The Not-So-Incredible Jazz-Wannabe Rock Guitar Of Dougie

The Not-So-Incredible Jazz-Wannabe Rock Guitar Of Dougie

01.26.07 (1:25 pm)   [edit]
Still obsessed with that Wes Montgomery box set, and I've been messing around with ideas sourced from him for myself, though I'm not comfortable yet to really pull this shit off onstage other than some standard octave stuff that everyone knows is Wes-derived.

When I lived in Indianapolis (where Wes was born and died and did most of his gigging, working as a welder by day and playing tiny clubs at night) I found the park named after him. Small and inauspicious, but I understand there used to be quite a few jazz concerts done there.

Today I was reading up on him and found a link to Find A Grave, which I've used in my genealogy. I now know where Wes is buried, and I intend to go there on my way back home Sunday. It's not that far from where I lived last year, near Keystone and Raymond on the south side of town.

I found my voice on the bass years ago, now it's just a matter of tweaking that voice and learning some new words.

But on guitar, my voice has only been developed as a rhythm player. I've got some nice ideas for that kind of thing, certainly a few more than a most rock guys if not nearly as many as the people I stole them from.

As a soloist, I've only gone through short periods of taking it seriously, and the only guy who I really spent time studying was David Gilmour, still one of my favorites. But I went away from that for years and now I can't pull out entire Gilmour solos note-for-note like I could a few years ago, though I know it would only take a few days work to do so if I took the time, time I'm now spending on other things.

Like stealing OTHER people's licks and working out my own ideas. I seriously doubt I will ever be a "shredder', my right hand has never shown any indication of being built for that. I'm left-handed, though I play right handed, and I know that's helped my facility on the neck a bit (though again, it's gone towards chords and not single-line stuff, and I'm hardly the best with that hand either) but I'm simply not a fast player, and my picking technique has never been great. I sound pretty fucking good on bass. I KNOW I'm a damn good bass player. On guitar I question myself every time I pick it up.

My goal for the coming year is to incorporate more of the music I genuinely find inspiring into the music I play out every weekend. Right now I play a lot of stock blues/rock licks with a smattering of other things, and the only time I really go off that at length is the extended soloing I do on Roadhouse Blues, which I've talked about before. A nice big wide-open canvas of the key of E-demented for my adventures in trying to play weird without sounding like an idiot. I usually pull it off, which is nice.

My favorite rock players are guys like Zappa and Keneally and Fripp, who are so far out of the normal boundaries of rock guitar to hardly be considered as such. Or a guy like Neil Young, who has zero chops and is very MUCH a rock player, but a really noisy and soulful one. Or David Gilmour, who exhibits grace under pressure in a way I could never do without simply playing his licks.

Or Hendrix, who is becoming a much stronger influence all the time. The levels of interest in Hendrix's music go well beyond what he seems to be known for. There's a depth and understanding in that music I find awe-inspiring. His technique was hardly perfect either, but his ideas were killer, his sounds were ungodly, and his attitude - full of balls and jizz and funk and angst - is something I aspire to far more than the ability to play perfect up-and-down 64th notes. That shit is fun to listen to as well sometimes, but it's never mattered to me as much as what's BEHIND the notes a guy plays. Hendrix had volumes of content behind his. OK, he also didn't tune up often enough. Fuck it. Small price to pay, I think.

I have a lot of interest in certain jazz/fusion players - Metheny, Holdsworth, McLaughlin, DiMeola, etc - but today I sit back and think of the history of the instrument and feel the need to go back to the source, just as I've always felt with rock guitar. We wouldn't be here without guys like Hendrix, or George Harrison, or Chuck Berry.

Or Wes Montgomery.

I've got a lot of listening and learning to do in my new role. I'm fucking thrilled to do it. Starting my whole life over is a challenge now brought forth in microcosm by the challenge of taking up a new musical life.

"A challenge brought forth in microcosm"??? Where do I get this pretentious horseshit? Christ, somebody hand me a dick joke and a couple bad white-boy blues licks. This shit is getting deep.

Love,
Dougie