I borrowed from friends.

    
All of the acoustic guitar material was done by miking the guitars naturally with multiple mics for sound options – options are good!  A couple things were recorded direct, but not much.

    
Other than one electric guitar solo, all of the effects were added after the fact.  But the pedals I did use on that solo were a Whammy pedal, Ibanez chorus, Boss DD6 delay and a Rat distortion pedal. Regarding amps I used my Polytone Mini Brutes, Roland JC-120 and an assortment of other amps for re-amping.

TGC:  Describe your most memorable gig experience, good or bad.

JU:  I was playing this organ trio gig one time and this guy walked into the club and was just staring at the band.  Then all of a sudden he walked over to the organ player and literally pushed him out of his seat and took over!  It turned out to be Cedric Lawson, who worked with Miles Davis, and he tore the house apart, so to speak!  The energy was totally over the top.  Everybody was freaked out - in a good way!

TGC:  Thanks so much for doing this interview Jay!  Any parting words for our readers out there?

JU:  Thank you Clinton!  It was my pleasure.  Sure, I would like to simply say this:  Accept however it is that you play and go with it.  Don’t worry about what everybody else is doing.  Just believe in your concept of music.  I know this sounds trite, but it is so true!!

http://www.jayumble.com/

Jay's online jazz education videos are at http://www.mikesmasterclasses.com/

Birthday Tribute | Jeff Beck!

Born 24th June 1944, Jeff Beck will be 66 today!

 

Jeff Beck's Studio Guitar Session for Jon Bon Jovi

Whoever thinks studio guitar work is easy had better check out this clip.

And as Jeff Beck will probably readily testify, it's hard work that stretches every fiber of the creative imagination.  And guitar god or not, there's really no such thing as " I'll leave the car engine running while I nip in and whip out 20 perfect seconds of pure guitar magic."


In this rare clip of Jeff Beck's guitar session for Jon Bon Jovi's song Blaze of Glory from the Young Guns II soundtrack, we see Jeff really being put through his paces.  Almost everything he plays is perfect, from a technical standpoint.  Great tone and intonation with the notes just blooming out of his Fender Stratocaster.  All the amazing Beck inflections are there.   It's enough to make a grown man weep.
 
Except for one thing.  It doesn't 'sit' in the track well enough.  Yet. 
 
Of course we've all heard the final outcome (some of us might even remember seeing the movie, but we won't go there) and marvelled at Jeff's uncanny abilities, thinking, "Bloody hell, that Jeff Beck!"  But this is the grit and determination it took to get to that point folks! 
 
So if you've ever found yourself in a recording situation, and after many takes plopping yourself on a seat and rolling a Drum cigarette in frustration, take heart.  It's happened to the best of them.

Jeff Beck Insures Fingers After Kitchen Mishap

After accidentally chopping off his left hand index finger tip in a kitchen mishap last fall, Jeff Beck has upped his insurance from £700,000 per hand to £700,000 per finger. 

Beck was apparently slicing carrots for a stew at his home in Surrey when the incident happened.

"We had these massively long carrots," he says. "For some stupid reason, I started slicing them lengthwise. I got a bit lazy, and I put full force on the carrot, and it slipped over. Next thing I know, I'm on my knees, going, 'Oh, dear, that's the end of me.'  Or words to that effect." 

Although surgeons managed to successfully sew back the fingertip, Jeff still had to finish recording and go on the road to promote his new album Emotion and Commotion.

But injury be damned -- knowing Jeff Beck, he'll still be pulling out some pretty ethereal sounds out of his signature Stratocaster on his tour.



(Source:  http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2010-04-13-jeffbeck13_CV_N.htm)

Steve Lukather Guitar Clinic 13th March 2010 | Review

Randy Brecker's Soul Bop Special Edition is in town for a concert, featuring the guitar pairing of Steve Lukather and Robben Ford!  Are we lucky or what!

Playing his new copper-gold Musicman Luke into a rented Marshall JCM2000 Triple Super Lead head, Steve Lukather showed us why he was still a player to be reckoned with, in this up-close and personal guitar clinic.

Starting his clinic 25 minutes late for some undisclosed reason, and after an informal self-introduction, Lukather launched into a beautiful, moving chord-melody solo based on Larry Carlton's  It Was Only Yesterday.  Reminiscent of Carlton's own chordal intro on the same track from the live Paris Concert dvd,  Luke laid it all out for us to hear with emotion, nuance and absolute control over his instrument.

Channel-switching his Marshall to the 'red' high gain channel, he next unleashed a barrage of classic Lukather-isms -- slinky pentatonics and wah inflected licks -- before playing some Jeff Beck-style pseudo-slide-guitar using the whammy-bar to gliss between notes.  Here's a guy who makes it point of learning something from everyone he can!  Bringing things down, Lukather closed off with a near note-perfect rendition of Jimi Hendrix's guitar outtro from Castles Made Of Sand.  And that was just the beginning!

Despite his volume I was surprised by how warm his sound was -- a far cry from the searing, high-gain, mid-range scooped Steve Lukather tone of old.  Nice.


Self-deprecating as usual -- "I'm just jammin', goofing off" -- Lukather came across as someone who obviously still loves playing the guitar.  By his own admission still the eternal student, it was refreshing to see a musician of his caliber still re-inventing himself on the instrument.  After 35 years in the music biz, most cats would be kicking back in the producer's chair and thinking about where to go to later for dinner.

Luke's pedal rig was modest by any standard -- an Ibanez Tube Screamer, two Boss Digital Delay pedals for long and short delays, a Providence Chorus and a Boss Tuner pedal.   And according to him, rental amps were an economic necessity in this age of high airline freight charges -- "It would cost $20,000 just to ship my three road cases over here!" 

Turning to his new copper-colored Musicman Luke guitar -- "I'm not sure if I like the color; it kinda looks like my 2 1/2 year old baby's poop!" -- he talked about his current disdain for Floyd Rose bridges and their inherent string-changing hassles, opting instead for a non-locking floating bridge on all his current Musicman guitars. 

He then demonstrated the range and tuning stability of his Musicman's traditional fulcrum trem with Jeff Beck's Where Were You and more faux slide-guitar licks -- "When Jeff Beck does that stuff, he sounds like God's guitarist!"  Luke even gave us a little background on Beck's fingers only technique.  Apparently Jeff had told him that he dropped his pick playing live on the Ed Sullivan Show on TV and swore after that that he wouldn't rely on a pick anymore.  "With Jeff, it's all in the right hand.  Put a pick in his hand and he doesn't sound like Jeff Beck."  Interesting!

When asked about his work on Michael Jackson's Thriller album, Luke launches into the famous Beat It riff.  He states matter of factly, "I did all the grunt work on that track; I played all the (rhythm) guitars.  I even played bass!  But Eddie gets all the love."  Luke even goes into an uncanny impersonation of Michael's personal phone call to him to play on the Thriller sessions, hanging up on him three times thinking it was a prank call! 

With Eddie Van Halen having laid down his solo -- but refusing to play over a certain section of the song that was eventually edited out -- Lukather set about re-recording the basic rhythm tracks with a barrage of heavy Marshall tones, "I mean we had Eddie Van Halen playing on it, right?"  But according to Lukather, producer Quincy Jones wasn't thrilled with the wall of heavy guitars and instructed him to re-cut the guitars so the track would fit in on the R 'n B radio format.  "So we took off the barrage of Marshall amps from the track and brought out our little Fender Princeton's."  He seemed reluctant when prodded to dish the dirt about Jackson, offering little more than "I saw him kind of change -- facially.." 

And Lukather really got animated when someone asked a question about the rampant use of digital editing in recording, obviously one of his pet peeves.  "People criticise Toto's records for being too slick, but we were all playing live in the same room together.  We overdubbed some solos and background vocals but that was about it."   Referring to the ubiquitous ProTools recording system, he said most artists these days lacked the talent to get a decent take in the studio, choosing instead to 'Tool it.  "Back then you had to be good (to make a record).  Then MTV came along and you had to be good, and pretty.  Now you just have to be pretty."

Closing his guitar clinic with a verse of Hendrix's Little Wing, which he sang through the driest of guitar clinic PA's, Lukather talked a little about the virtues of slow and deliberate practice.  "Think of music like sex, take your time and take it slow."

Words to live by indeed.

Stay tuned for my review on Robben Ford's clinic tomorrow!

(Pic Source:  http://www.stevelukather.net/)

Jeff Beck To Release New Album!

Jeff Beck has never been prolific with his studio releases --  it's been 7 years since 2003's eponymously-titled Jeff.   The upcoming release of Emotion & Commotion on April 13 will undoubtedly come as a welcome surprise for fans hankering for the Strat-meister's new material. 

Can someone please stand up and say, "It's about bloody time!"

And it's an ambitious project too, for one of rock's most influential guitarists.  Together with his usual stellar band of Vinnie Colaiuta, Jason Rebello and Tal Wilkenfeld, Beck also performs with a 64-piece orchestra on several cuts.  Also making a guest appearance on two tracks is sultry-voiced pop songstress Joss Stone.  That should ensure some decent radio airplay.

Before embarking on his world tour for Emotion & Commotion that will include South Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia and the US, Beck will also be playing a few shows with Eric Clapton in London, New York, Toronto and Montreal in February. 

Quite a leap for Jeff Beck who by all accounts prefers to be holed-up in his garage building hot-rod cars or slicing carrots in his kitchen.

Greg Koch Plays 'Cause We Ended As Lovers

Hailing from Milwaukee, Wisconsin (behind the Cheddar Curtain as he likes to describe it), Greg Koch's playing is a gristly stew of influences.

Take a dollop of Jimi Hendrix, a spoonful of Eric Clapton, a dash of Chet Atkins, a peppering of BB, Albert and Freddie King, and a heaping helping of Albert Lee, and you have a killer gumbo that doesn't even begin to describe Koch's indescribable style. Or wry sense of humor.

In this in-store guitar clinic vid -- Koch is a clinician for Fender Instruments and Hal Leonard -- he demonstrates his succulent volume swells starting at 2:59 in the style of Duane Allman and Roy Buchanan before launching into a Jeff Beck-style rendition of 'Cause We Ended As Lovers at 3:31.

Koch's sheer control of the instrument is indisputable. Check out his Beck-approved finger-style approach to the main melody at 4:00 before going back to pick-mode briefly at 4:25 to execute some pick pinch-harmonics. I especially dig his quirky flurry of triplets at 5:19.

Koch has several books and DVDs out on Hal Leonard -- guitar instruction at its finest. Check them out here.

Scott Henderson, Jeff Berlin, Dennis Chambers Trio -- A Gig Review

Last night the trio of Scott Henderson, Jeff Berlin and Dennis Chambers hit our shores, playing to a small but appreciative crowd of fusion fans.

I’ve watched Scott Henderson’s career closely from the time he was with Jeff Berlin and Vox Humana, Chick Corea’s Elektrik Band, Jean-Luc Ponty, Zawinul Syndicate, on through Tribal Tech and up to his blues guitar forays of the last 15 years or so.

But the Scott Henderson I witnessed last night was a re-invented revelation. Playing with a fury and controlled abandon rivaling vintage Jeff Beck, he propelled the band through Miles Davis’ All Blues, Billy Cobham’s Stratus, Wayne Shorter’s Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum and Coltrane’s Giant Steps in addition to the trio’s original tunes. I reckon playing all that soul-baring blues for so many years has rubbed off on his fusion style as well.

Henderson played a seafoam green Suhr strat equipped with three Fletcher/Landau single-coils into a Suhr SH100 amp and a Boss SE70 multi-effects unit for a stereo split into two rented Marshall 4x12 cabinets.

Henderson also seemed to have developed a new-found relationship with the whammy bar, using it to bend up to and from notes, giving his playing a soaring, almost vocal quality -- in fact the bar rarely left his picking hand for most of the two-hour long set. And I should mention that despite his vigorous use of the whammy bar, his Suhr guitar hardly went out of tune, requiring only minor tweaks between songs.

And I also learned something invaluable from bassist Jeff Berlin last night. He could play a cascade of notes ripping through Giant Steps and have it speak with as much authority as he would playing a simple blues line or a bass chord-melody version of Tears In Heaven (yep, that song), which he pulled off as a beautiful duet with Dennis Chambers. At the center of it all was his impeccable sense of time -- the structural foundation of his playing. And here's guy who eschews practicing with a metronome..
That same sense of timing translated perfectly to his onstage banter. (My favourite of his one-liners: “I’m a musician with a past – I never took drugs.”)

He begins a joke by setting it up perfectly with a simple premise:

“A rock bass player was about to spank his son when his wife intervenes. “Why are you spanking your son?”, she asks.
The tone of Berlin’s voice is low, almost serious.

The rock bass player replies “Because he turned one of the tuning pegs on my bass.”
Berlin allows it to sink in, allowing the audience to soak it up.

“So why don’t you just retune it?” she asks.
At the absolute perfect moment, he delivers the punchline like Joe Frazier flooring an opponent.

The rock bass player replies, “Because he won’t tell me which tuning peg he turned!”
Jeff Berlin could easily carve out a career in stand-up comedy. And I mean that in the most respectful way. He has got to be one of the most engaging human beings alive.

After the show, when most of the fans had left, I could only put in about 5 minutes with Scott Henderson. I actually had a bunch of questions I had put together, on the off-chance that I would be able to interview him for this article.

He looked really tired. And no matter how great your sidemen are, the guitar player in a trio format always has to go the extra mile or three to make things interesting.

I told him about how I had seen him play at La Ve Lee’s with Dave Carpenter, Scott Kinsey and Joe LaBarbara in 1998. Scott talked about the closing of that club due to a structural defect in the building’s roof. I could tell he missed the place, having held a weekly residency there for a number of years. La Ve Lee had become the ultimate musician's hang for LA's session elite as well as for the many GIT students that passed through year after year. And he grew somber when he mentioned bassist Dave Carpenter’s passing in 2008.

It wasn’t long before the trio was hustled back into the empty auditorium by the organizers and out the backstage door where their transport back to their hotel awaited.

Kudos to Heads Up for pulling this gig together!

Buy Scott Henderson CDs and DVDs Here!

8 Guitar Solos That Changed My Life

I decided to commemorate this, my 100th blog post with this list of my favorite guitar solos.

They are the reason I got started, the reason I stayed, and the reason I carry on.

All Along The Watchtower -- Jimi Hendrix (Electric Ladyland)
This tune never fails to give me goosebumps. Hendrix apparently agonized over the various sections of this song for weeks, laying down a multitude of parts before paring them down. The result -- amazingly melodic electric solos that grab you from the outset, a mysterious delay-enhanced 'slide' section and wah solo and a scratchy rhythm thang culminating in double bends. The studio version is a work of art, and still sounds relevant today despite being recorded more than 40 years ago.

Does anybody know what he used for the slide section? Til this day I can't figure out if he was using a conventional slide. Or could it have been a mic stand, or as some have postulated, a large ring he wore on his right hand?

Sunny - Pat Martino (from Pat Martino Live!)
I first heard this one when I was about 16. It was my first introduction to Martino and I was an instant convert. At 10 minutes 25 seconds this song filled the entire B side of the record. Martino really cooks and the sheer raw emotion he projects is startling.

Cause We've Ended As Lovers -- Jeff Beck (Blow By Blow)
What more can I say about this tune? Turn off the lights, the TV and the computer and just listen to it. Jeff gives us a timeless lesson in exactly what a Fender Stratocaster is capable of. Just as Jimi owned Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower, Jeff Beck certainly owns this song by Stevie Wonder.

Devil Take The Hindmost -- Allan Holdsworth (Metal Fatigue)
I first heard this as a Guitar Player magazine Soundpage. I was familiar with Holdsworth's earlier body of work but this track from Metal Fatigue was to me a defining moment -- his 'new' sound if you will. His already great playing seemed to have taken a quantum leap on Metal Fatigue with a newfound clarity of expression and articulation.

Push Comes To Shove -- Eddie Van Halen (Fair Warning)
Eddie has said that he had Holdsworth in mind when he cut this track, but the end result is unmistakeably Van Halen. I consider Fair Warning to be one of the darker Van Halen albums and to me it still stands above everything the band has ever produced. And Ed's tone has never been more 'brown'.

The Days of Wine and Roses -- Wes Montgomery (Boss Guitar)
Stating the melody in a very pianistic chord-melody style, Wes absolutely slays with his solo on this Henry Mancini classic, balancing jazz sophistication with a soulful bluesy edge. Wes is the Boss and every guitar player worth his salt knows it.

Stairway to Heaven -- Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin IV)
This solo needs no introduction. After many years of my thinking Pagey played this solo on a Les Paul into a Marshall stack (hey, these were pre-internet days!), it turned out that this landmark was played on a '58 Telecaster into a little Supro amp!

Blues For Salvador -- Carlos Santana (Blues For Salvador)
Recorded at a soundcheck for a Top of the Pops TV show, this duet between Santana and his longtime keyboard player Chester Thompson oozes with soul. Carlos's PRS guitar plugged into a Marshall stack simply cries with the most glorious of tones and might have just been the tipping point that put Paul Reed Smith on the map.

Seymour Duncan -- Pickup Tonemeister

Seymour Duncan started playing the guitar in bands in 1963, but it was meeting legendary guitarist Les Paul that fired his interest in guitar electronics. Little did he know at the time that, like Les Paul, his own name would also become part of electric guitar history.

Duncan also befriended the late guitarist Roy Buchanan, turning up at his gigs to hear the Tele-master in action. But because Duncan was underage, he would hide behind the bar at Buchanan’s gigs.

Stumped by the tonal difference between Buchanan’s ’53 Telecaster and his own ’56 model, Duncan started writing to Bill Carson at Fender. Carson was a gigging western swing guitarist and fellow Telecaster player who worked with Fender on an ad hoc basis, acting as road-tester for Fender’s new guitar and amp products.

Duncan made several important discoveries by tinkering with his guitars and trying to make improvements.

For example, frustrated with the microphonic squeal from the pickups on his Telecaster, he disassembled the pickup on an older guitar and found paraffin wax encasing the windings. Paraffin wax, he discovered, held the windings of the pickup solidly in place, virtually eliminating microphonic feedback. Duncan had found a critical element that he was to faithfully implement in his own line of pickups later on.

One night during a gig, the lead pickup on his Tele suddenly stopped working and, out of necessity, he rewound the pickup using a record turntable the following day. Experimenting with the different tones that different windings could produce he started rewinding pickups with a machine he had built, using a sewing machine pedal to control the speed of the turns.

He inadvertently set the machine to wind in the opposite direction, an error which led to another discovery – reverse winding also reversed the pickup’s polarity and when used in combination with a regular wound pickup both became hum-cancelling. This was an important discovery especially when applied to single-coils.

In 1968 Duncan took a job at a television station where he managed to meet and talk guitars with celebrity guitarists like Glen Campbell, Jerry Reed and Cal Collins.

A four-year stint in England followed, where he immersed himself in studio recording at night while doing repair work at the Fender Soundhouse R&D and Repair Department during the day for Peter Frampton, Marc Bolan, The Who, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck.

Upon returning to the States, he began manufacturing pickguards, bridges and knobs and selling them to Schecter, Charvel and Mighty Mite who were pioneering the guitar replacement parts industry.

In 1976 Duncan moved to Santa Barbara to set up a pickup rewinding service which soon blossomed into a replacement pickup business, hot on the heels of a certain Larry DiMarzio.

As mentioned above in the Seymour Duncan ad from 1979, Duncan’s business was also based on creating pickups built to his customer’s specifications, in addition to selling his own stock line of custom pickups.

Feeling that he had more to learn, Duncan started consulting with Leo Fender, Seth Lover, the inventor of the Gibson humbucking pickup, and Doc Kauffman, Leo’s early business partner and fellow tinkerer.

Seymour Duncan keeps meticulous records of every pickup he has ever taken apart and scrutinized – electrical readings, number of windings, layer patterns, magnet types – and he keeps one of each of these pickups in the company’s archives for future reference.

As he puts it, “I’ve just looked at a lot of small details that other people might have overlooked.”

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Roger Mayer -- "He's an effects wizard, Harry!"

Roger Mayer was probably the first of the custom effects pedal builders.

In 1963, he began building fuzz boxes in his spare time as he worked for the British Navy's sound and vibration analysis division (read: submarine warfare science) and his pedals soon found themselves at the feet of Yardbird's guitarists Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck who were, coincidentally, his childhood friends from the same neighbourhood.

But it was his meeting Jimi Hendrix at London's Bag O' Nails club on 11th January 1967 that was to establish Mayer as the primo effects guru of his time. Primarily a Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face user, Mayer introduced Hendrix to his newest creation which he dubbed the Octavia.

A pedal that produced a randomly generated higher octave depending on how hard the string was struck, the Octavia was deployed by Hendrix on Are You Experienced on the songs 'Purple Haze' and 'Fire' three weeks after their first meeting.

It is interesting to note that the pedal used on this recording was a prototype (dubbed Evo 1) that did not incorporate a fuzz or drive circuit -- another custom unit provided the distorted signal for this purpose. Mayer also claims he consigned this prototype to the 'trash bin' after that historic recording!

We should clarify that the Octavia produced by Tycobrahe Engineering in the '70s was not the same pedal invented by Mayer but copied from a '69 variant of a Mayer Octavia owned by Keith Relf of the Yardbirds. It is also not clear why Mayer has not taken legal action on what he claims is a copy of his original Octavia concept and name.

Joining Hendrix on his 1968 US tour, Mayer took care of Jimi's onstage sound, his effects and his guitars. According to Mayer, Hendrix's 'effects rig' for the tour consisted of a Cry Baby wah, an Arbiter Fuzz Face and/or a Mayer-designed fuzz and an Octavia.

During Hendrix's short career, Mayer and Hendrix experimented with five or six different fuzz designs with Mayer building numerous fuzz units and Octavias in the process since pedals were always getting stolen -- sometimes taken directly off the stage by audience members or sometimes vanishing into the overcoat pockets of stage hands, roadies and various hangers-ons. On occasion they were given away as gifts by the guitarist.

In 1968 Mayer began working for Olympic Recording Studios -- where Are You Experienced was recorded -- before venturing out on his own. In 1973 he established Roger Mayer Electronics to manufacture effects pedals and custom studio electronics.