Category Archives: Connections

Jazz Guitar Greats of the Past 40 Years

A few months ago, Guitar World published its list of the 40 most influential guitarists since the magazine’s founding in 1980. The list included most every heavy metal and hair band guitarist, all the big time speed shredders, as well as Stevie Ray Vaughn, Eddie Van Halen, Edge and Prince. But tucked in there were two jazz guitarists, Stanley Jordan and Emily Remler.

I had the incredible experience of seeing Jordan perform when he was still a teenager in the 1970’s, several years before he was signed by Blue Note Records. His first album for Blue Note, 1985’s Magic Touch, spent 51 weeks at #1 on the Billboard jazz chart. Jordan is known for his two-hand tapping technique, really unique to him and unlike the Michael Hedges inspired style featured in my recent post on Acoustic Guitar Innovators.

Here is concert footage from 1987, a couple of years after the release of Magic Touch. Watch as long as you like.

And here is a more recent performance of “Over the Rainbow”.

The same year Stanley Jordan released his breakthrough album, Emily Remler was voted Guitarist of the Year in Down Beat magazine. She was 28 at that time. She would die of heart failure only few years later at the age of 32 while on tour in Australia.

Remler’s style was classic jazz, and in this clip she plays a piece called “Blues for Herb” she wrote for jazz legend Herb Ellis. Classic as her playing was, you jazz buffs will note that her choice of an Ovation guitar for this performance was decidedly non-traditional!

And here she is playing a bossa nova standard, “How Insensitive”, by Antônio Carlos Jobim. The notes in the YouTube comment thread for this video indicate that this performance was one of her very last. She makes that right hand work look so effortless.

In My Next Life …

In my next life, I want to be Al Schmitt. I didn’t know this until I read his obituary today. Schmitt, who passed away on April 26th at age 91, won more Grammys than any other recording engineer and producer – 20 – across six consecutive decades. He worked with Ray Charles, Paul McCartney, Barbra Streisand, Jefferson Airplane, Frank Sinatra, Sam Cooke, Steely Dan, Bob Dylan, and the list goes on.

Five of Schmitt’s Grammys came in 2004 for his work on Ray Charles’ Genius Loves Company, which won nine award that year, including Album of the Year. The album featured collaborations with many artists, hence the title. The duet with Norah Jones, reprising an early Charles hit, “Here We Go Again”, won Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals (that’s Billy Preston playing the Hammond B3). The duet with Gladys Knight, “Heaven Help Us All”, won Best Gospel Performance. That song was first recorded by Stevie Wonder.

Schmitt collaborated with another studio engineering legend, Roger Nichols, on Steely Dan’s album Aja, a masterpiece of recording. Schmitt mixed one of the album’s hits, “Deacon Blues”. At the same sessions Schmitt and Nichols worked on the song “FM (No Static at All)”, the title theme and only original song on the soundtrack of the movie FM. The work on Aja and “FM” won Schmitt two of his Grammys.mi

“I cried when I wrote this song
Sue me if I play too long”

Perhaps Schmitt’s most moving piece of engineering was the “duet” of “Unforgettable” between Natalie Cole and her late father. Schmitt mixed the vocal track from Nat King Cole’s 1951 version of the song with Natalie’s 1991 performance. Apparently, some of the musician’s in the studio for the 1991 session had played on the original, too.

Rolling Stones’ Pandemic Production

In April 2020, weeks into the COVID-19 pandemic, the Rolling Stones released “Living in a Ghost Town”, with lyrics and video apropos of the time. The song actually came out of a 2019 recording session, and the band finished it off remotely when it became more relevant than they could have anticipated. The song also represented the first new, original song the Stones recorded since 2012.

While in lockdown, the Stones finished off work on the re-release of 1973’s Goats Head Soup. The update featured three previously unreleased songs including “Criss Cross”. A very sexy new video was made for the song’s release, based on shoots that director Diana Kunst had done over a period of a few years with Spanish model/actress Marina Ontanaya.

And on April 13th, Mick Jagger and Dave Grohl released “Easy Sleazy”, a hard rocking look back at lockdown – definitely from the perspective of guys who haven’t had it too bad. Let’s pray the whole world will feel ready to join Mick’s and Dave’s upbeat spirit soon.

DOMi and JD Beck

While we are still mourning the passing of jazz innovator Chick Corea, it is awfully reassuring to see a new generation of young musicians dedicated to keeping jazz – and the chops that go with it – alive. French keyboardist Domitille Degalle, stage name DOMi, and Texas drummer JD Beck are both in the prodigy vein of musicians – she is now 21, he 17. Their paths crossed a few years ago, and they have been collaborating ever since. Thanks for the heads up on these two, Barry!

Here are a couple of videos from a set of studio duets they performed last year. The second is their renamed riff on the John Coltrane classic, “Giant Steps”.

This performance features JD, with DOMi playing as part of Ghost-Note, a collaborative of musicians worthy of their own post. Learn more here until I get around to that. Fast forward to about 1:20 if you want to bypass the chatter.

Obviously – Lake Street Dive

I wrote my first post about Lake Street Dive in 2013, and a few more since. This past Friday they released their new album, Obviously. The band is celebrating fifteen years together, and throughout that time has defied categorization. Whatever buckets they jump between, the constants are the incredible voice and vocal stylings of Rachel Price, backed by a very talented and tasteful set of writers and musicians.

The lead single from the new album, “Hypotheticals”, has been rattling around the web for a few weeks. They performed it on The Late Show last week (thanks for the heads up, Barry), and here’s a studio video version that seems to have Bridget Kearney’s great bass work tweaked up a bit in the mix – put those good headphones on!

Here’s Rachel performing an unplugged version of “Nobody’s Stopping You Now”, from a livestream last summer.

In addition to working on Obviously, the band fit in time to have some fun during the COVID times. Carole King’s Tapestry was released in February 1971, and I’m sure she appreciated this cover of “So Far Away”. Enjoy Rachel’s voice and, again, Bridget’s exquisitely tasteful backing.

And here’s the band on a Brooklyn rooftop reprising the Beatles’ iconic performance, complete with outfits and facial hair. Not quite the energy of the original, but where did Rachel find that coat?