http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S8sPVazM84&feature=related


Seriously, you guys got to check him out. One of the hippest dudes out there today, nicknamed coined "Scofield on speed".

wow this is fucking sweeeeeet

Glad you like it dude. He's way up there with Guthrie as one of the best! Course he's fairly unknown and his playing isn't as accessible...which is a pity. Here's another clip! I want to also add that he plays with Virgil Donati's band frequently, and even did some Planet X gigs for a while (think he still might be the live guitar player nowadays.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_cimRgGAMc&feature=related

Yeah man, I'm really liking this. I like his playing a lot, it's similar to Guthrie's in the sense that it has some degree of quirkiness and goofiness to it that I've always liked. Paul Gilbert is a really goofy guy but I don't find his playing very goofy, if that makes any sense. This guy seems a little more out there, similar to Guthrie as you've stated.

How do you know of this guy?

Word of mouth actually, one of my friends used to take lessons from him. He's actually really affordable as a teacher in LA and in the Bay...40$ for an hour lesson!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu8D6ozGUh4

Cool!

And he doesn't even look at the neck!v haha

Sh*t!

I had to send one of these links to Brett Stine!
He's a huge jazz fan. He may have already heard of him; but just in case he hasn't....

Yeah I know! It's freaky haha.

Have to bump this because I don't think people realize how much of a fuckin genius this man is.

I hate to be that guy, but it seems like he is just going through exercises and shit, nothing really popping out as awesome to me. just good technique.

I think his playing is something you have to understand for you to appreciate. I'm not saying the people who like it are better than you, but I guess they have more "jazz ears" if that makes sense? I really hope that didn't come off as an insult. I just have to say that his playing is insane and I can't even "imagine" the stuff he plays. He's really creative with his note choices are brilliant. I wish I could take lessons from him damn it

Would suggest try transcribing/analyze some of what he's doing. Maybe you'd appreciate it more? I've never seen Charles as a technician. A lot of the stuff he's doing is incredibly intelligent and he just does it on a whim looking bored. It blows my mind. His altered ideas/dominant diminished phrases are some of the more interesting out there, and he has such a huge vocab. He plays over some really tough chord changes in the smoothest ways, and never really repeats licks in a single solo. He takes easy chord progressions, and superimposes like mad over them. The way he times his phrases are almost always perfect... Always changing, always adapting. He's the closest thing to a sax player a guitarist can get. I've transcribed so much of his material but still cannot predict what he's going to do next. To me he's a musician's musician.

I could understand that if you don't really like it then you just don't like it. Nothing wrong with that, I would just say try not to write him off so quick. He is definitely a step above most people in terms of musicality, and it can be difficult to understand what he is doing.

I do get what he is doing, I love jazz, but it is all starting to sound very very similar. I just really have gotten disillusioned with music recently, all the same 12 tones just rearranged differently.
I do understand how awesome he is for what he is doing, I am just no longer in to music like I used to be I guess. No one is really doing anything new with it.

May I ask what is so similar about his playing?

Anyway, that sucks to hear you aren't enjoying music as much as you used to. I'm curious but what constitutes as being "fresh" and "new"? I'm asking because I have not heard many guitar players that sound like Charles at all, and am surprised that he is just another jazz guy to you. I feel he's really unique in the world of fusion/jazz.

No. Just no. This isn't math or physics. Music doesn't work that way and it shouldn't.

It's kind of the same how people who know nothing about rock music look at fast amateur guitar players VS let's say Paul Gilbert and think they're doing the same. They can't understand it, but we think Paul is better. I said "understand", not "like" as in we like him better in music. I'm not saying I'm better than Romulus (who I thought didn't) or anyone else who doesn't listen to that kind of music. It's just different when you know what it is?

I don't understand some pop music or country either but people like it if that makes sense? It doesn't have to be "intellectual", it just has to be something you're attuned to. I know for a fact that I only got to appreciate some genres only because I liked a certain band. Had I went straight into that other band, I probably won't like them. Also my point wasn't that technical music is the best. I think I posted somewhere in the board that I didn't know why Holdsworth was so praised by all my guitar heroes back then because I didn't understand his playing, nor did I like the dissonant/avant garde stuff he came out with. Nowadays, I can appreciate his playing more, but I still don't like the dissonant/avant garde stuff so yeah.

My point: simpler music "major/minor" is something everyone can understand because all the western music we hear is based on that. My dad loves bebop and the like and understands it because during his time that was the only thing playing everywhere. It means he can "hear" some things that people who don't listen to jazz can't, he doesn't have to be a musician.

World music is something I can't understand either (outside the 12-tones of Western music) but I suppose since rhythm is repetitive, it's much easier to understand.

Music is a incredibly large area of study as big as mathematics and physics. You can't compare it because music is an art. The more you understand it on a deeper level, the more you enjoy. For example, if you do not understand four part harmony, then you of course would not enjoy boroque chorales as much as if you did understand four part harmony. Same as if if you do not understand/hear or actively practice the concepts of altered, dominant diminished, or extended chord harmonies, you would not enjoy this kind of music. You could say the same thing about time signatures. Polyrhythms are incredibly deep in culture of places like Africa, but someone who can't feel that would just think it's just a jumble of messy rhythms. It's just a more complex form of the art that requires either study or natural instincts. I mean, we all get tired of the Clapton/Hendrix fanatics that just write Paul Gilbert or Yngwie off as just a mathematical shredder that just plays patterns right? We know there is something fundamentally deeper about the playing that Hendrix and Clapton just don't offer.

I could understand that someone would not enjoy going that deep into musical practice or even care about it, but it's not an excuse to say that music on a higher intelligent level is not how music is supposed to be. There is a kind of satisfaction knowing that you can hear everything that's going on and can contemplate it, that's why there are so many jazz snobs/metal snobs/blues snobs. I'm not saying that people suck for not liking Charles as a player, I'm saying, take the time to give him a chance and see what he's doing on a deeper level. If you don't want to, then it's no big deal, but you're definitely missing out on a lot of really cool stuff. That's why I bumped the thread. Not to say, "you all suck" for not liking Charles, but "give it a second chance".

this guys from the bay area?

He was from Berkeley, and even went to school at Stanford for a while which is pretty close by to where I live.

same here. how old are you refried bean?