Stuck in the past, or process of re-integration?

It started out innocently enough. I realized that when I'm on the treadmill I would have a better workout if I listened to 70's hard rock than if I listened to jazz or classical music. Nothing surprising there. Certainly Johm Bonham or Cozy Powell will give you a more visceral push than Beethoven or "Birth of the Cool". Oh, I tried listening to Coltrane with Elvin, or Miles with Tony. Visceral as they may be, the music was too good! I would stop and listen, I wouldn't get that butt-whipping I needed to keep going. This led me (or gave me a good excuse) to build up a library of the type of rock I was musically weaned on. It started with Zep's "How the West Was Won" and quickly progressed through a fair sized library of Thin Lizzy, Rainbow and UFO. (Pat Travers, too. But again, there's too much musical information to make for a good workout - I tend to pay too much attention to the music). I could justify this easily - listening to the same thing would get old after a few weeks, and buying a few used CD's for 8 or 10 bucks was cheaper than a months membership in a gym.

But then something unforseen started to take place. I started to undertake a mild reevaluation of this music. Nothing serious, just an appreciation for a kick-ass rock-n-roll band. Real musicians playing real instruments in real time.

It also coincided with a growing interest in Miles' late 60's - early 70's fusion, and how he had been influenced in large part by Jimi Hendrix. This pointed me back towards Jimi, and Cream (an early love), and the early Jeff Beck Group. Along with Sly and the Family Stone and James Brown.

It wasn't simply nostalgia. I had to admit that I liked this music. I genuinely liked listening to it. It was becoming, quite often, my listening of choice. Not just on the treadmill, or in the car. I was digging this old stuff.

Now I come to an interesting point. Do I like it because of what it meant to me? Or do I really appreciate it on its musical merits? Well, some of it I would bet because it triggers off - not just memories, but the entire range of feelings and senses of simpler times. But most of it is appreciation for simple, honest music. And some great guitar playing.

So what do I do with this? It seems that for years I tried to distance myself from the music I grew up playing. But now I'm forced - well, maybe not forced, but compelled - to confront it. Do I try to submerge these things? Shove them back into the recesses of my musical personality? Or do I undertake a new kind of integration? Do I filter these early influences through all that I've learned and experienced in the subsequent years?

It seems that I've decieded on the re-intergration approach. As I said, I don't think it's simply a longing for my lost youth. I don't suddenly want to be rock star when I grow up again. But I'm no longer averse to showing some rock influences in my jazz playing. My jazz has always been too rock for some, my rock too jazz for others. I'm far too old to worry about it anymore, and simply want to play honest music.

When I recorded my first CD I was very conscious of staying well within the mainstream jazz guitar sound tradition. But even then I got dissed by "Just Jazz Guitar" magazine as showing too much of a Scofield or Stern influence (even though I consider them pretty mainstream and in the tradition. Or of their own tradition. I've been listening to them both since I was 17 or 18, so they've been around most of my musical life). Well, boys, you ain't seen nothin' yet! I tried to eliminate vibrato, no string bends, few simple blues licks. I tried to earn some be-bop stripes. And it still wasn't enough.

Well, now I'm ready to embrace everything I find appealing in guitar playing. Hendrix' elemental power and primal energy, Cream's willingness to dive into the deep end improvisationally (which is propably where I got my taste for improvised music), Albert King's wringing a string bend for everything it's worth, Larry Carlton's perfect phrasing and great legato sound, Schenker's extended rock vocabulary and distinctive vibrato, Blackmore's manic-ness (no one can get a stranglehold on a single note like him), McLaughlin's "play like it's your last day on earth" ethos, Jeff Beck's melodic quirkiness, love of rude noises and his absolute mastery of electric guitar textures. I'm going to throw it all into the pot and see how it makes the stew taste.

Really, anything that can add to your expressive potential can only be a good thing. Simply being conscious of my vibrato, and using different types on different notes, adds so much human-ness to the guitar, gives it a more vocal quality. I realized that many of the jazz players I love (like Ed Bickert and Jim Hall) make ample use of different types of vibratos, so the "rule" about not using vibrato is straight ahead jazz guitar is bullshit anyway.

So, we're gonna open the late 70's floodgates and see what spills out. Should make for an interesting ride.