October offers an international cornucopia of fantastic recordings from modern legends like Eivind Aarset and Elliott Sharp and newer faces like Álvaro Domene and Guillame Gargaud. This month also serves up a bassist, and a record from Nashville that sounds like it could have come out of Norway.
Hands down, the best part of Summer NAMM was running into Benn Jordan. A candidate for The World’s Most Interesting Man, He plays guitar upside down, has a great YouTube channel, performs in front of thousands as Flashbulb, and is a Mixed Marshal Artist. He recently posted this video describing his laptop-free setup for performing his music, a mixture of jazz, metal, electronica, and beats.
I have wanted to talk to Marc for a long time. As we discuss, we were playing the Bleecker Street scene at roughly the same time when we were both working sidemen in the New York of the Seventies. Both his book, Unstrung, and his new Ceramic Dog record, Hope, are terrific, and highly intertwined. We talk about that and a lot of other deep musical and highly humorous stuff.
Sorry I have been MIA. Dealing with health things (I am fine), Guitar Player assignments, and Lockdown brain. For now I offer this terrific roundtable set up by Rick Beato with some of todays most original rock players. Interesting perspectives for any guitarist, but especially for those who want to push the instrument to the next level.
If anyone has ever advanced the guitar it would Maestro McLaughlin. He has a great new record out, Liberation Time, made all the more amazing by being recorded remotely. While making the Zoom press rounds, he graciously agreed to talk to my humble publication. We talk Miles, Mustangs, and my favorite band of his with Joey De Francesco and Elvin Jones/Dennis Chambers.
