Mimi Fox and Martin Taylor at the Freight

It's one of those special weekend that I went to back-to-back awesome concerts. I'm writing about the 2nd one first. As a student of jazz guitar, this one featuring Mimi Fox and Martin Taylor is a must-see. Both of them are not only great performers but also teachers (Here are links to one of Mimi Fox's book and Martin Taylor's online school) Living in the Bay Area, I'm fortunate enough to go to Mimi Fox's concerts quite a few time (even a free performance at Stanford Shopping Center. I also remember very well the jazz organ fellowship gala that featured her as the guest. Mimi Fox lives in the Bay Area. As an aside: this year's gala will feature the amazing organist Tony Monaco playing at Stanford University!) About the famed European jazz master Martin Taylor, I actually first heard of him from my days as a devoted audiophile 15 years ago (Still am but spent less though) He recorded for Linn, the company known for high-end audio equipment. I got more familiar with his music after I was invited to join his online school. (Long story: one of the early success in online jazz instruction was Jimmy Bruno's Guitar Institute. I was a student there and learned quite a lot from Mr. Bruno. See my prior posts on this topic. Sadly, JB and the company who built the site parted way and the latter found Martin Taylor as sort-of "the replacement teacher") I went through his introductory video on the idea of utilizing the 10th (one octave above the 3rd. This was the first time I heard of such idea. (Here's a link to an interview of him on YouTube in which he explained it. I didn't end up joining though. I've never seen him performed live until today. This is one of the concerts that could sell itself simply because of the names on the bill. When I saw these 2 names, I didn't even bother to check if they are accompanied by a group or just playing with each other or solo, I knew no matter what it's gonna be awesome and I was right!

The set started with Mimi Fox playing solo guitar. I've listened to her latest album so I knew what to expect but still it's much better watching her live. It's cool to watch her right-hand technique: hybrid picking with a pick and also the ring finger. Sometimes she would hide her pick and use the thumb to play bass lines on the 6th string while hitting other strings with the middle finger for harmonics. She played mostly her Heritage archtop (I'm familiar with Heritage because Alex Skolnick of Testament also plays Heritage. HK's Tom Lee TST Showroom has a Heritage archtop) and also a flattop acoustic with a vintage/custom look, which is not a common choice for jazzers) She played "500 Miles High" (a Chick Corea tune and also a hint for the other concert I went to :P) on it. Other memorable pieces included Wes Montgomery's "Four on Six", "Moonlight in Vermont" and Beatle's "She's Leaving Home" from Sgt. Pepper.

Then came Martin Taylor. His style was quite different from Mimi Fox. His playing was more "densed" than Mimi Fox, meaning he played more chords (using the "latin" fingerstyle patterns taught in Berklee Chord 201!) and had a heavier emphasis on the rhythm parts. This video of him (from his younger days) explained it well:

In fact, he did play "I Got Rhythm" last night! I didn't just enjoy the music but also learned a great deal. I think I get a better understanding of his "scaffolding with the 10th" idea watching him demonstrating it in person moving up and down the guitar neck. It seems quite straightforward to apply too: if you could play the chords of a tune in drop-2/drop-3, the thirds (or the 10ths) would be quite obvious on the neck. He made melodies out of these quite a bit. Another idea I saw him using was embellishing the original melody, like what he did with "Georgia on My Mind." Coincidentally, it's the same idea Mimi Fox taught in the book I linked to above! Of course there are a lot more to learn from Mimi Fox's performance too, like her repeat usages of sequences against different chords in the progression (taught in Berklee Jazz 201 Week 3)

Finally, they jammed together on "Blue Bossa" (a must-learn tune for any jazz guitarist. In fact, it's the 2nd tune to improv on at JB's old guitar institute. I wonder if it's still the same for his current school!) and then "Blues for Two" written by Fox (can you believe the topic of this week's class at Berklee's Jazz 201 is blues? Yes, they did substitute quite a few chords of the basic 12-bar blues form!) I actually like Martin Taylor's playing more in this setting where he played more single-note lines while Mimi Fox was comping.

So I skipped my normal practice time to go to this concert and it's totally worthwhile! (And hopefully I would win the drawing I entered for the Peerless Martin Taylor signature model Virtuoso archtop guitar that is being given away! He played the same model last night.)

我的結他雜記: Wrong note?

The worst fear in me regarding improvisation is playing wrong notes. I spent a lot of time learning what scale/lick works with which chord. I worried about playing them wrong. Oh well, are wrong notes that bad? I bet everyone has tried correcting a wrong note by playing the right note next and found that the end result didn't sound that bad. In fact, the great bassist and teacher Victor Wooten said something really simple but may not be obvious: "You are never more than a half-step away from the right note!" Check out this video in which he explained:
And in this video he actually played a solo using all wrong notes and sounded good!