Jazzers: Metheney is fairly innovative (I just don't
like his sound--get an archtop! please!--I will try
the trio cd though), although all that wide-interval
fourths and fifths stuff he gets from Joe Diorio. On
the value of innovation, I like the whole range from
retro stuff of Howard Alden and Frank Vignola to
straight ahead bop/standards of Bruno, Burrell, Randy
Johnston or Joe Pass to the 1st level of "stretch,"
Diorio, Jim Hall and Metheney to the wilder stuff of
someone like James Emery (anyone heard him? total
guitar god but music first and invention the most
important) or even McGlaughlin in his Shakti
incarnation (the Mahvishnu stuff went out there too).
How are we to think of this range of material when it
comes to music appreciation? I think it is a mark of
postmodernism that all this is coexisting in the
marketplace at the same time, and that the same people
can listen and enjoy all of it. Of course, postmodern
music will have to mix these in the same work of art,
but that is another topic.
Randy Groves
=====
J. Randall Groves, Ph.D. ("Rando")
Professor of Humanities
Ferris State University
groves@...
bebopguitar@...
