Robin D. G. Kelly's Thelonious Monk: The Life & Times of an American Original---to me one of the truly stellar jazz biogs.
Anything by David Hajdu; especially Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life and his biog on Nat Cole. (I've also corresponded w/him and he seems truly nice).
Frank Buchman-Moller's You Just Fight for Your Life---the Story of Lester Young. (All the Pres biogs are worth reading).
Art Pepper's autobiog (written with Laurie Pepper); and Miles (written with Quincy Troupe) are self-gratifying and hampered by loads of BS, but I've read them both numerous times. Pepper is a spellbinding raconteur, and his insight into other musicians' work is interesting to read (if his comments about his own 'genius' are slightly delusional). Miles talking about music has been great food for thought.
The Benson book was mentioned. One thing that cracked me up: some poetic justice. I knew Eddie Diehl for years, and he had a bug up his ass about Kenny Burrell. It had to do with a record date where he was sent home and replaced by Kenny b/c the company wanted a 'name'. He neither ever forgot nor stopped bad-mouthing Kenny's playing til it came out of your ears. I guess it's SOMEWHAT understandable. Eddie WAS one of the best, and a truly good-hearted guy underneath it all. We're all sensitive, and rejection---perceived or real---can really hurt.
Anyway, in George's book when he got the call to go with McDuff he was to replace Eddie. His comments---and they were respectful---were (paraphrasing): '(Eddie) was a formidable musician----not on the level of Kenny Burrell...., but he definitely could play'. Eddie was still alive when that came out. I hope he read it---it MAY have shut his mouth. I doubt it though---shutting Eddie's mouth about ANYTHING, especially guitar players he was jealous of (their stature in the biz, not their playing), was a tall order. But I had quite a chuckle over that one...
Ok I was looking back at it and found a juicy one in measures 7-8 of chorus 4 haha
So you can diatonically sub the VI minor over I major (cf all the Benson method controversy haha). Adam does one...
Some of the examples - #2, the descending run at the end of #3 and #4. I have arrived at the fingerings through a lot of detective work, and I can execute them at tempo (these ones at least, #3 is a...
That's max bright for the guitar lol. I set up the controls to have some upper range and still be able to chirp a tad but while being smoky. If you want it warmer, simply roll off the tone a tad or...
What the heck, I'll reanimate this thread. About 1 month ago I decided to look into getting a baritone guitar. I discovered the D'Angelico Deluxe SS maple, which has 2 Seymour Duncan P90's, as...
What was that? This is some of my crappy playing of a vamp, I'm a B3 player, not a guitarist. This is with an 100k volume pot full up, and the no load tone is also full up so it is out of the...
it was fun, scary, humbling and humiliating in several ways.
First of all, his following were as rabid as a political rally. I was subbing for his keyboard player. Whenever I would solo, the crowd...
I balked on the Wildwood Deluxe from last week- just not drawn to the floating pickup (acoustic) tone entirely. This one may fly very soon, but wondering if the tone control will lend anything to a...
New Campellone Standard on Reverb
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