BB King and guitar music

     Today was a long day at work but on my lunch break I turned on PBS and there was a BB King documentary on. It was fitting for me because lately I've been listening to a lot of great guitar music. And in addition, its black history month, and who better to celebrate than BB King. We just lost him recently in 2015, he's safe, and he just might have been the greatest blues musician of all time.
     What I really like about BB is his guitar playing. His vibrato sings so sweetly and his guitar tone is so light, smooth, and jazzy. He's the most jazzified blues guitarist I've ever heard. He adds a lot of chromatic notes into his lines and its more interesting stuff than what other blues guitarists were doing. It sounds like BB listened to a lot of jazz at some point. For one thing he plays a semi-hollow body Gibson guitar and that gives him a big round tone that is more typical for a modal jazzer than a blues man. It was great to see a documentary detailing all of BB's accomplishments and seeing that his memory is still with us. Long live the King!
     Lately, I've been listening to a lot of great guitar music. John McLaughlin, Eric Johnson, and Robben Ford. This guy that comes to my work also told me to check out Mark Knofler's live version of Sultans of Swing .I'll have to check that out sometime but I've heard that Knofler is a phenomenal guitar player. I gotta say that I really dig Robben Ford's guitar style. He seems jazzy yet he plays such simple sounding stuff at the same time. Its a very interesting style where he never overplays. He's an interesting picker and at one point early in his career he played with Miles Davis. Listening to John McLaughlin has been a blast. I heard a while back that he had an album called Black Light that just came out but I haven't gotten it yet. I will get it because I'm tired of just listening to stuff on youtube, pandora, and soundcloud. I need new albums! I've already got a super big collection full of great stuff (mostly jazz, rock, and metal) and it wouldn't hurt to get more.
     In addition to guitar music, I've been listening to a lot of game music. I love the music selection from Smash 4, its just awesome! I particularly love the music from Metroid, Fire Emblem, Midgar stage, Legend of Zelda, Mario Bros themes, and Dream Land stage theme. I love it all really haha. I really like the idea of playing video game songs and turning them into jazz standards with interesting chord changes and voicings. Think of how awesome that would be to play that live!  Music has always been that one constant in my life. As Frank Zappa said,"music is the best."

The Mike Stern and Eric Johnson concert

   

     Last Sunday I saw Mike Stern and Eric Johnson at the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills. It was a fantastic show with plenty of great musicianship from everyone including bass and drums. It was Mike Stern on guitar, Eric Johnson on guitar, Anton Fig on drums, and a bassist named Chris Maresh. All of them are quite well known by musicians except the bass player.
     They opened the show up with a slow mellow jam and everything just went up from there. Mike Stern, who played with Miles Davis is the more jazz oriented guitar player while Eric Johnson favors a much faster rapid rock style of guitar playing. In some ways they don't quite mesh but somehow they complement each other in an interesting way. They all took solos on every song that was long and full of tasty licks. Anton Fig's drumming is quite incredible. He's a powerhouse but also capable of light touches here and there for the slow stuff.
     After a while you hear some of the same patterns and licks from both guitarists. Eventually they run out of ideas and they start to recollect the old ones and do variations on it like great jazz musicians. Even though Johnson is a rock guy you get the feeling that this is a jazz gig your at, not a rock gig at all, although there are great rock and funk type moments.
     The best part of the show for me was when the shred guitar hero Paul Gilbert came out and played an extended solo on one of the tunes. Paul can't play like Stern or Johnson but his playing kind of hits home in a much simpler way. He doesn't swing and he doesn't have complicated licks. He just has a soulful rock style and he's great. Paul is a very tall skinny guy and looks very much the rock guitar god with his beard and red Ibanez guitar. He's one of my favorite guitar players ever and him being there kind of made my night. Also, one of my friends was there watching the whole show with me and we had a great time. Even though he isn't a musician, he could really dig and feel the music. Definitely a show to see if you ever get the chance.