searing solo

inspired by stap isi’s recent post of the human instinct jam that kicked my ass straight into next week, i decided to post a few guitar tracks that fry my eggroll.

obvious crank-yanking and spinal tap jokes aside, great guitar solos are few and far between these days. the recent dominance of the beat in pop music had nearly driven the guitar solo to extinction. and the many hours once devoted by music geeks dissecting the structure of solos by the likes of page, hendrix, or van halen in hushed reverential tone are now reserved for the turntable acrobatics of a cut, koala, or q-bert.

a great guitar solo transcends the song. a song allows interpretation and, depending on artistic temperament and intention, could reveal further insight into both the music and the musician. a guitar solo, or any solo for that matter, is more inscrutable; one can ape it note-for-note, like countless wannabes screeching out “stairways to heaven” or “ain’t talking ‘bout love” in cover bands, without ever really capturing the personality and verve of the original. in other words, it’s not about what but how the notes were played.

when i went through my heavy metal “phase” as a teenager, my fixation was so extreme that i would judge the worthiness of a song, an album, even a band by the guitar solos. songwriting, vocal performance and production meant nothing to me if the solos weren’t tight. to this day, i still have a soft spot for scorpions, judas priest, and black sabbeth. over time, however, i learned to drill down to the voice behind the solo.

one of the first was santana. i couldn’t get enough of the distinctive supple tone of his yamaha and have caught him live countless times over the years, from large festivals to noon concerts at lower sproul. of his wildly uneven output over the years, one remains my all-time fave, the jazzy “swing of delight” (columbia, 1980), one of his sri chinmoy-influenced devadip releases. joined by heavy-hitters like herbie hancock, wayne shorter, ron carter and tony williams, it is unmistakably santana, in spite of the stylistic departure, and as tracks like “gardenia” and the alex north-penned “theme from spartacus” attest, features some of his most luminous fretwork.

it took me a minute to get al dimeola after i first got into return to forever, partly because the cluttered “fusion” arrangements muted his performance, and partly because he had to compete for attention with virtuosos like stanley clarke and chick corea. never the most sensitive player, he does make up for the lack of nuance with sheer speed and technical brilliance. “flight over rio”, the lead track from his breakthrough release “elegant gypsy” (cbs, 1977), is a fine showcase of his prowess, with juicy keys by jan hammer to boot, once you get past some of the fusion clichés.

i released gary lucas’ cover of dollar brand’s “bra joe from Kilimanjaro” as part of a live ep recorded at amsterdam’s paradiso around 1996. i never liked him much but i’ve always loved his music. every time i hear the way he makes his guitar screams, weeps and reveals unearthly tones and textures, i’m further reminded of the incongruence between and man and the music.

shanna’s “do me boy” (d-vision, 1996) would be another disposable piece of italo-disco except for the mindfuck solo that comes out of nowhere on the father of sound dub mix. i came across it while working for an italian distributor years ago. it sold maybe 2 copies but drove the boriquas in the office into a disco frenzy, i was never sure why. the way the guitar sits uncomfortably in the groove and eventually gives way to just the groove always felt melancholic to me.

Posted by cellpharmer at July 30, 2005 07:25 AM