The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    While not Jazz it is by a Jazz guitarist. IMHO, this was a towering achievement both in guitar technique and in arranging. Recording acoustic guitars has come far since this was recorded with that quacky Ovation tone a thing of the past.

    And especially astounding, when you consider the piece has measures like these ...

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    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    I was not aware of this recording. I love the Stravinsky piece. This performance actually brought tears of joy to my eyes.


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  4. #3

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    Quote Originally Posted by grandstick01
    I was not aware of this recording. I love the Stravinsky piece. This performance actually brought tears of joy to my eyes.


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    Same!! I did not know this was a thing and am blown away

  5. #4

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    Well, I hate to piss against the gathering breeze, but I've always thought that was a hideous recording. Sorry guys. It is a macho "look what I can do" tasteless performance, that ignores all the subtlety and colour of the original. There's a difference between playing the notes and playing the music, but even when just playing the notes he cuts off voicings here and there, and the tone colour of the instrumentation has as much to do with the story as the note choices. If you like this kind of thing, check out the equally hideous recording by Kasuhito Yamashita of Pictures At An Exhibition by Mussorsky. For my part, I love the orchestral versions too much to ever consider them as guitar solos. Clearly your mileage does vary. And if the claim is, "But it's so difficult to do, he's a virtuoso of the highest extreme", I can only say, "So what?". It's the sort of thing non-guitar playing musicians just laugh or sigh at.

    ...but don't let me ruin it for you

  6. #5

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    I clicked on the above video, forgot that I was listening to Thin Lizzy's "Live and Dangerous" earlier, and had left it running...turned the volume up and...Rite of Spring plus "Warrior."

    Nice.

  7. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rob MacKillop
    Well, I hate to piss against the gathering breeze, but I've always thought that was a hideous recording.
    He also did a similar LP of Firebird and Petrushka, I got it cheap once in a record fair. I remember being impressed by the technique, but I couldn’t stand that Ovation guitar sound. I think I only played it a couple of times.

  8. #7

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    He’s not the only one who’s had a go:


  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by grahambop
    I couldn’t stand that Ovation guitar sound.
    Me neither. It was really close to a nasal plastic sound, I do not understand that it could have become a reference. It's probably like the fashion of the first electronic effects, an artificial and very bad sound
    Last edited by Patlotch; 02-15-2020 at 04:42 AM.

  10. #9

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    can totally understand criticisms...but, in defense...larry coryell was one of the more rock and roll of the jazzers...he was a bit all over the place..and often "not at his best" whilst attempting some things...but he knew it

    from A Chat with Larry Coryell, Part Two

    BK: I’ve read that you’ve done transcriptions of Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky for acoustic guitar.

    LC: There are recordings of the Rimsky-Korsakov. It came out pretty good. The Stravinsky was checquered; I wasn’t happy with two of those. But the third one – and I can’t even find the record – was a masterpiece. Just by accident, that one worked out.

    Last year I was given an assignment to do The Rite of Spring with six guitars, and it didn’t quite work out. It got too crazy, too complicated.

    The value of doing all those classical transcriptions was in getting an education for me. Even though I wasn’t aware of it, I was getting an education, [helping me] to do my own classical music. Or classically-oriented music. One of the things that I want to bring to the world of performance is an opera that I wrote, based on Tolstoy‘s War and Peace. It’s isn’t gonna be a real jazz thing; I haven’t figured out where the jazz is gonna go yet.

    When you learn to play – for example – The Rite of Spring, a lot of that rubs off on you in your future approaches to composing and playing. So I’m not so eager to perform Stravinsky as I am to perform what I’ve learned from Stravinsky. It was like an extremely serious music lesson. Stravinsky is absolutely amazing.

    (my bold^)

    rip lc..he saw music as fusion!!! of allsorts

    cheers

  11. #10

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    The same kind of problem exists with other styles. I enjoy hearing Classic Piano Rags played on guitar. This was first done in the late 60s and early 70s by folk musicians. Some of these players didn't have great technique but still had a good feel for the music. Then later classical musicians tried their hand at it. Carlos Barbosa Lima created an album of Joplin rags. His tone was great and his technique was amazing but his arrangements were so complicated that he really lost the feel of Ragtime. More recently there have been other players who've made simpler arrangements that sound great. James Edwards is a classical guitar player who has recorded some Joplin. These feel more like Joshua Rifkin on piano. You have to play to the strengths of the instrument and not try to turn it into something else.