I'm listening to a CD I made of Josh Smith, a lesser-known L.A. session guitarist. It's instrumental blues / jazz, of an extremely high caliber. Tasteful, masterful, underplayed. Only occasionally bursts into flashiness.
Got me to thinking. My views are decidedly in the minority, but I have always thought Eric Clapton is a terrible musician. Allan Holdsworth was a hack guitarist. Frank Zappa was a miserable technician. These guys play wheedly-wheedly guitar solos that rock back and forth between two notes as fast as they can. Unsophisticated listeners hear "wow so many notes" and automatically think the guy's a genius. I beg to differ.
They're just lifting one finger very quickly.
I have a lot of jazz recordings, and some of them fall into the same trap. Grover Washington Jr. and Ornette Coleman (among others) used to lapse into playing scales during their solos. Something a sax player would do for practice, to limber up, to prepare for playing music.
Paul Desmond played a lot fewer notes, but his notes were carefully chosen. He could turn a tune inside out, invert it, play it backwards, quote different songs that are in the same key—all within a single solo. He never lapsed into "practice exercises" to show off how fast he could lift one finger.
I guess my criteria for what makes good music are different from most people.
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