Lots'a Blues

Saw B.B.King in concert last weekend at the Red Robinson Show Theatre [great venue].  I had seen B.B.King in concert once before, about ten years back, on his 75th birthday.  So here he is now at 85, still doing 250 shows a year.  That's stamina!  The show was good.  The band was decent, and Mr. King's voice is still incredibly strong.  I even managed to stay awake for the whole show, despite having flown home from Italy that afternoon.

I recently bought Eric Clapton's newest album, Clapton.  Initially I liked it a lot.  It's kind of gentle... a mature sort of blues that's not rushed.  I'm less sure it's going to become a favourite for me.  It's very solid, but perhaps short of great.  I'll keep playing it and see if it grows on me more.  So far I'd give it about 7/10.

Less bluesy, I also bought Joe Satriani's new one, Black Swans and Wormhole Wizards. It's actually quite a nice album.  I haven't previously owned one of his albums, though I did buy one track on iTunes last year.  I think this new album is nicely evolutionary, while staying pretty true to the feel of the Surfing with the Alien stuff. This one so far rates 8/10 for me.

The best deal of the year was my purchase of Django Reinhardt's Greatest Hits album.  71 tracks of really pleasant music for $5.99.  Much as everyone seems to refer to him as a guitar influence, I hadn't consciously heard his music up 'till now.  I was happy to see that some of the tracks also have Stéphane Grappelli on violin, who I quite like.

Not so much bluesy, but I purchased Marcus Miller's A Night in Monte Carlo, partly because it contained a couple of Miles Davis tunes I really like.  That then convinced me to finally pony up and buy Miles Davis' Tutu album as well.  The Marcus Miller live album is good.  Solid and enjoyable but not spectacular.  I think the guy's probably a genius in the studio... harder to bring others into the picture live -- 7/10.  The Miles Davis album is really really good, and makes me kick myself for not buying it 20 years ago when I first wondered about it.  I have owned Miles' Amandla album since about 1989... didn't realize Marcus Miller was such a strong influence on that album at the time.  But I love that album and Tutu is similar enough to be absolutely great as well -- 10/10.

Finally, two more blues albums I bought earlier this year:

Steve Miller's newest album Bingo! is pretty solid.  It's enjoyable bluesfest in that fine tradition, and Miller (Steve) does a very good job in this genre.  Like most, I haven't followed his career and mostly know him from the great stuff in the 70s like Fly Like an Eagle.  This album is nice to listen to, contains some solid guitar playing, but I think it's overly memorable for me.  I'll give it 7/10.

Joe Bonamassa's Black Rock is one that's staying with me.  There are a couple of songs on there that are really great, and the rest is very solid and enjoyable.  Good blues-based stuff, but a little less predictable/standard than many blues albums, which increased my enjoyment.  I don't own any of Joe's earlier work, but this one is really great, and I'll be following him in the future.  I keep hoping he'll come to Vancouver for a show, but it doesn't look like he's heading this way soon.  I'll give Black Rock a 8/10.

Sharing my Music

I started this web site partly because I wanted a place to put up some of my music.  Share it with friends and family, and discuss the process of making music.  I'm not playing in a group setting right now, so it's essentially all me.

Anyway, my wife suggested that I should check out ReverbNation, where one of her professional musician friends keeps a page.  I had been looking for a player widget, and figured this might give me what I was after, so I signed up as http://reverbnation.com/davekell.

The first tune I put up there is a simple instrumental blues tune:

My friend Barry suggested I should try to throw a bit of bass into the track to see what happens. That's the kind of dialogue I was looking to encourage here, so I figured I'll throw it out as an opening tease.  And I guess one of these days I'll have to pull out the bass and see what I can do to the track.

Meantime, I'd welcome your comments.  Thanks for dropping by!

I think I'm a Gibson Guy... am I really a Fender guy?

It seems that in the world of guitar players, at least in the electric guitar circles, the majority of people either fall into the Fender camp, or the Gibson camp.  Somehow the single coil, ringing tones of the Fender guitars, and maybe their unique curves are a major attraction for a lot of players.  And for the majority of those who don't feel that way, the lines and grinding tones of the Gibson electrics appeal greatly.  I have read a number of comments that agree with my own feeling that somehow one camp or the other feels natural to most players, and that few are really comfortable with a foot in both pools.

It seems that perhaps I don't really know what I am.  I think of myself one way, very clearly sitting in the Gibson camp.  And yet, as a scientific person, I'm compelled to examine the evidence, which is really not compellingly supporting the Gibson position.

First off, I think of myself as an electric guitar guy.  I have a few different electric guitars around the house.  I also have some acoustics, but then who doesn't?  It's just a part of being a guitar player, isn't it?

Those darned acoustics

In terms of acoustics, I don't really long for either Fender or Gibson guitars.  Neither seems particularly interesting to me, and I'd rather yearn for a Martin, perhaps.  Though overall I'm pretty happy with my little fleet of mid-priced and cheaper acoustics, like the Luna Fauna Dolphin and particularly my Ovation CC 047 mentioned in earlier posts.  While I'm on the subject, though, I have to comment that I'm pretty disappointed that both Fender and Gibson seem to lean more on their history and show pretty minimal evolution towards the future of the guitar.  That behaviour seems likely to be risky in the long run.  Luna is a great example of taking a new direction [in this case graphic Art] and mixing it with the historical art of lutherie.

And the reality of my existence is that in fact I play acoustic guitar the vast majority of the time when I practice.  They're handy, sound nice without having to plug them in somewhere, and they're relatively nonintrusive to the rest of the family.  Since I tend to play in the living room or in my bedroom while my wife is reading, this seems like a reasonable approach.  But still, I think of myself as an electric guitar player.

My huge Gibson collection

OK, so I think of myself on the electric side as a Gibson style guy.  True, I think the Les Paul guitars are a great shape, so truly pleasing to the eye.  Even similarly styled guitars from other manufacturers catch my eye.  And yes, I'm a humbucker guy.  The Les Paul neck scale seems right for me, though I'm really not that picky about neck cross-section, and enjoy playing pretty much any neck [I'm no shredder].

I don't own a Les Paul.  Not even an Epiphone one, though I did rent a left-handed Epi Les Paul junior for my daughter for a few months, until she decided she didn't want to be a guitar player [still working on her].  And yeah, if it'd been right handed, I'd have just bought it so I could have one.

I do own a classic Les Paul copy, though.  It's a '70s El Degas black beauty (at left).  Well, not quite so beautiful as it probably was before I ever owned it, but still, it's just about like a Les Paul, and therefore I'm a Gibson guy.

We do have one Gibson guitar in the house.  It's my wife's, and is an Epiphone DOT Studio.  This semi-hollow body electric wasn't really the guitar beauty of my dreams, as I'm really a solid-body guy at heart.  But this budget-minded version of the famous Gibson ES-335 is glorious to play, and very flexible in tone.  I've used it on a number of private recordings doing things I wouldn't have expected from such a creature, and it is very nice to play.

I do have another El Degas, which is a SG Bass copy in bad shape.  Guess that's one more for the Gibson camp, but I don't really think about it since the thing is in such bad shape it just rests comfortably in an old cardboard guitar case in the basement.

I don't have any other gibson gear.

I'm not really a Fender guy, but...

So now it comes down to my reality check.  I'm a Gibson guy, right?  Sure, many of us can't really justify the big bucks for a genuine Gibson Les Paul, but that doesn't make us fall into the opposite camp.  But when I look around my home, I start to wonder who's side I'm really on.

My first electric guitar was a (pretty poor) Telecaster copy.  I have to tell you that I truly celebrated when I managed to buy the El Degas Les Paul from a fellow bandmate in high school.  I finally was free of that dreadful twangy cream-coloured Telemonstrosity.  In those days I played a nice 50W Marshall half-stack amplifier, and there wasn't a thing more I needed in the world of music.

But since becoming an adult,  I seem to accidentally be accumulating Fender stuff, and I'm finding it distressing.  After all, I'm a Gibson guy.

It started innocuously enough, when I tried to sell a keyboard on consignment via a local music shop.  They somehow screwed up the deal, and ended up giving me a Fender M-80 guitar amplifier instead of my money, as the keyboard had disappeared.  Didn't bother me much, since my beloved Marshall had long since developed legs and left the scene, and I didn't have an amp at all.

Then a few years ago when I bought the Ovation guitar, I also picked up a used Mexican Fender Jazz Bass.  Of course Fender basses are awesome, and therefore this didn't contravene my I'm a Gibson guy thing.  Too bad the shape of it is kind of curly headed etc. but it's a pretty nice bass to play, and it's got humbucking pickups, so it's already halfway out of the Fender school in my mind.

Well then of course I didn't have a bass amplifier, so I ended up getting myself a Fender Rumble 100 amp to go with the Jazz Bass.  Hmm, there seems to be a bit of a trend going there.

The piece de resistance came early in 2009 when I finally decided I need to step up and buy myself a quality electric guitar.  These mid-priced guitars have been pretty good, but I figured I deserve one really nice guitar.  I've had a thing for the Gibson Flying V since playing one in high school, but that clearly wasn't really the sort of thing I wanted.  I wanted something flexible that I could use for a wide variety of styles, since there's no way I'd be buying another guitar this nice.  From the beginning, I really figured I would end up with a Les Paul.  The Fender Strats and Teles are really not my thing.   I barely even picked up a Strat in the guitar store.  But I figured I'd take my time and look at the various options before settling on one or another of the Les Paul models.  I liked a couple of the Paul Reid Smith guitars, but most of them didn't feel right in my hands.

In the end, the timing was just right that there was a new guitar on the block, painstakingly designed by an idol of mine in conjunction with (of all outfits) the Fender Custom Shop.  It was a guitar that just sounded "right" for my tastes from the first I read about it.  Relatively light [I was concerned about how heavy most of the Les Pauls seemed to be], nice scale length, comfortable neck, great balance, a great quality set of humbuckers and all the other "Les Paul" kind of things that I really wanted.  But it was definitely not a Les Paul in looks, and most concerning for me was a Fender built guitar.  And I just had to have it.

So in the end, the stallion in my guitar stable is built by Fender.  And regardless of another name on the headstock, it's just definitely not, quite, a Gibson.  And perhaps that's the only thing that's not right about that sweet guitar, because it sure plays nice.

Guess I'll go play my acoustic some more.

Cheers

Dave

Another Jazz Festival Gone

Yesterday marked the close of the 2010 Vancouver International Jazz Festival.  I have been attending a few select shows from the festival pretty regularly for years, and always enjoy it.  I'm impressed that the organizers, the Coastal Jazz and Blues Society, have really turned this into an international-level festival.  Not living right in Vancouver, I tend to only hit a few specific big-name shows most years.

This year's shows for us included George Benson and Nikki Yanofsky.  Or at least those were the names that caused me to buy the tickets.  Both shows were at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, and our seats for both were in the front 10 rows or so, centre section.  Therein lies what I think must be the best secret of the Jazz festival... if you donate a certain amount to the Coastal Jazz organization, the perks of being a Jazz Friend include access to awesome seats to major shows.  My experience last year was that I was able to get 5th row tickets to shows that were virtually sold out, and I got them only a few weeks before the festival.  It seems to me if you're going to blow a bunch of money on expensive shows, the extra $100 to ensure you get really good seats for the shows you want is well worth it.

George Benson

The George Benson show was opened by Kellylee Evans.  I wasn't really familiar with her, but really enjoyed her set.  Kellylee's singing was solid, but not spectacular, and I enjoyed her stage presence.  Her band was very good, particularly the guitarist, Dave Thompson.

George Benson's performance was really solid.  I think the audience really enjoyed it, and my wife did as well.  I enjoyed it, but wouldn't rank it in the top 10 shows I've ever seen.  I'm sure part of my problem was jet lag, having returned from the UK the previous day.  Some of my dissatisfaction was probably just his stage presence... it felt to me like Benson was acting like Tom Jones, as if he's a sexy fellow that the ladies are swooning over.  I wasn't swooning.

Benson's playing was really solid, though I found his style surprisingly limited in variation.  I guess as with most of us, he seems to play a specific style very well, but doesn't stray far off that... or perhaps that's driven by where he's had most commercial success.  The set included all the most popular of his songs, I think.  I'm not a major fan, having his Breezin album but no others.  I liked his Ibanez guitar... it looked good and sounded pretty excellent through most of the night, though I found the tone a bit harsh at times.  Maybe we were too close to the stage... I wondered if the sound might be a bit more balanced farther back in the room.

Nikki Yanofsky

The Nikki Yanofsky show was opened by John Pizzarelli.  I wouldn't have known he was the opening act from the tickets, which showed his name in large type, and hers in smaller text below it.  Regardless, unlike last year, I bought the tickets for Nikki this time.  At last year's jazz festival, I bought tickets to see Michael Kaeshamer, and the then-unknown-to-me Nikki was on the bill... in that case he opened as well, so perhaps she was much bigger in the jazz world than I realized.  She blew me away last year, so I had to return.

I wasn't familiar with John Pizzarelli before the show, though his name was vaguely familiar.  I really enjoyed his set.  He's a fun, entertaining showman, with a really nice crooner voice, and tasty and interesting jazz guitar licks played really well.  The repertoire was mostly jazz standards, particularly from the Gershwin brothers.  Overall, a really fun set, reminiscent of a great set in a smaller jazz club.  The big room was completely silent and the set felt very intimate.  The rest of the band was very solid, all exceptional players.  I most enjoyed pianist Larry Fuller, who really ripped up the keys, though the tone on the Steinway grand piano was pretty weak in the bass end.

Nikki Yanofsky's set was a bit delayed due to technical problems, apparently with the (same) piano.  In the end I have to wonder if they really never got the miking right on the piano, as we couldn't hear it very well in the second set either.

Nikki came bouncing onto the stage in her very girlish way (she's only 16), and proceeded to wow us with her incredible voice.  Her repertoire of jazz standards was displayed beautifully... her love of jazz music is clearly evident throughout, and was pretty much the only thing on her debut album Ella... Of Thee I Swing.  This year she also has introduced some non-jazz numbers, as found on her new disk Nikki, which also re-recorded a number of the jazz standards on the first album.

There were two songs in the set that Nikki introduced as having been (co-)written by her, and both surprised me in that they were perhaps the most catchy and enjoyable songs on her new album.  I hadn't realized they were her own creations [I really miss having liner notes with on-line purchases, though I see they're starting to happen finally].  Both of these songs were really great live... in fact her live performance is pretty similar to the recorded thing, but she's also fun to watch.

A couple of songs on the new album are more in the country style.  I really didn't enjoy them as much, probably because that's just not my favourite music style.  The funny thing is that Nikki's voice is very well suited to country music, and since that genre is much more lucrative than jazz, I could see her doing very well there.  She has a couple of songs a bit more in the pop genre, and they didn't really do much for me... it just doesn't show off the amazing voice the way that jazz does.

Finally, I will note that I was a Granville Island yesterday and happened upon one of the Jazz festival outdoor free venues.   There was a great, young electric jazz ensemble [apparently Ethereal Quartet] playing, and they were really great.  I didn't get to hear enough of it, but it reiterated to me what the festival is really about... exposing people to jazz, and exposing up and coming jazz musicians to new audiences.  What a great festival... I'm really glad to live in a place with such a rich music environment.

Listening - Albums vs. Individual Tracks

I've been listening to a number of music albums from my collection lately. I'm finding it surprising that this would be "news", frankly, bacause for most of my life that was the main way I listened to music.

I listen almost entirely on my iPod [iPhone], and have primarily listened in a random shuffle mode for the past number of years. I have pretty eclectic music tastes, and find the random track selection pretty interesting.

However, recently I've been listening to a lot of music "by the album", as it were. And I've really been enjoying it. I think it started because I was finding that new albums I'd purchased were getting little listening time, and I noticed I wasn't gaining the level of familiarity/affinity that I used to have with albums I had purchased.

The net result has been a closer tie to some of the music in my collection.

A good example might be John Mayer's latest album "Battle Studies". My first listen after buying the album a few months back concluded that it had a number of pleasant tunes, some interesting guitar tones, and a few catchy lyrics. I've tended to think of Mayer as a bit "poppy" for me to enjoy in quantity, though I really like his sound. But the more I listen to this album, the more I have enjoyed it. I'm not a lyrics guy, really, yet many of the songs have left an imprint on me with their honesty and sarcasm. There's some really nice guitar work on here too, which is perhaps more subtle than some earlier albums. Overall a really good listen. But I probably wouldn't have noticed listening only to a song here or there.

I read that Roger Waters wouldn't allow music from Pink Floyd's "The Wall" to be sold as individual tracks, and I can now better appreciate that opinion. I have my favorite tracks off that album, but they really made their impression on me originally in the context of the whole.

I've also been reading about marketing approaches to better sell music lately, and I'm now more of the opinion that albums may have a lasting place in music than I felt a few months back.

Anyway, perhaps I'll just sit back now and listen to Dark Side of the Moon once more. There's a certain comfort in letting yourself go in a piece of really familiar music. G'night!