"Our" Jimi Hendrix?

[burningbusch]

Originally posted by M Peasley:

I still remember the first time I heard Hendrix - junior high school, fall of 1967, buddy's house, good stereo (for the times) and he put on Are You Experienced?

 

We listened with our jaws on the floor - the sounds just seemed like they flew in from some totally unknown other universe that this Hendrix guy seemed to have access to...it was so mind-blowing that after a couple of tunes we just started laughing - and we weren't (artificially) high, either.

 

M Peasley

I had a similar "experience" (pun intended). A friend lent me "Are you Experienced" and "Strange Brew" for a weekend, so I heard both of these for the first time at the same time. Everything that I'd heard previously sounded pretty limp in comparison.

 

Busch.

[Jack Kent]

Standing on my tip toes I can't think of a really great Hendrix on the 88's, but I was surprised that no one mentioned Lee Michaels, who for a bright shining moment did thrust the organ into AM radio. Not the equal by considerable measure, but I'll bet he sold a few organs to teenagers.

 

I was very fortunate to see Hendrix just before he broke out, in 1966 I believe, at the Sacramento State Men's gym. Crappy stage with a low ceiling, horrible acoustics, and around 200 college student there only because there was going to be some loud music. About 10 minutes into the set it was easy to spot guitarists in the crowd--by the apparent difficulty involved in taking their next breath. Five months later he was selling out auditoriums and changing the world.

[burningbusch]

Originally posted by DafDuc:

Maybe the reason teenage boys aren't buying keyboards in droves (the way they do guitars) is cos we've never had a Hendrix. Just a thought...

 

Daf

My take: keyboards are simply an ancillary instrument in rock. They always have been, always will be.

 

I see ROCK, in its most granular form, as being:

 

- Guitar-based. Compositionally, lots of parallel motion chord progressions.

- Raw, it has to have an edge--otherwise it becomes pop. Also the reason Nirvana killed the over-produced glam rock of the 1980s.

- Single vocalist. Vocal harmonies are OK on occasion, but don't go over the top with them.

- Youth based (which is why many aging rockers look silly)

- Simple/basic music. The reason prog rock died. Too complex.

- Powerful/driving music.

 

Hendrix and Cream with Strange Brew hit at the same time. They defined the key elements for hard rock moving forward. Both were trios: just guitar, bass and drums.

 

I can only think of a handful of rock groups that didn't include guitar:

 

- The Nice (after they went trio)

- ELP

- Lee Micheals

- Attila (one of Billy Joel's first bands, just him on organ and a drummer).

 

I'll go one step further. I see white music (rock, country, bluegrass, folk) as guitar-based. Black music (jazz, R&B, soul, gospel) is keyboard based, compositionally speaking. Even in rap I hear more pads and keyboard chords than guitar parts. The only exceptions might be the blues and funk, where guitar is a key element but then so are keys.

 

Busch.

[burningbusch]

Originally posted by Roger Hooper:

One of the notatable things about Hendrix (besides his brilliant playing) is the unique ways he manipulated the electronics; nobody did that before him. Even now, his stuff sounds fresh.

Hendrix forever changed rock guitar. The unaltered sound of the various guitars (tele, strat, Les Paul) became secondary to the FX applied and the amp head and speaker distortion.

 

Busch.

[rzzzzz]

another virtuoso who mastered and advanced the cutting edge of contemporary sound was Duke Ellington.

 

someone who influenced how others played the instrument, and who also left behind a canon of great composition is Monk.

 

a contemporary who greatly influenced Hendrix and almost single handedly created the next major genre is Sly Stone.

 

but the cat who also seemed to be from another planet with all the never before heard sounds and incredibly memorable concerts is Sun Ra.

[M Peasley]

Yeah I wish Hendrix had lived on and we might have seen him collaborate with people like Sun Ra, Miles Davis, John McLaughlin, maybe even synth types like Eno or Larry Fast or Klaus Schultze or Emerson....

 

nat whilk ii

[Calumet]

I gotta go with Jimmy Smith. Just like Hendrix, there were people playing the same instrument before him, but both Jimi and Jimmy took the conventional wisdom and turned it on it's head. There would be no Emerson, Lord, DeFrancesco, Auger, etc. without Jimmy Smith. He brought the organ to the center of the keyboard world (which before consisted of the piano, the piano and the piano) and shaped how jazz, rock, r&b, soul and country used electric keyboards for decades to come.

[K K]

Originally posted by M Peasley:

Yeah I wish Hendrix had lived on and we might have seen him collaborate with people like Sun Ra, Miles Davis, John McLaughlin, maybe even synth types like Eno or Larry Fast or Klaus Schultze or Emerson....

Actually, Hendrix was approached by Emerson and Lake when they were forming and looking for a drummer. As they were initially more interested in Mitch Mitchell than any other drummer in UK, they kept communicating with Jimi for a while. Even after they chose Palmer, contacts were still going on with Jimi for jam sessions and so on. Rumors of a certain supergroup named HELP are genuine and no urban myth.

 

Emerson and Hendrix respected each other a lot, each qualifying the other "a real gentleman". Too bad Hendrix was so addicted to dangerous drugs.

[fisheye]

John Cage?

 

Or to a lesser extend Jimmy McGriff?

 

I back up rzzzzz; Duke Ellington and Monk were very special. But in another way as Hendrix.

 

From what I heard of him, comparing Rudes with Hendrix can only be considered a joke.

[Erroll]

You're all missing the big picture:

 

Palestrina=modal

J.S. Bach=tonal (well-tempered)

Bill Evans=aTonal (also Garner to an extent).

 

As for the rest, don't make me laugh.

[ELP71]

Originally posted by Erroll:

You're all missing the big picture:

 

Palestrina=modal

J.S. Bach=tonal (well-tempered)

Bill Evans=aTonal (also Garner to an extent).

 

As for the rest, don't make me laugh.

Actually, you are missing the picture entirely. The question posed was 'who is our Hendrix'. Palestrina? Quit being a snob. Okay, we now know that you know your music history.

[J_tour]

Originally posted by Erroll:

You're all missing the big picture:

 

Palestrina=modal

J.S. Bach=tonal (well-tempered)

Bill Evans=aTonal (also Garner to an extent).

 

As for the rest, don't make me laugh.

I'm not sure what you think atonal means, but Bill Evans played, in general, over clearly functional chord progressions, and his improvisations mostly make sense in reference to the tonality of a given tune. There are exceptions, however.

 

I can't decide between Jimmy Smith and Dr. Lonnie Smith for "our Jimi."

[Dreamer]

From a strictly musical point of view, Jan Hammer and Joe Zawinul are my picks, but speaking of scenic presence and overall "carisma" (for lack of a better word), I am afraid that nobody can be compared to Hendrix.

[hardbop200]

Bill Evans atonal? Huh?

[Phred]

I have to agree that we really don't have a jimi... Imagine posting to a non keyboard forum, "who is more like jimi hedrix, Jimmy Smith or Art Tatum".

[DafDuc]

Well, we are who we are...

[burningbusch]

Ever heard Jan Hammer's version of "Manic Depression?" AMAZING, especially considering it was all done with analog synths.

 

Busch.

[coyote]

Originally posted by Dave Pierce:

Well, the thing about Hendrix is that he didn't *just* completely change his genre overnight -- he also became wildly popular doing it. Most of the keyboard players named in this thread are pretty much unknown to the general public.

 

I don't think keyboards really have a Hendrix. But if you held a gun to my head and said I had to pick one, I'd probably say Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder. They've definitely influenced most of today's players, at least somewhat. And, like Jimi, they had extensive commercial success as well.

 

--Dave

Ya gotta remember that, once upon a time, Emerson & Co. filled stadia on a regular basis. I'd be willing to bet tht Hendrix, were he alive today, would (sadly) have become as irrelevant to the modern scene as Emerson is.

[burningbusch]

Originally posted by coyote:

Originally posted by Dave Pierce:

Well, the thing about Hendrix is that he didn't *just* completely change his genre overnight -- he also became wildly popular doing it. Most of the keyboard players named in this thread are pretty much unknown to the general public.

 

I don't think keyboards really have a Hendrix. But if you held a gun to my head and said I had to pick one, I'd probably say Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder. They've definitely influenced most of today's players, at least somewhat. And, like Jimi, they had extensive commercial success as well.

 

--Dave

Ya gotta remember that, once upon a time, Emerson & Co. filled stadia on a regular basis. I'd be willing to bet tht Hendrix, were he alive today, would (sadly) have become as irrelevant to the modern scene as Emerson is.

That depends on a lot of things. Eric Clapton has remained known and popular for decades. I think had Jimi lived he would be a funkier player than what we heard out of him in the 60s.

 

Busch.

[Erroll]

RE: Bill Evans atonal?

 

I'm disappointed no one really picked up on this one.

 

Early Evans was most clearly tonal (Waltz for Debbie; Very Early) and magnificently so.

 

Late Evans was breaking thru the strictures of structure...

 

Here's an interesting article to that effect:

 

The Harmony of Bill Evans (Piano Score)

 

The term "atonal" is something of a misnomer, isn't it? Absolute atonality is white noise, something that goes completely contrary to the design intent of any musical instrument. I prefer to think of it as scalar structure. There are many different ways to implement this in music. Bill called one of his methods "displacement."

 

In Garner's last album, the eponymous Magician, listen to his intro in They Long to Be...(Close to You).

 

All of which just goes to show, that great artists are constantly growing and evolving.

 

[Erroll]

I can think of a lot of Hendrixes, sadly none in the current crop of keyboardists.

 

Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Stanley Jordan, Maynard Ferguson, Antonio Carlos Jobim & Vinicius de Moraes, Thelonius Monk, Bud Powell, Shivkumar Sharma (santoor) & Zakir Hussein (tabla), and many more...

[kanker.]

Originally posted by Erroll:

RE: Bill Evans atonal?

 

I'm disappointed no one really picked up on this one.

I made no mention of this simply because I view those as very loaded terms. While they may have strict definitions, I generally find that atonal is a word people use when they are unable to comprehend the harmony (I don't know how many times I've heard players like Alan Holdsworth referred to as being atonal) and are therefore trying to discount something simply because they don't get it. It is obvious now that you were not implying this.

[J_tour]

Originally posted by Erroll:

I can think of a lot of Hendrixes, sadly none in the current crop of keyboardists.

 

Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Stanley Jordan, Maynard Ferguson, Antonio Carlos Jobim & Vinicius de Moraes, Thelonius Monk, Bud Powell, Shivkumar Sharma (santoor) & Zakir Hussein (tabla), and many more...

Well said -- I agree with your point, pretty much. I can't think of anyone (or don't know of anyone) today who is = "Hendrix" on keys. It's too bad, I guess -- but then again, no one is exactly stepping up on guitar either, eh?

 

As for your previous post, actually, I did respond to your ideas on atonality. It remains that atonal means something very particular in music theory -- white noise might be an analogue, now that you mention it, but it's probably true that the analogy is only as valuable as it has the capacity to enlighten, through the process of assigning values to the variables announced by the analogy itself. Atonality isn't scary -- but it *is* something known, fortunately for us.

[Dick Ward MP Hall of Fame]

You know, I'm not sure that we have a Hendrix... I mean, the main thing that strikes me about Hendrix wasn't his playing, it's the way he made people feel, you know? My uncle recounts a story of seeing Hendrix live once and then pawning his bike and selling his record player so that he could buy a guitar. I don't think there's a keyboardist now or ever, that has made people react like that. Maybe one day, but he'd better be damn good.

 

To be fair though, who exactly is guitar's Thelonius Monk? Who is their Dizzy, their Jerry Lee Lewis?

 

I think as keyboardists we should just be glad that we're not stuck with as many boring wankers and false idols as guitarists are. The Eddie Van Halens, the Dimebag Darrels, the Kurt Cobains.

(nothing against Nirvana, loved the music, but I hear too many people say he was an amazing guitar player, when he wasn't even the best in his band. Well, when they had Pat Smear on tour with them he wasn't. Pat pwns. Kurt was an amazing songwriter though)

[ELP71]

Originally posted by Erroll:

RE: Bill Evans atonal?

 

I'm disappointed no one really picked up on this one.

 

Early Evans was most clearly tonal (Waltz for Debbie; Very Early) and magnificently so.

 

Late Evans was breaking thru the strictures of structure...

 

Here's an interesting article to that effect:

 

The Harmony of Bill Evans (Piano Score)

 

The term "atonal" is something of a misnomer, isn't it? Absolute atonality is white noise, something that goes completely contrary to the design intent of any musical instrument. I prefer to think of it as scalar structure. There are many different ways to implement this in music. Bill called one of his methods "displacement."

 

In Garner's last album, the eponymous Magician, listen to his intro in They Long to Be...(Close to You).

 

All of which just goes to show, that great artists are constantly growing and evolving.

 

Thanks for the elightenment.