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It’s a shame when life gets in the way of your blog­ging. This has been the case with me ever since the hol­i­days, but I’ll be back soon with some projects and inter­est­ing ideas to share.

In the mean­time, I highly rec­om­mend lis­ten­ing to 23 Standards by Anthony Braxton. The entire album is amaz­ing, but as a gui­tarist I was imme­di­ately impressed with the per­for­mance of Kevin O’Neil. His sense of tim­ing and phras­ing is com­pletely orig­i­nal, entirely dif­fer­ent from the funk sen­si­bil­i­ties of my old favorites such as Grant Green or Melvin Sparks. Rather than con­strain­ing his impro­vi­sa­tions to the “in the pocket” feel that most gui­tar play­ers stick to, he man­ages to push, pull, and destroy the groove more like an avant-guard tenor sax player.

He also shreds with incred­i­ble speed and per­sis­tence through­out the entire range of the gui­tar. I have this image in my mind of him hav­ing to buy a new gui­tar every few years or so after wear­ing down the fret­board on the one he cur­rently owns. It’s prob­a­bly not true, but his play­ing sounds that sick.

Give it a lis­ten until you hear from me next. You won’t be disappointed.

Tags: anthony braxton, Grant Green, guitar, Jazz, kevin o'neil, melvin sparks, standards