[DDDorian]

Originally Posted by Holy Katana

It's cool, man. I figured you had forgotten about it. Could you give me some names of some modern players similar to Pat Metheny, John Scofield, Mike Stern, Bill Frisell, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and the like? I've been getting into more contemporary stuff recently.

No worries! The main thing that's holding the thread back is the lack of decent clips on youtube, really. Some are terrible quality, some don't really feature the players I'm trying to showcase and some don't have any videos at all. Nevertheless, these guys should hopefully keep you busy for a while:



Wolfgang Muthspiel - Wolfgang came up through Berkley alongside Rosenwinkel and are both considered big names in modern jazz guitar. He started off with a pretty heavy Metheny influence but over the years he's taken on elements of gypsy, classical and avant-garde and has a more unique, identifiable sound. To be honest, I only heard his stuff about six months ago at a festival and thus couldn't reccommend any releases, but keep in mind that he's tried a lot of different stuff, so if you hear something you don't like, persevere. I picked this clip because the sound quality was good, and because it featured two great guitarists in their own right; Ralph Towner and Slava Grigorian.



Adam Rogers - another relatively new guy, with rock-solid time and a pretty decent tone, too. He sometimes comes across as a bit... I dunno, calculated? but I dig his stuff. The Allegories album comes reccommended



Jonathan Kreisberg - Kreisberg's style is a modern take on the chord-heavy style of more traditional players like Joe Pass, with a healthy dash of Herbie Hancock for good measure. I can't get enough of this guy right now! He's so ridiculously laid-back that it's easy to overlook his monster chops and forward-thinking note choices. Nine Stories Wide is probably the best place to start.



Nelson Veras - this guy toured with Metheny's band when he was 15 or so and it shows, although he tends to veer off into Ornette Coleman-esque uglified moments. This clip is uncharacteristically downtempo in regards to his usual playing, but he tends to keep with that same foreboding, almost monotonous vibe with everything he does. Maybe not to everyones' tastes, but I dig it.

I'ld love to post more, but it's 2:30am here and I should probably be asleep or something. Enjoy!

[jacksonplayer]

I dug the Adam Rogers clip. The rest was a little too bebop for me, but then I'm more of a fusion/modal guy.

[VicerExciser]

Officially one of my all time favorite threads

[Holy Katana]

^Agreed. Best thread EVAR.

Those last two videos don't work anymore.

[DDDorian]

Why thankee saws! I aim to please!

Originally Posted by jacksonplayer

I dug the Adam Rogers clip. The rest was a little too bebop for me, but then I'm more of a fusion/modal guy.

I tend to go through phases of loving and hating fusion, I guess it's pretty obvious which one I'm in now, heh. So much of it is pure cheese that I often don't have the patience to search for the good stuff. Holdsworth and Zappa are constants, although I wouldn't really call either of them "fusion" myself.

Originally Posted by Holy Katana

^Agreed. Best thread EVAR.

Those last two videos don't work anymore.

They seem fine to me Try refreshing the thread and clicking anywhere on the video but the play button, so that it pops up in another window, it should work fine then. When you embed a bunch of clips in a row you can only load one at a time, if I recall correctly. Good luck

[jacksonplayer]

Originally Posted by DDDorian

I tend to go through phases of loving and hating fusion, I guess it's pretty obvious which one I'm in now, heh. So much of it is pure cheese that I often don't have the patience to search for the good stuff. Holdsworth and Zappa are constants, although I wouldn't really call either of them "fusion" myself.

So many different things are called "fusion" nowadays, that the term is almost meaningless. I think "electric jazz" or "jazz-rock" are actually more meaningful terms.

I'm kind of a weird bird because I don't really care much for traditional jazz guitar. I like the gutsier/bluesier style of Wes Montgomery and George Benson, but the pure bebop guys never did it for me. Too fussy. I listen to horn players more than anything else, and my favorite guitarists seem to be the noisier ones who've tried to emulate Coltrane, like McLaughlin and Holdsworth. I try to add some spare Mile Davis melodies into my Coltrane-style "sheets of sound," too.

Funny thing is, lately I've even been gravitating towards fusion bands without guitar, such as Weather Report and Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi band, as well as all of the great funk-fusion from the mid-70s. I find that I get better ideas for my own stuff by not listening to people who do sort of the same thing (albeit probably a lot better than I do).

[Holy Katana]

Odd, the videos work now. It said that they were no longer available when they didn't work for me.

[DDDorian]

^^Righteous

Anyway, I've got a pianist for y'all this time, Brad Mehldau! He rolls with the same crowds as the guys mentioned above and has a ton of recordings, mostly as sidemen; the only ones I'm intimately familiar with are the Mehldau/Metheny releases (the first is a duet, the second a quartet). Anyway, I just picked up his album Day Is Done which includes a few familiar standards, a couple of obscure ones and a few originals, as well as arrangements of more contemporary pop tunes, which I thought some of you might dig:


Rdiohead's "Paranoid Android"


Nick Drake's "River Man"


Paul Simon's "Fifty Ways To Leave Your Lover"

Enjoy!

[Blackrg]

Thanks DDD

As the kids say...Brad Mehldau ......FTW \M/

[DDDorian]

BAM! Tal Wilkenfeld! She's played with the likes of Jeff Beck and Chick Corea and has only been playing bass for four years or so. Her debut solo album Transformation (which also features guitarist Wayne Krantz, posted earlier in this thread) was one of my most listened-to albums of last year and I'm spinning it as I type this. I'm not hugely into jazz bassists post-Jaco but she really has the goods... and to think she's only 21! Sheesh. Chekkit: