An Often Overlooked Treasure.
This album is a summit of lesser known virtuosos from my parents
generation. That is, these names
probably aren’t common knowledge to most folk.
I can totally see GHS 3 appealing to a wider audience than it was
actually marketed to. That is, if it was
marketed at all. This is jazz fusion,
but comes across like a really good jam band.
There is quite a bit of instrument jamming that I think most hippies
would appreciate. If I remember
correctly, Frank Gambale got started with Chick Corea’s jazz fusion effort,
“Return to Forever.” That was also the
starting point for Al di Meola’s career, who is probably the most popular jazz
guitarist today. Back then, this sort of
sound was visionary. The sad thing is, a
lot of it has gotten lost in the shuffle of good music. Many may have heard of Weather Report or that
Miles Davis played jazz fusion late in his career, and that was controversial
among musicians, but most probably do not remember efforts like Return to
Forever or the Mahavishnu Orchestra, which were also important and influential
bands in the movement toward fusion of jazz and rock. Everyone who is younger and unearths this old
music that was cutting edge in my parents’ generation, unearths a treasure. Stuart Hamm has been the bass player for
Satch, where when he played in that band he was asked to play the part of the
rather boring background music while Satriani, the guitarist, went crazy. I like Satch’s band ChickenFoot better than
his solo career because in ChickenFoot it doesn’t seem like he tries to be the
only center of attention. I remember
several times people telling me not to listen to the Satch if I wanted to
listen to Stuart Hamm’s better work, and they were correct. I was surprised that the Satch band formula
worked, as it is seems very calculated.
However, to keep the rhythm section simple was probably the secret to
Satriani’s success, as if he offered a greater slab of music, it may not have
been palatable to a wide audience.
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