Joe’s playing really does stay with me – whether I’m doing a straight-up bebop gig or a solo guitar performance – I rely upon the things I learned when I transcribed his work. Virtuoso! Live just shattered my idea of what was possible on the guitar, particularly in a solo guitar setting.
I just didn’t think it was possible! I even thought he had recorded the chord and melody parts separately, but then I heard the audience applaud. The first time I heard this record was the first time I ever heard someone walk a bassline and play chords at the same time. I was like, “What are all these sounds?” I transcribed the solo when I was about 12 or 13. I heard the I chord being major seven at times, I heard the VI chord, I heard the II and V, I heard tritone substitutions. Instead of the I-IV-V chord progression that’s in blues, I kept hearing other chords. And all I knew was this first song, No Blues, had blues chord changes and yet sounded so different to me. I was young and still learning the beginnings of the language. The name of that artist was Wes Montgomery, and one of his records, Smoking At The Half Note really began my transformation. When I first heard that artist, I remember tapping my mum on the shoulder and asking, “Why don’t you ever tell me about this guitarist?” And she said, “Well, honey, we don’t listen to jazz in this house.” I said, “Oh, well, this guy who I just heard, that’s how my brain thinks.” And I didn’t know there was a name for this.
His music revealed to me the life I was already living in my brain and it gave me language and a vocabulary for the way my brain worked. For me, my journey began when I discovered a very specific artist that didn’t change my life, but uncovered it. The language of jazz is just such a vast expanse it’s a genre of music where you get to draw inspiration and vocabulary from so many corners.
#Best jazz albums free#
READ MORE: Zane Carney releases his eclectic free jazz album, Alter Ego.I enjoy discovering, especially with a band onstage. Some people enjoy performing and perfecting. And that is to say someone who enjoys improvising. But in truth, it feels like I’ve been one my whole life.
I should say I started becoming a jazz player when I was 12 years old.
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