Reviews

It seems that whether self-taught or formally trained, most guitarists learn a very rock-centric style of playing based on the music they most enjoy hearing. Through the years they might find themselves limited by this or simply seek to inform their music with different styles. A new Lick Library instructional DVD seeks to provide established guitarists with the tools they need to add fusion styles to their arsenal. But how is the method? To find out check out my Tom Quayle From Rock to Fusion Instructional DVD Review. Type of DVD: Music instructional DVD Where to buy: Lick Library Store…

I have already covered other works from Hiromi Uehara over the past few years, including her 2011 release ‘Voice’. That was a great record that featured the same trio as on Move, with bassist Anthony Jackson and drummer Simon Phillips. It would be easy to call this recording ‘more of the same’ or evolutionary, but is that a fair description? To find out, let’s take a journey with the Hiromi Trio Project ‘Move’. Musical Genre: Jazz Where to buy: iTunes Music Store Artist: Hiromi Trio Project Description: During the recording of Voice, Hiromi connected with Jackson and Phillips in a…

I have known about Chris Potter for years, but mostly as a sideman, playing with Paul Motian, Dave Holland and most recently as part of Pat Metheny’s Unity Band. At the same time I have also become more of a fan of his efforts as a leader – his ‘Follow the Red Line’ live album from 2007 remains a favorite, with Viva Las Vilnius being essential listening from the last decade. He has recorded with a variety of labels through the years, and has recently joined the historic ECM label, and has just released his debut for ECM. Let’s take…

Pat Metheny is one of my favorite artists, and I am pretty much guaranteed to buy whatever he releases, and have been thrilled with the quality of work in recent years (he lost me for a while in the late 80s / early 90s). I truly enjoyed his Orchestrion release, and the live performance I took my family to see. Last year he released a DVD of the project which I enjoyed, and now we get the full set of music from the DVD. One could ask ‘where is the line crossing into over-milking a project’, and it is a…