Contemporary Electric Guitarists playing Jazz?

[Tenor Freak]

I've been listening a lot to guitarists lately. I'm now looking for suggestions for names of electric guitarists now playing in jazz, other than the usual Frisell, Scofield, etc. Thanks.

[Richard Barrett]

I've been listening a lot to guitarists lately. I'm now looking for suggestions for names of electric guitarists now playing in jazz, other than the usual Frisell, Scofield, etc. Thanks.

Check out Joel Bell. https://www.joelbell.co.uk/home

[Ian Thumwood]

Bruce

The two contemporary guitarists who have impressed me recently have been Mary Halvorson and Jeff Parker but I think you need to exercise caution as some of their discs are better than others. I would really recommend Halvorson's "illusionary Sea" where you can hear the influence of Philip Catherine who was her teacher. She is also really good on the Tomeka Reid quartet album. Parker is more problematic as I think his best stuff is on other people's albums with Nicole Mitchell's "Awakening" being essential.

For me, the problem with guitar players is that so many these days seem to come out of the Frisell or Scofield school such as players like Ben Monder who never really register with me as having their own personality. It is nice to hear something which is totally difference and this is why I love Sonny Sharrock's "Ask the ages" which is akin to Jimi Hendrix meeting John Coltrane even if the record was recorded mid 1990's.

I wonder is anyone has heard the new Pat Martino record which is getting some seriously impressive reviews despite the lack of familiar names ? The album keeps cropping up in the best of 2017 lists.

[Ian Thumwood]

Should have added Lionel Loueke to the list. I saw him with Herbie this year and he was amazing. I think that Loueke really thinks outside of the box and can go toe-to-toe with Hancock when it comes to harmonic twists and turns. For my money, no one lese plays quite like him. The best CD I have with him on if Jeff Ballard's trio with Miguel Zenon where the music covers all sorts of influences including Queens of the Stone Age, Bartok, Gershwin and even some notated birdsong. I think the disc is called "Timeless Tales" but it takes the standard Motian trio format in to a totally different direction.

[Serial_Apologist]

Should have added Lionel Loueke to the list. I saw him with Herbie this year and he was amazing. I think that Loueke really thinks outside of the box and can go toe-to-toe with Hancock when it comes to harmonic twists and turns. For my money, no one lese plays quite like him. The best CD I have with him on if Jeff Ballard's trio with Miguel Zenon where the music covers all sorts of influences including Queens of the Stone Age, Bartok, Gershwin and even some notated birdsong. I think the disc is called "Timeless Tales" but it takes the standard Motian trio format in to a totally different direction.

Oooh stop Messiaen about!!!

I'd like to nominate two from this country, since "we" are in the habit of only discussing the home scene disparagingly: Mike Walker, broadly in a Jim Mullen/John McLaughlin lineage one might say, now into his middle years I guess, and at his best (which I know, he isn't always at!) as good I feel as anyone on the international scene:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0ZX9EByOuk

... and Ant Law - one of today's gentlemen of jazz and somebody I've mentioned on here before, who's been collaborating, separately, with Tim Garland, and recently one learns with the well-known completely deaf Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie, and whose new album, "The Second Offering" [sic] recorded last month, was crowdfunded by a number of us, and should be out in the spring. Here he is (or rather was) some 20 months ago at the Vortex, being interviewed by I've no idea whom, alongside his pianist Ivo Neame, himself carrying a well justified reputation over the past few years on the home scene, and giving an idea of his abilities in a few too-short excerpts from the gig. The Herbie Hancock stylistic connections will be apparent in the music here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_ttAEhZCsU

[Old Grumpy]

Maciec Pysz is certainly worth a listen.

I would second both of S_A's suggestions above!

OG

[MrGongGong]

Nic Svarc ?

[Joseph K]

Kurt Rosenwinkel is great. I haven't heard too much of his own compositions - for me I tend to gravitate towards his playing of standards. I reckon he's mastered more than any other guitarist I know the ability to improvise over fast-moving chord changes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSvaFRQQZ80

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTTQUNN1PoM

[Ian Thumwood]

Joseph

Interested to read your comments and listen to the tracks as Kurt Rosenwinkel is a guitarist I am a bit ambivalent about. I saw him about 10 years ago in a group that included Brad Mehldau and found the whole experience a bit of an anti-climax. His records are extremely hard to get hold of and I think that there was quite a below before he release his most recent "Caipi" which had a lot of reviews on some websites but, to my ears, sounds like the kind of music they used to play in supermarkets in the 1970s' or sub-Milton Nascimento.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FIWGfEKru4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNsPrAfQXfQ

I was really surprised by this stuff and even more amazed that the music should have a video. The last tune sounds a lot like Milton but is a poor imitation. The "Caipi" project really coloured my opinion of Rosenwinkel which, to be honest, wasn't too high to begin with.

[Joseph K]

Joseph

Interested to read your comments and listen to the tracks as Kurt Rosenwinkel is a guitarist I am a bit ambivalent about. I saw him about 10 years ago in a group that included Brad Mehldau and found the whole experience a bit of an anti-climax. His records are extremely hard to get hold of and I think that there was quite a below before he release his most recent "Caipi" which had a lot of reviews on some websites but, to my ears, sounds like the kind of music they used to play in supermarkets in the 1970s' or sub-Milton Nascimento.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FIWGfEKru4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNsPrAfQXfQ

I was really surprised by this stuff and even more amazed that the music should have a video. The last tune sounds a lot like Milton but is a poor imitation. The "Caipi" project really coloured my opinion of Rosenwinkel which, to be honest, wasn't too high to begin with.

Yes, I am definitely not enamoured of the Caipi stuff. Like I hinted at in my last post, it's his standards playing which is where it's at for me. I don't rate him much as a composer of tunes. I used to have Intuit which is nice...

[Serial_Apologist]

Check out Joel Bell. https://www.joelbell.co.uk/home

Hmm. I have an impression of a *competent* jazz guitarist who branches out.

[Joseph K]

Hmm. I have an impression of a *competent* jazz guitarist who branches out.

Years ago there was footage of him on youtube playing more straight-ahead jazz stuff. I don't know why he deleted it, it was great.

[Serial_Apologist]

Nic Svarc ?

Bodie and Doyle enter pub somewhere in the Camden district, ca 1975, and this band is playing.

[burning dog]

Bodie and Doyle enter pub somewhere in the Camden district, ca 1975, and this band is playing.

...

more Regan and Carter?



PS don't remember this in the Sweeney !

[Richard Barrett]

Hmm. I have an impression of a *competent* jazz guitarist who branches out.

My impression is different, but then I've seen him play quite a few times. I think he has quite a remarkable command of harmony, a bit in the Holdsworth vein maybe.

I would second Ian's mention of Mary Halvorsen, although my first encounter with her work was on Braxton's Iridium box set which as I've probably said ad infinitum is in my opinion one of the very few musical masterpieces of the 21st century in any genre so far.

While I'm here I would also mention Brandon Ross and Liberty Ellman, both guitarists I first came across as Henry Threadgill sidemen although they both have pretty extensive CVs in other contexts.