Nooooo!
http://www.guitarplayer.com/artists/1013/allan-holdsworth-1946-2017/62513 (http://www.guitarplayer.com/artists/1013/allan-holdsworth-1946-2017/62513)
Hard to believe. May he rest in peace......I saw him several times and would just stand there, with my jaw on the floor, in awe
One of the great players of our generation.
Saw him play many times. First time in 1980 when IOU was just out; last time just last year. Always amazing. Got to meet him when he came to dinner at a friend's house & he was a humble, very nice fellow. It's a sad day for sure.
one of the few guitarists to stick with headless designs through the years too :-(
So sad, a definite influence and example of innovative progress (SynthAxe endorser) his unique way of harmonizing, composing and playing are unparalleled. R.I.P Allan Holdsworth.
By the way, it seems untrue that his family is currently forced to requesting help to cover funeral and burial expenses.
https://www.gofundme.com/allanholdsworthmemorial
Bad news hearing about Allan Holdsworth. Phew - what a player! It isn't fair great musicians passing away like this. I used to have his guitar tone off pretty good, except for the millipede part. I much preferred him as a rock player, compared to the jazz/rock stuff.
Bill :(
Tempest - Strangeher. Solo 1:56. Welding safety glasses required.
https://youtu.be/fOlZtDR75z8 (https://youtu.be/fOlZtDR75z8)
Huge influence. If you hear all kinds of my work his ideas sometimes will filter through. One of my friends is a friend with his daughter Louise and heard the news and it spread quite fast. Rest in peace Maestro.
The acoustic tracks on Velvet Darkness changed my view of music. If you loved the opening to Nevermore on UK, check it out. There is a small label called Art of Life that released Holdsworth on 12 string acoustic in a trio that came out the same year as that first UK. I just wanted to put a word in for his acoustic playing.
His genius cannot be overstated, in my opinion, among the best to ever play guitar. He kept me sane growing up/young adult years. I drove as much as 11 hours to see him, just on the slim chance someone I knew who knew someone could introduce me to him.
He was a master.
In 1976 my drummer in LA , Cliff Martinez,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliff_Martinez
lent me the Tony Williams Lifetime LP "Believe it" and my world was never the same.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Believe_It
https://youtu.be/GCaixOPkgaQ
In 1980 while at Valley Arts, I had the opportunity to meet Allan Holdsworth, and repair his Hartley-Thompson SS Amp from the UK.
http://www.hartleyelectricmusic.co.uk/hartley-thompson-amps.html
He was in the middle of sessions with EVH when his favorite amp went south.
His influence remains strong
Tony Williams - Excerpts from Wildlife Demo's Stockholm 1974 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPUzeg7B6a4#)
2010 Holdsworth, Bozzio, Levin, Mastelotto Live in HD Solo Compilation, Seattle January 2nd (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LSgcSPOe5U#ws)
Well. like so many, my heart is broken...Had the honor of being the opening act for UK in 1979, and had a lengthy conversation afterward....he was so humble and such a great guy! Here is a video of his last performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKiq1e40CIM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKiq1e40CIM)
What a day so sad, I am consternated, the world will not be the same without you, the mysterious beauty of your work will shine forever.
RIP man, you are one of the really great.
Huge loss!
So sad, another guitar idol leaves us. May he RIP.
does anyone know the organizing principal he used for solos...like Pat Martino and chromatacism?
Quote
does anyone know the organizing principal he used for solos...like Pat Martino and chromatacism?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wts2Mw6Nb5s (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wts2Mw6Nb5s)
Here's a rare JPEG of his "crib notes" he used himself with examples of his odd nonstandard notation - very interesting:
(https://www.vguitarforums.com/smf/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fpod.podzone.org%2Fah.JPG&hash=cd879f6fd49c50308faef22c9d8061b5f512132d)
https://youtu.be/QRaFczNJGe8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0DxTF0i3VU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0DxTF0i3VU&list=RDe0DxTF0i3VU#t=4
This is one of the saddest things I've heard in a long time.
I saw him just once at the Jazz Cafe in Camden - we were getting hushed after constantly cheering his solos, for which I make no apology. The man was a legend.
I'll go home now and listen to Atavachron again.
Check out his recording rig from 1990 when he was briefly part of Brit funk band Level 42. Recording Guaranteed.
(https://www.level42.com/wp-content/uploads/4214.jpg)
(https://www.level42.com/wp-content/uploads/4216.jpg)
Open valve amp chasis stacked on paramteric!!
Photos copyright http://www.patrickeden.co.uk/ (http://www.patrickeden.co.uk/)
Full set on official Level 42 website www.level42.com (http://www.level42.com)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg6ZL9adjKg&feature=em-lss
Rick Beato is live streaming Holdsworthian Bitonalism.
Quote from: Smash link=topic=20720.msg149359#msg149359 date=149278039
img width=800 height=523]https://www.level42.com/wp-content/uploads/4216.jpg[/img]
Open valve amp chasis stacked on paramteric!!
Photos copyright http://www.patrickeden.co.uk/ (http://www.patrickeden.co.uk/)
Full set on official Level 42 website www.level42.com (http://www.level42.com)
Great pics! FYI, that's not a parametric, that's a Pearce G2r a great solid state stereo amp
Quote from: admsustainiac on April 21, 2017, 11:43:13 AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg6ZL9adjKg&feature=em-lss
:)
Rick Beato is live streaming Holdsworthian Bitonalism.
8)
This guy Rick Beato is thick - - - I'm digging into this guy . His comments on bitonalism are really interesting .
Thanks for posting this , "
God Bless & Keep Alan " ,
He will continue to influence more musicians .
EZ :
HR
I wish Bill Ruppert would chime in here - he once posted somewhere about meeting Allan in the UK - he just looked him up on the phone book or the like!
Great pics of AH recording "Guaranteed!"
https://youtu.be/z0X0NBPOWfw
Allan Holdsworth demo of VG-8
I've started work on transcribing Atavachron, my favourite AH track. Here's how it's sounding so far, courtesy of Guitar Pro...
https://youtu.be/Ipi8P0fbRWg (https://youtu.be/Ipi8P0fbRWg)
OMG.
Someone on the "The Unreal Allan Holdsworth" facebook page posted a picture of his VG-99 that Allan Holdsworth autographed expressing delight that the user was using that box and had created a patch for Allan's tune "ZONE".
I invited him here to post a pic, that blew my mind.
I saw him years ago with Spontaneous Compositions Tour with Terry Bozzio, Pete Mastellotto and Tony Levin. 2h of incredible music and mastery. Still shocked. RIP AH. :'(
Quote from: aliensporebomb on May 09, 2017, 12:27:31 PM
OMG.
Someone on the "The Unreal Allan Holdsworth" facebook page posted a picture of his VG-99 that Allan Holdsworth autographed expressing delight that the user was using that box and had created a patch for Allan's tune "ZONE".
I invited him here to post a pic, that blew my mind.
Yup. That ends any argument about who has the most valuable bit of GK kit...
https://youtu.be/_TSgFJ2EuA4
I've seen videos where Allan used the external GK pickup on guitar, in the early days of the VG series, but in this video it looks like he's got an internal GK pick up installed and his clean tones sounds like out of phase two pick up strat selection, but he only has 1 humbucker, and an extra knob as well. I've never heard mention of this before. This is also an excellent lineup!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vJDv3XjjPxY (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vJDv3XjjPxY)
Here's another video from 97. Same period as the concert I posted before it's at a Carvin NAMM booth and it sure looks like a GK install .
https://youtu.be/J8wE6KvpExk (https://youtu.be/J8wE6KvpExk)
@4:07
VG8?
Quote from: arkieboy on August 24, 2017, 02:18:31 PM
@4:07
VG8?
(https://s6.postimg.cc/62lclj4ap/VG8.png)
Correct!
There are musicians who reach beyond my lack of superficial understanding and touch something far deeper. Allan Holdsworth was the only guitarist in that category for me - as a soloist he shares a space almost exclusively occupied by those who have passed through Miles Davies' band.
He is without compare.
Quote from: arkieboy on August 24, 2017, 02:59:32 PM
There are musicians who reach beyond my lack of superficial understanding and touch something far deeper. Allan Holdsworth was the only guitarist in that category for me - as a soloist he shares a space almost exclusively occupied by those who have passed through Miles Davies' band.
He is without compare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg6ZL9adjKg&feature=em-lss
Back when I had serious hopes of 'making it' our manager said there was three modes to creativity: freedom; discipline; freedom.
Original freedom comes from knowing no rules - throwing stuff together and haphazardly finding interesting things. Learning to reproduce these initial successes leads you to the 'discipline' phase - you understand by rote what you're doing, and can reproduce it at demand. Ultimately, a proper instinctive understanding of what you want to achieve yields the third phase of freedom, which has to be your ultimate goal. This video was 'discipline' level stuff - an empirical understanding of how it works, rather than the final 'freedom' level which clearly Allan had achieved. "This triad over this bass": but =why= does it make you feel like that? What does it mean musically?
That said, the observation at 19:38 - "Allan was a rock player who played Jazz over modern classical chord progressions" I think is worth the whole 38 minutes. I'm pretty comfortable with triads over odd bass notes so I'll work through some of this. I don't think I simply have enough time to glimpse final freedom, sadly :-(
If you search on "The Unreal Allan Holdsworth" group on facebook today, the page has an instructional video by the guitarist of the band Marbin who spent a month hanging around with AH when he was on tour with his band along side Allan's and he studied what AH was doing and goes into depth into how AH was doing four note symmetric scales in a dominant tonality - really fascinating - he nails the sound and feel.
Here is the link:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1406194282809375&id=241606069268208
I saw Marbin with Holdsy on that tour. I drove 10 hours to TNeck, NJ, because I knew someone who knew someone who knew Michael Alan Lawlor, the opening act, and I hoped to meet Holdsworth. Well Holdsworth slipped out of the cabaret, but Marbin hung around and they were really cool. Also Allan's bass player was super friendly and kind. Lawlor was super cool and even let me play his guitar.
I saw them, too & they were amazing. Nice fellows, too.
(https://scontent-sjc2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/21742938_10154695327292015_8381027112223406684_n.jpg?oh=a98600f61efef489bf1693ac94b79e99&oe=5A46AA47)
https://www.thebakedpotato.com/
(https://scontent-sjc2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/22007895_10214192645120989_8988289356390586587_n.jpg?oh=4efda6c44d7983a9e7ad81da6f7b9565&oe=5A5048BA)
Byron Fry article on Allan Holdsworth
http://byronfry.com/2017/02/22/allan/
Allan.
Where to begin.
In the early 1980s, the highly-stratified hierarchy of Southern California guitarists was abruptly and violently flattened by a very humble, painstakingly polite, extremely sweet and soft-spoken British genius named Allan Holdsworth. Despite his genuine belief that he sucked, he was on a level so far above the entire community of guitarists that our unanimous reaction was one of stunned horror, punctuated by the kind of nervous, unbelieving, crazy laughter one might adopt if one's legs or fingers had been suddenly amputated, or if a planet-killing meteor had been discovered and we all knew that a swift death was immenent. All of us, from the top echelon of famous studio gods down to lowly music students, now occupied one and the same strata. It was surreal, it was wonderful, it was scary, and inspiring, and awful; it was blindingly brilliant, like staring at the sun, and we might as well laugh about it.
At no point was the effect he had on the scene in SoCal more powerfully driven home than after his first (now famous) show at the Roxy on Sunset. Pretty much every noteworthy guitarist in LA was there—200 or so of the best cats in the world, several of whom had been on the covers of the guitar mags more than once—waiting to see what all the hubbub was about. I was there with my partner in fretmadness, Pebber Brown.
Allan began to play, and immediately all the air was sucked out of the room. Nothing he did was in the slightest bit conventional, much of it wasn't even remotely within the scope of what was considered possible; our disbelief couldn't have been greater had he levitated off the stage, sprouted two extra heads and vomited fireballs. And he was just getting started; he went on from there, with the effect of a physics professor from the 24th century transported back in time to teach a class in the dark ages. By the end of the show, our collective game had been so effectively tossed out the window—glinting here and there as it tumbled down into the abyss in free fall, there to remain pathetically irrelevant for all time—that we were all brothers, where just 90 minutes prior, we had peopled all the various stations and elevations of musical society, from serf to royalty. We were all unbathed beggars in His temple yard, now; we all knew it. And we all knew that the world of guitar would never be the same. At the end of the show, he left the stage and the lights came on—and that's when it happened:
No one moved; no one said a word. We all just sat there, pasted into our seats, blinking around at each other in total, stunned silence, for what probably was a solid minute. Imagine it! All the lauded hierarchy of the SoCal guitar talent pool, having been steamrolled into one level plane and staring silently at each other, as the stagehands coiled cables! We were all brothers, now; the stratification was gone. It remains to this day one of the most powerful moments I've witnessed in this life, in all my travels and experience. At about the 30-second mark, a certain singer named Roth stood up to leave the room with his two supermodel escorts, as if to illustrate that too many elements of Hollywood are too predictable. The rest of us remained. When movement and cognizance finally began returning to us, I went upstairs to the greenroom to congratulate him on ending so many brilliant careers. He seemed a bit distraught and apologized for sucking so badly: "I just couldn't play a thing." This was to become a pattern.
I had first met and befriended Allan just a few hours prior to that. The explanation for how that happened is this: He had been my biggest and most consuming guitaristic influence for years, though like almost every American guitarist, I had never seen him live. I knew that he was finally in town and would be playing the Roxy—had in fact been watching the date approach on the calendar for weeks—I lived about half an hour away, and knew when soundcheck was. So when he pulled into the parking lot and went to get out of his station wagon, I was there in the poor guy's face introducing myself, hand outstretched. He was too polite to tell me to get lost, I attached myself to his ankle like a barnacle and we became friends.
I wound up hanging out with Allan a good bit back in the IOU days and while Road Games was being recorded. I went over to his pad several times, he even came to a couple of my Orange County top40 gigs, which REALLY sucked—there he sat nursing his ever-present Coors, watching me suffer through that godawful 80s set-list nightmare, so ****ing professionally embarrassed I could feel myself blushing onstage. But at no time did he ever give me the slightest hint of elitism or one-upmanship; not even a friendly chiding about the nature of the gig. He really didn't seem to understand who and what he was, or what he had accomplished—and besides, even if he did, I think he'd rather die than be the slightest bit rude to any living being.
The memories I have from those times in Allan's life are many, and paint a picture of a soul too good and too artistically pure for the turd-infested waters of Hollywood; an inhumanly talented god, cast as an underdog into the ring with the prince of darkness from Warner, but who nonetheless somehow won his way to freedom (THAT is a great story), and was able to resume his pursuit of The Impossible. But the memory that really illustrates what a wonderful cat he is is that he offered to trade axes with me for a while. He gave me a prototype White Charvel of his with a Jelutong body (which he had been playing at his recent shows, and which had been on the cover of Guitar Player—and which said axe began my love affair with Jelutong) and I gave him my 1960 Blonde L5 with the Florentine cutaway in return.
In depicting my Allanistic experiences, I would dishonor the truth if I didn't mention that he has been a pivotal part of some very defining moments for me and my mental landscape, to wit: When I was a young buck, barely old enough to get into bars and sufficiently lacking in life experience to believe that beating others at their game was what musical ability was all about, I was also dumb enough to believe that I hadn't heard anyone do anything on the guitar that I would never be able to do, if I dedicated my life to doing that one thing, and for long enough (Such were the things that I thought mattered at the time).
Then I heard Allan, and I knew that no matter how hard and how long I tried, I would never be able to do that. Any of it. It would be like a dog chasing an airplane. It was shattering to me, since up to that point I had entertained delusions of grandeur, the like of which are only possible in the chests of sufficiently young men, who are sufficiently full of their own bullshit.
Years went by, and as the post-Allanpocalypse guitar landscape in SoCal adjusted to the New Normal, I became ever more consumed by his brilliance. Despite my having been educated as a composer / arranger / orchestrator of all styles and trained to have an abiding, open-minded love of good music from every century, decade, continent, culture and genre, nonetheless well over half the music I listened to was Allan. I started becoming dimly aware that I was losing sense of my own identity as a musician; this could not end well. It was about this time that the following occurred:
On the Road Games album, Allan's entry into the solo on Tokyo Dreams (a blistering salvo I would never be able to play) somehow got confused by yours truly with mine very own licks, and I went to enter into a solo on a top 40 gig in a hotel lounge with said salvo. I got exactly three and a half notes into it, realized what I had done, abruptly hung my arms at my sides, looked at the ceiling and had a good laugh as my rig fed back. All good fun in the moment, as the businessmen and waitresses looked up from their martinis and scotch to see what had caused the Stratus Interruptus...but in the solitude of the drive home afterwards, I had to admit that a line had been crossed, and I had a serious talk with myself. The upshot was that it was time for me to distance myself from Allan's influence and rediscover who the hell Byron was.
So I did.
Other than going over to his pad to visit a couple of times several years later, I got away from it. It was a necessary move; I guess that at the time, his brilliance was too strong a drug for me to resist an untoward amount of influence.
A few years later, around 1990 or so, John Pena called me to his pad to do some guitar tracks for a project he was producing. This was very humbling for me, given the company he keeps. I asked him why he had called me instead of Luke or Landau. He said, "You're the best Byron Fry I know." This led to a longer conversation about musical identity, where it was finally—FINALLY—drilled through my thick effing skull that everyone brings something to the table that is uniquely all their own, and that the point of your musical journey is to find and nurture that voice and to become the best SELF that you can; who you truly, creatively, spiritually, musically, naturally and ultimately are. I owe my buddy John a great debt of gratitude for that talking-to; it has set me free.
A couple of years ago, I went and saw Allan for the first time in over 20 years. It was great to say hi and to be face-to-face with him after so long, if only for a few minutes in the crowded hubbub of the Baked Potato; it's not like I hadn't missed my old friend. Then I sat there with my fiance, listening to him play and staring into that old, dark, familiar forest, that mental and emotional wilderness I had had such a cathartic time clawing my way out of...feeling the unlikely mixture of the coldness of an ancient battlefield and the warm, unabashed adulation of something impossibly beautiful, knowing that he is so much better than I, or anyone, could ever be. But unlike in my 20s, or in my 30s, now that I'm in my 50s, I was able to smile about it on the drive home, knowing that I'm the best Byron Fry there is, and feeling that on a good day, that's good enough.
http://byronfry.com/2017/04/20/goodbye-good-sir/
http://byronfry.com/2017/04/20/goodbye-good-sir/
**********************************
Allan has left us.
I don't know why—maybe that's a fool's question—but it's hitting me hard, it hurts like hell and it feels a bit surreal. It feels like some cosmic crime has been committed; like there's an indignity here that has to be answered for. It's a very real desecration of intense human beauty, and I feel...offended.
It has taken me several days to be able to write, as I felt myself cycle through denial, shock, a sort of numbness for a couple of days, then grief and some tears, then finally today what may be the beginning of acceptance. As John Steinbeck said of his brilliant close friend Doc Rickets, upon his untimely death: "He burned a deep scar." The quote fits on many levels.
I revered Allan, his vision and his work to a degree that grew so large, it started to change my inner landscape; I had to cut bait and flee to rediscover and nurture my own musical identity. But I left some things unsaid, and I can't hit "rewind" to get it right next time. And that's always gonna hurt.
Allan was many things to me: A friend, the greatest musical hero I've ever had, the greatest musical genius I've ever known, one of my biggest influences and a de facto pioneer. His was the light showing us all how tight, narrow and confining are the corridors of convention. He joins Igor Stravinsky, Miles and Michael Brecker in being one of the four musicians I admire most, though Allan was more of an influence on me than perhaps all the others combined.
As much as anything else, though, Allan was and remains to me an enigma: How does one think so differently? I have wondered for decades what his processes were and what goes on inside that head; how it's possible for one person to be so acutely inventive and so much faster, clearer and concise in his thoughts and execution; why he was so clear-minded and unerring in his innate distrust of convention. There is only one other person whose ideas made me wonder thus, and that was Albert Einstein.
But whereas I never knew Einstein, I did know Allan, and knowing him didn't make the wiring of his brain any less of a mystery. Hanging out and talking, eating, drinking or playing, he was always off-handedly dropping casual perspectives and premises that dispelled long-held beliefs on almost any subject, like a breeze blowing away the fog and exposing a better way forward. He wasn't about to accept status quo without scrutiny, and almost always had improvements to offer up to the world, whether regarding guitar design, capturing the real magic of music during production, brewing beer, or any other area of living that crossed his "mind's chaotic lumber room". And he sometimes couldn't stop his fingers from crawling around a table or counter as he spoke; I think he garnered some playing tricks from his pet tarantula. He was nothing if not wired differently, and better, than us.
His was a high-octane, high-performance, supercharged intellect with lots of horsepower; he couldn't help it. Maybe he was just born that way, who knows, I can't explain it. Maybe some sort of cerebral genetic mutation was involved. I don't believe in the physical possibility of aliens from other worlds among us, simply because of the distances involved and radiation during travel, but I've often regarded Allan as being as good a reason as any for someone to entertain the notion, were they so inclined. I watched him sit down at a Space Invaders video game—which he had never seen—at a restaurant-bar I was playing in Orange County, and set the high score with one quarter. He was just that way. Never have I known anyone who was so radiantly brilliant and capable.
I'm talking about his brain and abilities a lot here, but as magnificent as his intellect and skill was, to me the gentleness of his spirit was just as striking. You can hear the beauty and unspoken exuberance of the man's heart in his playing; if you knew him, you know that he would neither insult nor criticize anyone, nor degrade anyone's efforts, though all paled next to him when measured by any yardstick. He was famously humble, an attribute as rare among performing artists as it is a thing of beauty, and—we can hope—a progenitor of like behavior in others.
If there was one fault I might find with Allan and justify giving a voice here, it is that he took humility too far. Back in the IOU days, he apologized to me in the green room after his first show at The Roxy had destroyed the hopes of every guitarist in the room—and that room had held pretty much the entire guitar talent pool of the music industry. He looked dismayed, like he was a failure. "I'm so sorry. I just couldn't play a thing", he said. I pointed out that he had probably just ended hundreds of careers, but he wasn't having it.
Allan never got his due share of recognition, not from the public and not even from most rank-and-file musicians. He was too far up in the thin air, too far beyond human ability, for most musicians to grasp what he accomplished. And he was far too pure, and too real, to garner the understanding and appreciation of a music industry that runs strictly within the confines of its shallow, sophomoric, pedantic, money-driven paradigm. He was too beautiful and true to his art for such a cesspool of banality and posers.
Nor did he care; I don't think he had much of a choice but to follow his road the way he did, despite being well aware of the costs and rewards. I believe that his path followed the only choice his constitution would allow. He lived his life and made his music with brutal honestly and unyielding commitment to expression, which is far more than I can say for myself. In short, he put his money where his mouth was; he walked the walk. Here am I, a comparative coward, having largely misspent my decades thus far compromising ideals in pursuit of mediocrity, trying to placate a pop Zeit that embraces a level of over-simplification I find nauseating. And to what end? Paying the rent? When I'm crossing the finish line and looking back over my life, I'm not gonna be pleased that I wasted so much of my precious time here on Earth failing to answer my calling in the best way that I could. As Leonard Cohen brilliantly intoned, "It's hard to hold the hand of anyone who is reaching for the sky just to surrender."
I should've written twenty symphonies by now, not one.
Anyway...so here am I, still alive with all my ragged ugliness, and he and his beauty have been taken away. This has me reassessing my road and wanting to live my life more honestly, lest I risk more spiritual oblivion in the creative void. I need to create more beauty, less ugliness. More truth, less bullshit. Besides owing that to myself, to those around me and to world, I feel like I owe it to Allan...as do we all owe him such a great deal.
Allan, good sir, you showed me a better way to do many, many things and gave me more inspiration than perhaps any other single musician. Your absence hurts like hell and to say that your voice and perspectives will be missed is an understatement.
So I will just say thank you. And good night.
Hi all - just wanted to invite you to the Public Memorial event for Allan Holdsworth which is being held at 2PM on April 15 in Anaheim.
Lots of great special guests will be speaking, there will be Allan's guitars, lots of previously unseen footage, some exceptional musical performances and a glimpse of the doco we are producing (with footage from Steve Vai and others).
Guitar Player are supporting us, and here's the article they wrote. (It includes all of the details for when and where)
https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/allan-holdsworth-memorial-open-to-public
https://youtu.be/6oOp6J9_cH8
(https://www.guitarplayer.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_80%2Cw_960/MTUzNzA2NjYzNjc1NzAxMDE2/holdsworth2.webp)
https://youtu.be/xWU_yFFsNtc
1979 live with bill bruford's group touring the album "feels good to me".
Two of my all time favorite songs came from that album.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://m.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DneAOgatpueA&ved=2ahUKEwiVp5GGl5zjAhUD7FQKHVsABzAQwqsBMAB6BAgFEAU&usg=AOvVaw1294IJngWAd205eXzJnO0_
Funny you mention this stuff. I've been on this for a week and love it. I saw him up close in a small club in Roslyn N.Y. a long time ago. And again in Radio City Music Hall. Its like watching someone speak another language. I learned absolutely nothing watching him, although it was jaw dropping awesome. Bruford is one of my favorites too alongside Chad Wackerman. I truly was about to give up guitar on these nights, it really hurt me. Its hard to describe. I loved the Metal Fatigue recordings and he really pushed me into a Marshall. Meaning 'live without a net'. No effects, just a volume knob. And aside from his led playing. His chords are virtually impossible to finger. I mean I heard the chords and ambient mastery and then went to watch him live and was like ' no man can do that ' . For real, his fingers jumped from ridiculous chord to chord. Nobody else can do that stuff.
So I had to come home and literally come to terms of, 'I will never be able to do that'. That was the first time I EVER had to realize that I could not do something. Other wise I was able to do anything at that point in life. I was game. Here is a very early recording he did where he shows off his funk and wah, and then goes into never never land again like usual. I am still wondering WHERE he learned this style from. I get its Jazz Fusion and I hear the early early influences, but who taught him this? Where did this fire come from? I wanted a sax too and wound up with a cheap guitar in which it sucked so bad I smashed it into pieces. I got a job as a kid to buy guitars so, its not new. But man this young kid must have had a fire. So my point is he was born in 1946, what happened in the 60's with him? That's when he learned. Here in this vid you can hear he had his act together BEFORE 1970! He should have been a cult monster before Hendrix and the Cream , right? Check it out....22:00 & 38:00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lakrGAhM-vk
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9lJOkXETO70 (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9lJOkXETO70)
https://youtu.be/Yll1FS-YcT0
From Allan Holdsworth archives, Facebook user group:
Allan Holdsworth Archives From 1997: He uses Rocktron Intellifexes and a Roland VG-8 guitar system to process his guitar signals.
Over the years, Holdsworth has evolved a very specific approach to recording his guitar: "I always mic the cabinet for lead sounds, but for clean sounds, I go DI a lot of times. I just take a stereo) output straight off the rig and onto two channels of the tape machine. I don't run it through the board or anything."
Of those clean sounds, the guitarist estimates that he uses the Roland VG-8, "for 75 percent of the chordal things I do." Unlike the Synth Axe, the VG-8 doesn't ensnare Holdsworth in the mire of MIDI. It doesn't work by triggering external synth modules, but performs physical modeling on signals derived directly from string vibrations.
"It's just like an extension of the guitar," Holdsworth elaborates. "You're not dealing with any modules where you have to figure out how to control the envelopes and all that stuff. Instead, you can manipulate the input from a single pickup guitar like I use and make it sound like a three-pickup Strat or two single coils or an acoustic guitar."
Because he's highly sensitive to string drag (inhibition of string vibration caused by the magnetic pull of pickups), Holdsworth is a staunch believer in guitars with just one pickup. He finds the VG-8 allows him to achieve multiple pickup tones without compromising the responsiveness of his instrument.
"It just adds all these extra colors that are guitar-based. And there are no time delay problems that I can perceive. It's like using an EQ or a phase shifter. If I mix the VG-8 signal with a straight signal, it'll be synchronous. And since I use two stereo amp setups, I can send the straight signal to one rig and the VG-8 patch to the other rig, which really sounds good."
And from another interview:
Allan Holdsworth Archives By 2003, it was gone: What about the VG-8? You're not using that anymore?
No. I sold it out of desperation. But I would have liked to have kept it 'cause it was a useful tool. I actually liked it a lot. I thought it was a really great thing.
Yeah, his financial situation was rather sad. I believe due to an unscupulous manager/business type. I would have given him one of my VG units if I'd known the guy just because he of all people SHOULD have had that gear.
I learned too with Allan's story that an incredible musician with stupendous technique with unbelievable compositional skill can still get ripped off my weaselly record company guys.
https://youtu.be/ChL9R2r0N9Y
What an extensive and encyclopedic work. Absolutely exceptional!!
I've watched part of the video and it's an astounding effort. The amount of sheer time involved must have been astronomical.
In other AH related studies Brett Stine (of the band Haji's Kitchen if you remember them on Shrapnel records) has written a book and performed the examples for Messiaen Études Vol.1 -
https://www.brettstinemusic.net/product-page/messiaen-%C3%A9tudes-vol-1?fbclid=IwAR0mk9_OrZVuO38EVlTazm7ITzrRNo7ffG7ZFk4EPDDCsPb62Hs12xjXlYk
The examples sound very AH - he indicates that AH seemed to use all but mode 5. Listening to the examples, it's another work where years must have gone into it.
Somehow, I'm just seeing this thread now... Gah!
I can't recall if I first heard Allan Holdsworth on One of a Kind (Bruford), UK (K) or Enigmatic Ocean (Jean-Luc Ponty) but I vividly recall hearing him and thinking... great, time to sell all my guitars!
I met him the first time when he played the Roxy with Bruford's band and that confirmed my initial thoughts, this guy was from a different species. Only spoke a few words with him, but I remember thinking he was super smart and WAY too humble. Dave Stewart actually crashed at my place the night before the show... but I digress.
I was also at the Roxy when he played in 1982. By then, he had made a name for himself and it seemed like every "serious" player I knew of was there. I knew Eddy VanHalen and he was there - we chatted a bit and I recall him effusively praising Allan). But my most vivid recollection of that night - as written about by Byron Fry above - was the total silence in the crowd after he finished. There were a lot of mouths hanging open and stunned disbelief permeated the place.
In the late 70s, I was fortunate to work for Jean-Luc Ponty. We had a falling out in 1980 but became friends again in early 82. I was at the studio when Allan was recording his solo on In Spite of it All on Individual Choice. I was amazed (and most flattered) that he had remembered meeting me at the Roxy during the Bruford show. We chatted a bit and he was - as always - a really lovely guy.
I tried to see him every time he was in town after that, usually at the Baked Potato.
It's a truly sad commentary on the music business that he wasn't better known as the amazing talent that he was.
Quote from: jassy on April 12, 2022, 05:23:23 PMWhat an extensive and encyclopedic work. Absolutely exceptional!!
Have been working through this material - the depth here is truly staggering. What I find most remarkable is not that it is such a comprehensive analysis of Holdsworth's style but that within here are some truly unique insights to understanding the fretboard - I doubt I will ever sound even slightly like Holdsworth but I have made more progress on understanding the guitar in a few months of working through this than anything I have done in the last 20 years
This is a collection of lessons that are very pointed in terms of songs with segments that pull the correct scale applications, mechanical technique and appropriate disclaimers. Allan is best ingested from the beginning of his work so you can follow the progression into mathematical shapes, tunings and scales. His brain was very advanced with roadmaps that others don't equate to modern music in the end of his works. It was very much hybrid. Marshall covers these bases, however, keeping it simple and accessible will take patience on behalf of the student. Hope you enjoy these very intricate lessons!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTI2s4svE2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj4qSyFlc0A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drK4TXbHxp4
edit: keyboard gaff posted before complete
Anyone who has taken a path to discover what Allan was doing has found that the material was rather limited. Previously in the Marshall Harrison material I eluded to his teacher and study partner at G.I.T. Derryl Gabel. So here is an introduction. He is an apex instructor on the Holdsworth food chain and a very good teacher with many structured lessons in his youtube footprint in which I highly suggest you check out in the event you desire to figure out more of Allans' remarkable work. Enjoy! Derryl is also a V-guitar user as are most Allan fans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXfDFfR4QTY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-93oSt2yXw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLX0snGMpVw
You have hours of lessons on this channel with over 100 lessons that each will leave a lasting impression. Derryl is one of my favorite along with Rick Graham and Troy Grady.
Today is 7 years since he's been gone! (6 August 1946 – 15 April 2017)
For those in LA... An Allan Holdsworth "The Composer" evening at The Baked Potato tomorrow night...
https://www.thebakedpotato.com/events/allan-holdsworth-super-band-april-16-2024/
Outstanding small venue!
Note there's a LOT of prog crossover going on at the Baked Potato this month - Steve Smith/Vital Information, tu-NER (featuring Trey Gunn, Pat Mastelotto, Markus Reuter of King Crimson & Stickmen), Jeff Lorber, & more...
https://www.thebakedpotato.com/events-calendar/
Fortunately it recently escaped Fire
https://www.dailynews.com/2024/03/19/firefighters-save-baked-potato-jazz-club-from-flames-in-studio-city/
I was there for big band night recently. Great show.
They deserve an award for the biggest band (17 pieces) on the smallest stage. 😂
You literally walk thru the sound booth to enter the venue, its in the doorway...
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