POST # 243 Tom Morello on his Influence

“Rather than being influenced by other guitarists, my playing in Rage was more influenced by hip-hop and techno DJs. The rhythmic freedom they have to drop sounds into a track. That’s what I aspired to.” - Tom Morello

( Tom Morello talks about his gear and technique. - Ed )

POST # 242 McCoy Tyner on Wes Montgomery's Funny Side

Wes had such a dry sense of humor. Sometimes he would say something funny, and then look at you with a straight face. After making you laugh, he'd laugh at you laughing. One time we crossed paths in Buffalo, New York; he was with his group and I was with Coltrane. Wes mentioned that he wasn't feeling well, so I offered to take him to a health food store. After one bite of that stuff, he asked, "My god, what is this?" A few years later at a little party in Oakland, he teased me by saying, "This guy told me he had something good to eat, and then he brought out what looked like a tree!" - McCoy Tyner

( McCoy Tyner, great pianist....not so great health practitioner. - Ed )

POST # 241 Jimi Hendrix on Life

I'm the one that has to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life, the way I want to. - Jimi Hendrix

You have to give people something to dream on. - Jimi Hendrix

( Charlie Hunter's take on a Hendrix classic...plus the sax player that plays like a guitarist! - Ed )

POST # 240 Johnny Smith on Soloing

I don’t consciously think about chords when I solo. A lot of people are into
modes, but I’m not. I recently heard a famous big band that had some outstanding young brass and woodwind players. But when it came time to solo,
they all played modes and sounded alike. They had a veteran tenor sax guy who played from the old school. When he soloed, it was like a breath of fresh air. You knew he was creating in his head instead of being locked into modes. - Johnny Smith

( You are what you practice ! Some old school swing , Count Basie, Freddie Green etc...laid back n swinging ! - Ed )

POST # 239 George Fullerton on Leo Fender's Guitar Playing Abilities

“No he never did. He’d never even let me show him one chord! “I don’t want to spend my time to learn it" were Leo's own words! He didn’t learn to even tune a guitar until electronic tuners came out! He had absolutely no desire for it!” - George Fullerton

( Building a guitar and playing the guitar are two different things I guess, still...pretty suprising! - Ed )

POST # 238 Pat Metheny on the Greatest Guitar Solo

The one I recommend most highly is Smokin' At The Half Note [Verve]. I can sing every note played by Wes, Wynton Kelly, Paul Chambers, and Jimmy Cobb. "If You Could See Me Now" is the greatest guitar solo ever played, including anything by Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson, or anybody else. It's the highest level attained on the guitar in terms of just dealing with music. I also love Down Here On The Ground and A Day In The Life [both A&M]. Those records illuminate another aspect of his improvisational talents: Stretching out and playing 50 choruses on a tune is one thing, but not many guys can take eight bars and make a perfect jewel of a statement. - Pat Metheny

( A very melodic and bluesy solo from Wes I love his sense of phrasing! - Ed )

POST # 237 Eddie Van Halen on Hot for Teacher

“I winged that one, if you listen to it, the timing changes in the middle of nowhere. We were in a room playing together and I kind of winked at the guys and said, ‘Okay, we’re changing now!’ Because I don’t count, I just follow my feelings. I tend to do a lot of things in threes and fives, instead of fours.

“My weird sense of time just drives my brother Alex nuts because he’s a drummer, so he has to count. But generally he’ll say, ‘Well, Ed, you did it in five again. If that’s the way you want it…’ But that’s not the way I want it, that’s just what feels right to me.” - Eddie Van Halen

( A fun clip! - Ed )

POST # 236 Sheryl Bailey on Being an Artist

Keep the faith and belief in what you are attempting to do. Being an artist in these times is more important than ever – we are the peace makers and innovators, and therefore not a part of the force of destruction and ignorance that is seeking to destroy human culture and life on this planet. Thanks for this wonderful opportunity to share my thoughts with you and your audience! - Sheryl Bailey

( Wonderful guitar duo between Sheryl Bailey and Jack Wilkins - Ed)

POST # 235 MERRY AXEMAS EVERYONE!

MERRY XMAS EVERYONE! from Guitar Eureka

POST # 234 Miles Davis on Playing like Yourself

Sometimes you have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself. - Miles Davis

( Miles playing All Blues - Ed )

POST # 233 Kevin Eubanks on Knowing and Reading Music

Since when does knowing music mean reading music? Those two things are not synonymous. When you listen to someone, why should you care whether they can read music or not? It's not necessary for those two things to exist in the same place when all your talking about is going to see a live performance or listening to a recording. So many people look for ways to drag people down to the lowest common denominator instead of appreciating what's there in its highest form. They're wasting their time on some very irrelevant things. - Kevin Eubanks

( Like Miles says..I'm going to play it first, then tell you what it is later :) - Ed )

POST # 232 Jim Marshall on Building the Bluesbreakers Amp for Clapton

Eric used to practice in my shop and he was one of the first guitarists to ask me to build a combo. He wanted one so it would be easy for him to put the whole thing in the boot (the English term for 'trunk') of his car. That's how the Bluesbreaker combo came about, actually. - Jim Marshall

( Amps the other half of rock'n'roll ! - Ed )

POST # 231 Yngwie Malmsteen on His Style

“ ‘Black Star’ and ‘Far Beyond the Sun’ from that album sort of sum up my style. There are fast runs, slow harmonies and some really nice arpeggios in them. I’ll probably play those songs until the day I die.” - Yngwie Malmsteen

(Yngwie giving his strat a workout - Ed )

POST # 230 Pablo Picasso on 'Doing' !

He can who thinks he can, and he can't who thinks he can't. This is an inexorable, indisputable law.


I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

( Will it to make it happen! (plus imagination)- Ed )

POST # 229 Sheryl Bailey on Learning to play Jazz

The most essential quality in a jazz musician is one’s sense of groove – time. Listening to a lot of jazz is also important to get the “sound of jazz” in your ear, and also, your heart. If you treat jazz as a science experiment, it will always sound like that – falling in love with the music is the key to open the door. That being lesson one – jazz challenges one to understand harmony and how harmony relates to melody. I’m a bit fanatical about harmonic clarity – meaning, really making the changes clear in your melodic line. A great line is one that can stand on it’s own, and the harmony accompanying it is clearly understood. Bach and Bebop are based on the same principles. The Bach Inventions are simply melodic lines that generate harmony – that’s what the jazz line is all about. - Sheryl Bailey

( Sheryl Bailey....very coool ! Digging that Benson / Wes vibe :)- Ed )

POST # 228 More Sonny Rollins on Cliches

There’s something else that Miles hated: cliché people. These are some of the best artists in the world who have tremendous skill, but they play clichés. A cliché is something which is proven to be effective, but if you just use clichés, it’s a different type of playing. It’s not really the height of jazz improvisation, it’s not where I want to be anyway. Look, I don’t put any kind of playing down, certainly there are some great players who play clichés [who] I admire. Because it takes a lot of skill to play clichés in an effective way. But it’s not—Miles and I used to talk about this all the time—it’s not the optimum. It’s a different way of playing, but it’s not the way I want to play. It’s not the way other people play that I look to, these people in the firmament played. - Sonny Rollins

( I started to learned to play jazz by learning a few cliches, few bebop ii V patterns, transcribing etc but it did occur to me one day that... am I just really learning heaps of licks so that when I go to a jam session I can 'show off' my licks? Whats the point of that!! Its good from a technical point of view and learning the language of jazz but it feels somehow hollow to me after a while..Wayne Krantz talk about a similar thing from the video below. - Ed )

POST # 227 Sonny Rollins on Cliches vs Improvisation

Cliché playing may be okay to a point, and maybe you learn by playing clichés, but then you throw all of that stuff aside. It’s just like when I am working a piece of music, I will study the music, I will learn the music. Maybe that’s what I meant when I said there is some kind of formal aspect to this, so I learn the melody, the chord progression, in preparation for my instrumental improvisation.

Now when I improvise after learning formally these things, I forget them. I don’t go up on the stage and think of them. I forget them and that’s where the creativity comes in. That little area is quite mysterious. Music is magical, we all know that, and that area where you create and your subconscious is at work and you don’t know what you’re playing. Often I play things—if I’m in the right groove—I’ll play things where I surprise myself. Those are things that are deep in my subconscious, and they come out during my improvisation, but they are not things I went into the song thinking about. They are things I hear, and they come out. - Sonny Rollins

( The ever playful Sonny Rollins doing St Thomas. - Ed )