Bruford's One of a Kind is my favorite album with Holdsworth on. Perhaps Jean-Luc Ponty's Enigmatic Ocean is second.Originally Posted by JJ88
Bruford's One of a Kind is my favorite album with Holdsworth on. Perhaps Jean-Luc Ponty's Enigmatic Ocean is second.
One of a Kind is one of my favorite albums ever; not necessarily because of Holdsworth's presence, but certainly not in spite of it.
I listened to Enigmatic Ocean today. It's the kind of album I might've liked back when it came out, but today, not so much. It's not bad, just not my favorite kind of fusion; it's a little slick and groove oriented. Not that that's a bad thing; I just like "slick and groovy" more in other types of music.
I'm taking a wild guess and assuming that The Tony Williams Lifetime was the band he enjoyed playing with the most, aside from his own band(s). He prefers a lot of interaction from the rhythm section and busy, aggressive drummers that challenge him.
A John Stevens Away discography page that came up lists six releases, (I thought there were only four). Holdsworth doesn't appear on any of them.
Holdsy is on 2 John Stevens albums, Conversation Piece and Touching On
Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?
Also on "re-Touch" (which is compiled from left over of the Toucing On session IIRC.
Have seen the Bozzio, Levin, Mastelotto band at their Tokyo gig, and this is exactly what I thought.
Holdsworth have developed his own language on playing, so it is apparent that it is very difficult / almost impossible for him to fit in an improvisational situation with other musicians, except with the guys he have played together for a long time (like his own band, or the Chad Wackerman CD).
A guitarist friend of mine loved that tour, saw it at Yoshi's on another night, so to each his own. I was really psyched. I'd never seen Tony Levin before, plus Allan with Bozzio and Mastellotto. Lots of boring noodling, nothing else. Allan seemed the most cohesive of any of them. Just crappy the whole evening. It was great to finally say hello to Allan and shake his hand. I was with Cone, who had hung out with Allan at the bar at some other gig and all Allan talked about was beer, which I understand is common fare to discuss, for him.
I have six Ponty albums, and I really have to wonder why. Nothing wrong with the playing on any of them, he sure did get connected with some very talented performers, but they’re so anodyne. I just don’t tend to find his albums very compositionally interesting.
To each his/her own. His solo at the beginning of “Nevermore” is my favourite bit of his playing, ever. I far prefer him as a sideman to a solo artist. I pretty much have the same problem with his solo albums as I do Ponty’s; the compositions just don’t click with me. Same with Bundles and the other Jenkins-era Softs albums. I’m just not a fan of that Ian Carr/Nucleus-type of Brit-Jazz, and I’d put the later SM albums in that box.
For the record, one of my other favourite bits of his playing is on “Upon Tomorrow” from the first Tempest album (And we even get to hear him play a bit of violin!). I really like the rock-ier side to his playing, though that album took time to grow on me. I still prefer Living in Fear with Ollie Halsall, though; it’s by no means perfect, but “Dance to My Tune” and “Turn Around” are classics!
Last edited by Progbear; 12-24-2015 at 03:41 AM.
Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...
'Igginbottom's Wrench
Hell, they ain't even old-timey ! - Homer Stokes
How is the Tempest record???
British blues rock
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
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Just OK; I prefer Living In Fear with Ollie Halsall (though I miss Paul Williams).
Hell, they ain't even old-timey ! - Homer Stokes
Colosseum'ish - Hiseman, Clarke & Paul Williams
There is a boxset callled Under the Blossom with both studioalbums and a live album which features both Allan Holdsworth and Ollie Halsall, and I am tempted to say that Ollie is here the better guitarist in this genre and legato style.
Tempest is really a continuation of the Colosseum style, with elaborate 'jazzy' songwriting a la Jack Bruce, but rockier. They certainly don't play blues-rock.
By the way, Holdsworth also exhibited his rockier side in Gong's 'Expresso' (or Gazeuse, as it was also known).
There are some not so well recorded live-recordings which features Allan with the band Turning Point circa 1980.
Allan is not playing on the two albums this English band made.
Another supergroup was Jazz Explosion Superband featuring Stanley Clarke, Holdsworth, Steve Smith, Randy Brecker and B. Wright. Their unofficial live-recording from 1988 is known as Goodbye Pork Pie Hat.One really cool project that Allan was a part of was Billy Cobham's Gathering of Minds. I don't know if they ever played more than one gig, but a heavily bootlegged soundboard has been floating around for a while. Cobham and Holdsworth along with Didier Lockwood, David Sancious and Jack Bruce. A dream lineup, if ever one existed! I'd bet that Allan would disown it as well.
He played well on it, as usual, IMO, although I will admit that he sounds like he really doesn't know what to do with "Theme For An Imaginary Western". Clapton or Leslie West or Robin Trower may have been more appropriate for that kind of song.
I’d say it’s kind of like Colosseum trying to be Cream. Or vice-versa. Either way, it’s an odd duck of a hard rock/jazz release. No surprise, then, that Ollie Halsall should get involved, as Patto were kind of occupying similar territory. The aforementioned Under the Blossom 2 CD set is interesting for the BBC Sessions featuring Holdsworth and Halsall together!
Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...
I recall that Holdsworth got inspiration on the usage of whammy bar from Halsall, so the Tempest BBC recording is interesting in that retrospect too.
It's weird; I like sections of Ponty's tunes very much, but rarely like a whole composition of his. They sound pieced together (hardly unusual for prog) and some of the ideas are strong; they just don't work together as a whole that often (imo... duh!)
That it is. The material seems kind of incongruous, like the tunes don't belong together. Some of it does remind one of Cream a little, but minus the quality of songcraft that Jack Bruce had. Some of it sounds almost like '60s pop/rock.
I know several of you guys don't connect with Holdsworth's tunes and I expected that. Personally, I think he's a great composer. I don't like all of his tunes, but there's a lot of gems. His writing style is unique; harmonically "floaty" and sometimes dissonant, but for me, many of his compositions are beautiful and memorable. They often convey a bittersweet melancholic mood that I find to be very moving. Different strokes!
Oh yeah, Progbear mentioned his violin playing (which he gave up on years ago). I think he played the instrument quite well, especially for a self taught guy! His sound and intonation was very good and his improvising on the instrument was very soulful and lyrical. I wish he hadn't put it down for good.
Tempest is kind of like a 'thinking man's hard rock' group, for want of a better term. The debut has its moments, but they were neither fish nor fowl.
I don't connect with what I've heard of Holdsworth's solo career. Metal Fatigue springs to mind...fatigue is certainly apt, I can't really see what anyone who isn't a top-flight musician would get out of it. Too twitchy and twiddly for me.
I'd say Metal Fatigue and Road Games are probably the most likely candidates for proggers to get into out of his solo discography. There was a fair share of vocals and even a few short tunes that bore something of a resemblance to pop. After those two, he continued to wade deeper into jazz waters, though his brand of jazz is unique, even in comparison to most jazz-fusion.
But I'm glad to know that I must be a top-flight musician, since I can get deeply immersed in all of his solo albums (with the exception of "Fat Tire," which was a home-made, one man recording on which he mostly played Synthaxe).
I got familiar with Holdsworth's solo music through the Tokyo 84 video (another one I understand he hates - maybe if I heard it again now I could start to understand why) and the IOU album.
The Live in Tokyo video (and CD) is a bootleg, unofficially released by (his then vocalist,) Paul Williams. They had a big falling out over that. But I think it's a very good concert from that era... and you can watch the whole thing on YT. I.O.U. is his official solo debut; I got it when it first came out and was only obtainable as a mail order. It was the first album to reveal a previously unknown side of his playing, his very original chordal playing that nobody he worked with as a sideman allowed him to unveil. I still think it's the best representation of that aspect of his thing... and it's remarkable; he was playing chords and voicings that nobody had come up with before (and some of that stuff is virtually impossible to play unless your hands are as big as his are). Lots of vocals on that one too. It's a "classic" if you ask me.
I remember buying Reaching For The Uncommon Chord book and thinking it should be named Reaching For The Impossible Chord instead.
I like the two Tempest albums very much, specially the first one with Paul Williams on vocals... of course, he would later join Holdsworth in his first solo band. In a way, that first Tempest album occupies in my memory the same space as the first Captain Beyond and King Crimson's 'Lark's': a new kind of metallic prog 'supergroup' featuring musicians that had previously recorded with other bands.
Tempest included Mark Clark and Jon Hiseman from Colosseum, Williams from Juicy Lucy and, less well known, Holldsworth from Igginbotom's Wrench, while Crimson included former Yes and Family members and Captain Beyond, former Johnny Winter, Deep Purple and Iron Butterfly members.
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