Your thoughts on this guitarist?

Scoredog

For those who have seen my threads you know I love mixing up the styles and Robin is a legend. I spent the first 10 yrs of my professional life copping Robin and Larry Carlton licks and that allowed me to tour the world playing guitar eventually behind major artists (one who requested I play Robin's solo off her record nightly). I'll see Robin anytime he is playing, even if it is playing in a Gypsy Jazz band but I'd prefer to see him in a rhythm section situation with electric bass, drums and keys. There are probably 20 guitarists i have heard on this forum I'd rather see in a Gypsy Jazz situation. To me the ultimate in a Gypsy Jazz situation is a guy who can mix fusion and still do gypsy like Bireli...just my personal preference.

terrassier

Yep it swings - reminded me of this somehow

Barengero

Boring Blues stuff.

wim

heheheh

Chiefbigeasy

Had the pleasure of seeing Robben Ford many times live in California. Never a bad show, always a tremendous tasteful musical phraser. I would pay good money to watch him play anything.

Appel

It's tricky, talking about Robben. One must needs exercise care with one's words, not simply out of respect for Robben but also for oneself .... I remember when that Yellowjackets album came out years ago, in the mid-'80s, probably most of you remember the one, the tune was called "Imperial Strut" - and all the guitarists around me were scrambling to decipher that brilliant guitar solo on their hit tune ... many I knew got all the notes, and some even captured his slinky articulation, but none could play it with Robben's absolute conviction. And he played with Miles! And what a brilliant career, after that.

But it is a strange thing; Robben did not necessarily chase after the whole guitar-star thing, as, say, Eric Johnson has; I suppose Robben's music is enriched in ways that allow him to excuse himself from the technical displays of other great electric players, like Steve Vai or Joe Satriani, though no doubt he could have gone down that road had he cared to. It is a different voice, he speaks with. But he has not turned his back on that light, when it has been shone upon him - who would? A guy's got to make a living, and music is a hard game, maybe one of the hardest.

And that very light is part of what colours my view of this video - though I am quite sure I would feel what I feel from it were I only to hear the audio track. The guitarists I draw inspiration from now are hardly stars in the same sense of the word, though it is true that within the sort of European Jazz that thrives in the spirit of Django and his ilk, they are well-known players. I suppose in turning towards a kind of acoustic jazz with its roots in Europe, I am seeking, along with those who are hinting at a degree of resistance to this video, certain very specific things, both in myself and in the music, and probably actually seeking to avoid other things (perhaps that guitar-star light); and after a musical life immersed in the genres that Robben inhabits so utterly and so pervasively, while yet straining against them myself and just never fitting in or finding what my musical heart has needed ... I don't know. Despite his great achievements, I am just not finding much in this recording that I am inspired by, that I want to learn from, or that I want to hear again.

What I did enjoy in the video is his enjoyment of the setting, and of the complete brilliance - the equal brilliance - of the musicians he is playing with, and his willingness to give it a whirl. I'd sure rather hear Robben take a spin on a Selmer-style guitar than Steve Vai, though I'd probably sit through that once, too, and maybe a second time if I liked it.

Who knows what that video means? Maybe Robben is also searching for something he's never found in the music he's played so far! No doubt, he will make good and honest use of what opportunities he can create for himself. And in that, he continues to be an inspiration.