Adam Rogers killer playing on this...

Beautiful - thanks for posting!

 

adam is a total badass

 

Fantastic!

And what iron chops. Harmonic concepts and chops!

 

Damn...what's the use?

Happy for him, of course! He's a shining light.



S.
j

 

I checked out his right hand.

It looks like he holds his pick like I do where it is slightly angled up like this: /
as opposed to most players that seem to slightly angle it down like this: \

I find that I can pick faster and smoother with the pick angled upwards. So I use it for fast runs and tremolo picking.

But I noticed I get more power if I play with the pick angled downwards which seems to work better for playing metal. I just wish I could play smoother with it angled downwards.

 

I guess I don't "get" this kind of jazz. I can't tell if the band is actually playing a composition or just noodling. I can't tell if the guitar is playing something that goes with the bass part. So I have no idea if he has great harmonic concepts.

I actually like the way it sounds, I just don't understand it.

 

For speed, I sometimes put the plane of the pick more perpindicular to the string axis, rather than parallel. The pick seems to slip over the strings easier that way, hence giving you more speed. Try it sometime.

S.
j

 

That dude is so good.

That's a sight variation of the Benson picking style. It's like a mix of MAB and Benson

 

How about this one? He outlines the changes beautifully.

 

You know, I can handle about 10 seconds of millions of notes being played.
But if it is just for the sake of a million notes without any melody structure, then I get bored quickly.
Sorry not my cup of tea.

 

I love his fusion playing with a tele, but his jazz stuff doesn't do much for me.

 

He is a much better player than me, but as a listener I just hear an endless stream of lines like Pat Martino. I much prefer lyrical guys like: Joe Pass, Herb Ellis, Ron Eshete, George Benson, Grant Green.

 

It's really weird to think of Sco and Metheny as the old guys but now they are. Adam is one of my favorite post-Sco and Pat modern players. They first thing by him that caught my ear was his incredible comping on Michael Brecker's Wide Angles CD.
He can play beautiful lyrical nylon string stuff,rock out, or play super-hip modern jazz.

 

i'm really going to start working on my economy picking. i didn't realize just how much adam uses it

 

Great clip! I've always been tempted to start from square one with Benson picking. But it feels so unorthodox that I can never adapt to it, so I go back to the traditional grip. But the tone one gets from the Benson grip, plus the feel of the pick slicing at the strings at that angle, seems better than the traditional grip. Anyone here change to Benson grip for their right hand?

 

That is so killer. Adam is amazing. Had the good fortune to see him in a Monterey CA with Lost Tribe and he has definitely evolved so much as a solo artist. Love his playing.

 

I agree with you to an extent about melody in modern jazz. I love hearing the note choices and interesing chords of "modern" jazz guitarists, but overall their compositions don't grab me so much. Seems there's less "swing" and groove in much of their music. I'd rather hear Grant Green, Martino, instrumental Benson. But there's no denying the deep musicality and creativity behind Rodgers, Moreno, Kreisberg, etc

 

i guess i'm the opposite. while green, martino, and benson are great players, i don't think much of their writing. to me it wasn't until guitar players like metheny, abercrombie, and ralph towner came along that the overall level of composition caught up to the level of the playing (even though there are some wes montgomery tunes that i really dig!)

 

Thanks for trying, but I wasn't familiar with the song, so I had no idea if he outlines the changes beautifully.

So I listened to a bunch of versions of it on YouTube. I first listened to the Frank Sinatra version. OK, there's a melody, but it doesn't seem like a very strong one. After listening to it a bunch of times, I could still only remember the melody of the first line.

Then I listened to a bunch of instrumental versions. I couldn't really detect the melody at all! But with some versions, like a Joe Pass one I heard, and some piano versions, I could hear how they played over the chords because they actually played the chords.

So to fully appreciate this particular video, it seems like you really need to know the song really well.