Heuristic Music

This instalment of Guitarists You Should Hear features John McLaughlin, one of the most influential guitarists in improvised music over the last 40 years.

Please note: Most of the album titles in this post are links to the iTunes Store and will not work if you have not installed iTunes.

Early Career

A native of England, he got his start as a jazz and session guitarist on the London music scene during the 1960s. In 1969, he recorded the album Extrapolation with saxophonist John Surman, bassist Brian Odges, and drummer Tony Oxley, which established him as a virtuoso improviser.

Here is Binky’s Beam from the album Extrapolation:

McLaughlin moved to the United States later in 1969 to join drummer Tony Williams‘ band Lifetime. He appeared on the album Turn it Over, which also featured bassist/singer Jack Bruce (formerly of Cream) and organist Larry Young.

Vuelta Abajo from the Tony Williams Lifetime album Turn it Over:

Read more…

The music page has been completely rebuilt and now features SoundCloud players. Here are a few single tracks that you can stream or download for free:

This is the first instalment of a regular series called Guitarists You Should Hear. Every week or so, I’ll post videos and links for a different guitarist. Expect a mix of acknowledged legends, great overlooked players and up-and-coming talent.

Bill Frisell:

I’m kicking off Guitarists You Should Hear with one of my favourite players, Bill Frisell. Frisell is greatly admired in jazz and improvised music circles for his ability to maintain a unique, personal sound in almost any style of music. Over the course of his 30+ year career, he has ranged from jazz to bluegrass, world music, film scores, and even hardcore punk (with John Zorn‘s Naked City band). Frisell has performed and recorded with a long list of musicians, and was featured on Norah Jones‘ breakthrough 2005 hit Come Away With Me.

Video:

Here is Bill Frisell appearing on the NBC show Night Music in the late 1980s…

…and in a 2004 solo performance (with looping delay pedals) on Bravo…

Links:

Official site
Wikipedia
iTunes Store

Since November 18, 2008, I have been using a database to keep track of what each of my students is working on. One of the side benefits of this is that I can also see how many lessons I taught during any time period.

A year less one week has passed since I started the database, and I have already logged 1229 lessons. Multiply by 7 years of independent teaching, then subtract a year to compensate for the slow first few years, and we get 7374 lessons, which I’ll average out to 7000.

That’s a lot of teaching, and haven’t counted the 3000+ lessons I taught back when I worked for a few of the studios in Oakville…

Update: The final tally for the year (November 18 2008 to November 17 2009) was 1255 lessons.