Soft Machine w/Allan HoldsWorth

[10K-DB]

So,,since I get bored w/3 chord songs once in a while{nothing against 3 chord songs,,they sell quite well} I venture to some Fushion/Jazz stuff. Allan's SG in this is sooo cool.

[G Mac]

Allan is one of my favorite players of all time! I didn't know that he had played with Soft Machine. Now, I have to go buy their stuff with him on it! Did he play on all their stuff or just some?

It's funny; this video shows him before he had abandoned blues sounds entirely. Part of what I love about his playing is that he hardly ever plays any blues influenced phrases. That's hard to do!

Thanks for posting this! Oh, and, the SG is cool!

[saturn]

So,,since I get bored w/3 chord songs once in a while{nothing against 3 chord songs,,they sell quite well} I venture to some Fushion/Jazz stuff. Allan's SG in this is sooo cool.

 

Thanks. Now that tune is going to be stuck in my head all day. :unsure:

[Hall]

re: Soft Machine,

[jdgm]

Holdsworth is on the studio album "Bundles" (the piece in the video is from it) and live stuff like the one mentioned, released long after the band finished.

[quapman]

Saw Holdsworth back in the 80s at the jazz festival in Vancouver. Small venue up close and personal. The guy is a monster.

But I found the fretboard acrobatics exhausting. My brain can't handle that many notes in a small amount of time.

Glad I saw him though.

[jdgm]

He also plays on:

 

"One Of A Kind" - Bruford

"Believe It" - Tony Williams Lifetime (brilliant album!)

"Enigmatic Ocean" - Jean Luc Ponty

[10K-DB]

Allan is one of my favorite players of all time! I didn't know that he had played with Soft Machine. Now, I have to go buy their stuff with him on it! Did he play on all their stuff or just some?

It's funny; this video shows him before he had abandoned blues sounds entirely. Part of what I love about his playing is that he hardly ever plays any blues influenced phrases. That's hard to do!

Thanks for posting this! Oh, and, the SG is cool!

Im not sure what albums he was on for SM. Yea his scales are really different,,thats what I like about him.

[10K-DB]

Whats really impressive about his playing,,hes doing all those wild scales w/his eyes closed! I saw+met him in late 80's @ Cotati Cabert in Sonoma County Ca,,fairly small place 200 folks or so,,and after they did there set he was just walking around talking to folks like he was one of the regulars at the bar,,so I started a conversation with him,,we chatted about his rig,,and he was using his Synth axe,,and thru what sounded like a Roland VG-8 gtr Synth. He gave me his autograph on a book of matches I had{which I still have today} after chatting ,,we shook hands and I thanked him for the musical inspirations over the years. Really nice guy,,and will chat w/anybody who wants to chat. I try to play some of his scales{what ones I can figure out} and some of the chord progressions in his tunes,,but there REALLY challenging to figure out. But I always enjoy a musical challenge,,just to see if I can do it.

[G Mac]

I have the Bruford,Williams and U.K. albums... three of my all time favorites! Didn't know he had worked with Ponty. I'll have to track that one down.

To 10K-DB: Yep, his stuff is tough! As a three note per string player, it has taken me a long time to get used to his four note per string approach. Like you, I love trying to emulate that sound/feel. You're lucky to have seen and met him!

Anyone who's interested in his style can check out his REH instructional video on YouTube... it's mostly live performance but, he does go over some of the scales he uses and talks a bit about his chordal approach. It's definitely worth checking out, especially if you're feeling stuck and need some new ways to think about playing. However, it is not for the faint of heart! Suffice it to say, he doesn't use any of the "normal" stuff.

Finally, I have to say that I prefer his work with others to his solo efforts. In my opinion, his originals lack cohesive melodic content but, it is most likely that I just don't comprehend what he is saying...

[10K-DB]

yea,,his style + scales he plays are amazing,,if you read early EVH interviews,,he credits alot of his VH style to Allan . I can do bits + pcs of some of his stuff,,I have learned to use all 4 fingers on neck when doing some scales,,alot of times before gigs Ill warmup doing 4 finger patterns scales going up+down to get flexable. But nothing like what he does.

[surfpup]

Really nice guy,,and will chat w/anybody who wants to chat.

 

I met him once, and he was totally unassuming. Super humble and very nice guy.

 

Have to say I like this clip better than the later SynthAxe era stuff I saw him play in the 80s/90s. His technique is insane, but after awhile it all blurs together for me.

[darling67]

Very cool. Not what I typically listen to, but very cool...

 

Love the tone he gets from that SG. Sounds very "Allman"-esque to my ears.

[jdgm]

Last thing I bought by AH was "Blues For Tony", a great 2CD set with J Haslip, C Wackerman and Allan Pasqua who plays really well on it - they revisit some of the old Lifetime material.

 

Holdsworth has said in past interviews that he hates hearing sequences which come back to a dominant (V7) chord.

He called one of his pieces "The Dominant Plague" and if his material is hard to follow it is partly because he almost never uses conventional dominants or turnarounds.

Another clue might be in the title of his book "Reaching For The Uncommon Chord"....though I haven't read or looked at it.

 

I also have "Truth In Shredding" where he is paired with Frank Gambale; Holdsworth plays some Synthaxe on this while Gambale concentrates on playing guitar as fast as humanly possible, and as a result re-uses the same devices in his solos over and over again.

Gambale is a wonderful technician but on these earlier (for him) recordings the blizzard of technique becomes meaningless IMO.