To have a visible picture of Zappa in the frame is particularly apropos. Zappa spoke most highly of Holdsworth. Last year I saw a video of Zappa mentioning him, then I soon saw a Rick Beato video about him and thought “I have to check this guy out.” How Holdsworth has escaped my notice before that mystifies me. Now I can’t get enough.
Feels Good To Me was my introduction to Holdsworth. I was a big fan of Bill Bruford's drumming in Yes, and bought his first solo album not knowing anything about it other than what was printed on the back of the LP jacket. It was a bit of a shock - both how jazzy it was, and Annette Peacock's unique vocal style. I wasn't quite sure what to make of the album at the time, but Holdsworth's guitar playing definitely got my attention! Fast-forward a year or so, and I picked up One Of A Kind. Musically it was a life-changing album for me, and from that point forward I was hooked. After that I followed both Holdsworth's and Bruford's careers fairly obsessively, and have made a point of acquiring every recording I could get my hands on featuring either one of them. I also credit Bruford and Holdsworth with being my "gateway drug" into the wider world of fusion and jazz, which has been an incredible decades-long journey.
Totally agree with you about One of A Kind. It's one of the greatest albums ever made. For me it was not just an introduction to Allan Holdsworth, but to Dave Stewart too - possibly England' truly finest keyboard player!
I saw Allan Holdsworth at the Strand Theater in Santa Monica around 1989, totally mind blowing, he was chugging beers and lighting the fretboard on fire!
One of my favourite players. When I first heard the solo on Hazard Profile (pt1) I was inspired, despairing and terrified in equal measure. Man was a genius. Saw him in UK Tour at Guildford Civic Hall on my 21st birthday.
Agreed, Velvet Darkness shows him at his extemporaneous best, tightrope walking on a razor's edge, holding his perfectionism to the side, unbalanced, human, and truly monstrous. Gazeuse is sublime... This was so needed Andy. Cheers.
@@AndrewjWilson this point is very true. I didn't get Allan on first listening, it took many years, of listening. One day a switch in my brain tripped, during a listen to Nevermore, UK (even though I had heard it many times before). Then I just pretty much looked for any album that Allan played on. More recently, my mind has been blown, because the studio recorded albums are only one view of Allan's playing and pretty much every live show is different. So there is so much more music to investigate and listen to. It's clear to me that Allan was way ahead of his time.
Enigmatic Ocean, UK and One of a Kind are three of my favourite albums ever, sublime music. The other three I need, you are a bad influence sir, getting me to spend money 😅
lol - I saw him - "warming up" to stanley Clarke - in Copenhagen - i had the audacity to jell "Turn up the GUITAR !" - He quietly remarked "What Guitar ?" He was - ofcourse playing his synthAXE ! 🥲
Andy, that was absolutely F*&^king brilliant!! I thoroughly enjoyed evvery minute of it! Thank you sooo much.. I've always been a fan of Holdsworth, and I have always found his early stuff a bit more fun to listen to (because of the struggle, as you say). I now have some more records to check out, whcih I'm very much looking forward to. thank you again, and regards from Melbourne Australia 🤘
I saw him in the Rochester NY club, the Red Creek in the early 1990s. In between sets, I went to the bar in another room and ordered a beer. A couple minutes later , he came in and sat down right next to me where there was an open seat and ordered a pint. I don't know if anybody even noticed that he was there because he did not get bothered. We talked a little bit and he very friendly. He had a good sized crowd that night and people were astonished by his playing. It was much more advanced than it had been in the 1970s. I'll never forget that experience. Just a regular guy at a pub. A friend had told me years earlier that one of the reasons Allan had such fluidity on the guitar was that he had huge hands. I mentioned that to him and he took my hand and held it up to his and pressed down between our fingers so that we could compare. His hands were fairly normal-sized. I'm 6' 4" and my hands are large. He told me that his hands weren't particularly big, but he felt that his fingers were very flexible. Again - super nice guy.
Great video Andy Allan Holdsworth one the greatest guitarists of all time. very underrated. Tony Williams lifetime believe it is one of the greatest jazz rock albums ever. Velvet darkness my favorite Alan Holdsworth album. iOU is great to.
Great episode, looking forward to part 2, the 80s. When I got Gazeuse on vinyl, I had no idea who Allan Holdsworth was, but I loved the guitar playing and later recognized it on Enigmatic Oceans and U.K.
Helpful video ... handy to have the essential albums cover sleeve montage at the end ... snap shot taken as my homework list ... bonus points for the last minute !! ... CMcG, Aberdeen, Scotland
Thanks for that Andy: great video spoken direct to camera about a musician the music of whom you’ve obviously spent a lot of time listening to and thinking about. Holdsworth was a truly extraordinary musician. The vast majority of guitar players rely on licks and patterns whereas Alan Holdsworth was genuinely improvising much like the sax player he may well have preferred to have been. He actually said in an interview that he didn’t like the slightly percussive sound the guitar makes. Great stuff, cheers.
Lovely selection apart from Velvet Darkness lol, I understand why he despises it. My favorite of the guitar solo legends by far. His phrasing is otherworldly. City Nights from Secrets is mind blowing.
There is a point between Bundles to Gazeuse, where you hear a further development of Allan's style. Longer slurred notes with the use of the tremelo bar and further integration of picked and fretted notes into what subsequently became his very individual and brilliant legato approach.
ONe of my best friends met Holdsworth back i the day. He got some records signed, one of which was "Velvet Darkness". He signed it "I hate this - Allan Holdsworth"
My introduction to Holdsworth was the Tempest album, bought solely on my thinking the cover was cool. Had no clue as to who these guys were. My next encounter was through progressive rock radio, WKAR from Michigan State University and their Audio Aftermath show, where they played a track off of Soft Machine's Bundles, the DJ then runs through the members of the band, and Holdsworth name comes up. My fandom was cemented when I bought Believe It, followed by Velvet Darkness a year later. I agree with you, Andy, his mythology having grown since his passing, but not by a whole lot, and I know I'm stating the obvious, when your best work is on other people's records, you tend to get forgotten. He remains, to this day, a very underrated guitarist.
As a drummer myself, I was always drawn to Allan’s work. The list of top notch drummers Allan has played with is staggering. Jon Hiseman, Chad Wackerman, John Marshall, Andrea Marcelli, Tony Williams, Bill Bruford, Gary Novak, Vinnie Colauita, Michael Walden, Gary Husband, Steve Smith, Pierre Moerlen, John Stevens, Anders Johannson, Virgil Donati. Allan was an incredible musician.
"Gazeuze!" is such an incredible masterpiece, even I like it. And I'm not even a Jazz guy. I'm actually so little of a Jazz guy that I right away hate myself for liking it. Yet the whole thing is so perfect, the only flaw about this album is just your pronunciation of the title.
The First Tony Williams Lifetime Record after John McLaughlin left, is a Percussion Record with Ted Dunbar, a Jazz Guitar Player. The Live Concerts of that Band in Europe as can be found on TH-cam are amazing. Polydor was in some Ways an early Promoter of JazzRock Fusion but the Productions are suboptimal and surely on a Low Budget. So I think the Record is okay but I really recommend to check out the Live Dates from 1971, among them the Concert in Montreux.
I remember being a big Mclaughlin and Al Di Meola fan of their 1970's stuff and then I heard Holdsworth's solo on Nostalgic Lady on Enigmatic Ocean, and I was sort of confused like, " can't nobody play like that, and who the heck is this." Loved his sound and performance on JLP's Individual Choice in 1983 as well. My only wish was when they released the "Then" album, that they would have scrapped the Zone improv pieces and included the live versions of Devil take the Hindmost, Looking Glass and Shallow Sea.
Andy, I started watching your videos at first because of your drumming and now I stick around for all the other stuff. All the while I was growing up I only cared about rock and you're showing a whole new side to music I never knew much about and telling it in an interesting way. I wish you much (more) success.
My first exposure to AH was on Bruford's One of a Kind album. On the opening track, Hell's Bells, my attention suddenly narrowed when I heard the sound of the lead guitarist entering his solo. I've been playing guitar for 47 years now, and if I'd thought that Holdsworth represented the average guitarist back then, I would have sold my instrument and applied my creative energies elsewhere. I started playing at 17, and was quite skilled after 18 months of playing. Over the years, I've been able to reasonably mirror most well known personalities, including Fripp,May, Clapton, ect. I had trouble with EVH but struggled most with Holdsworth's work. Like many players, I don't utilize my baby finger very much in my fingerings, it's a little weak and somewhat awkward. My present day view of Holdsworth is that he was someone who operated and executed at another level. Thanks for this video sir!
I‘m very happy that ‚Velvet Darkness‘ gets it due! It‘s a great album and Andy makes a great point about acoustic guitar tracks not possibly being ‚rehearsals‘. BTW, producer Ted Templeman has a great book out and he talks about the Holdsworth album he was supposed to co-produce with Eddie Van Halen: Holdsworth told them that he doesn‘t want them in the studio with him! Obviously Holdsworth had serious issues I guess with a combination of crippling perfectionism, self-doubt and alcoholism. But the man was a musical genius!
Hello Andy. Thank you for your superb videos. I agree with all of the astute aesthetic judgements you have made about Alan's many albums in the 1970's, except, for one. Any album following the all time classic Believe It would pale, yet the criticism directed, at the time, towards Million Dollar Legs was glib & reactionary. Because of one funk vocal song (with hilarious lyrics: "You messed up my mind, girl."), jazzers,& proggers went nuts. Oh, the horror. A happy song sung by Tony Newton from Motown. Songs like "Sweet Revenge" which features one of Holdsworth's most devestating & satisfying chordal riffs ever, "Lady Jane", "What you do to me", & especially, the magnificent epic "Inspirations Of Love" are as good as the tremendous songs on Believe It. For your pleasure, I urge you, & all readers of this comment, to give a fair hearing to this classic album. Anyone can accept a popular glib dismissal, or they can enjoy a stupendous musical journey. I saw The New Tony Williams Lifetime Lifetime @ The Cellar Door in DC (w Marlon Graves on guitar), & U.K. @ Penn's Landing, Philadelphia, Pa, USA (w Alan Holdsworth). To dismiss Million Dollar Legs is to throw away some of Alan Holdsworth's & Tony Willams greatest playing. Tony Newton's playing is very cool & Alan Pasqua is spectacular on both albums. Give yourself a gift, & listen to Million Dollar Legs. (The CBS Contemporary Jazz Masters cd from 1992 sounds thin. If you can listen to the 2016 Japanese remaster, your ears will thank you!) Enjoy! Best to you & yours, Andy.
I thought, I had heard every name in the 60 s, 70s as far as Rock and Jazz is concerned... but Olli Halsall is an experience in/on his own .. thnx for this info
Daevid Allen got stuck in France because Soft Machine came back from their European tour and they realised his UK visa had expired (he was Australian of course). So they didn't let him back in. He went to Paris and got in touch with William Burroughs who he knew a tiny bit, stayed with him and Brion Gysin I think, then gradually put together the Gong band. The rest is history...
Andy, this is incredible! Please do more on Holdsworth covering his essential 80's/90's work till his passing please.. solid gold! And if so, have you done the same on John McLaughlin as he was sort of Alan's contemporary? Cheers, K
Beside of the unfortunately not yet released "Sherwood Forest" demos of Jon Hiseman, Allan Holdsworth and Jack Bruce there also has been an unreleased album of Tony William's Lifetime with Jack Bruce and Allan Holdsworth: The Lost Wildlife Sessions (also referred to as The Lost Wildlife Tapes 1974) Luckily these recordings have been released: Didier Lockwood, Gordon Beck, Allan Holdsworth, Aldo Romano, Jean-François Jenny-Clarke "The Unique Concert" Jack Bruce, Allan Holdsworth, Billy Cobham, Didier Lockwood, David Sancious "A Gathering Of Minds "Live At The Montreux"
Thanks very much, Andy! I'm very much into Holdsworth's 1980's albums, and UK, Bruford and Soft Machine, but I never checked out Believe It, Enigmatic Oceans, Gazeuse and even Velvet Darkness. None of my 'music friends", not even the proggier ones, seem to appreciate Holdsworth much, so I'm happy that you give him a lot of credit! Thanks for the essential listening suggestions!
Great video. Love all the albums you talked about. That Tempest Live album with Allan Holdsworth & Ollie Halsall playing together is brilliant. Thanks for another great video.
very enjoyable and informative stuff Andy. i got all the Albums you recommended and pretty much everything else those artists/bands have done, as i am a massive jazz/fusion aficionado. though there are some you mentioned i look forward to explore in more detail (gordon beck, pat smythe...) so thanks for that. ps: do you realise you keep rocking back and forth during your video's; sorry but this takes away some of my concentration :)
Gazeuse!, Enigmatic Ocean, UK, Feels Good To Me, One Of A Kind: My teenage years of 'being at one with the carpet' condensed. Saw UK in 79 at Kent Uni in Canterbury (sans Allan and Bill but still great) and the man himself just the once in Washington DC in 86, supporting Chick Corea's Elektric Band for an evening of muscular fusion. Love all his 70s output, when he scared the pants off everyone and rewrote the rules. Still the benchmark. He should have been a lot richer and more famous than he was. Devastated when he passed.
I discovered Holdsworth through the Bruford LP “One Of A Kind” which I found in the local bargain bucket when I was about 15. As an aspiring drummer, I bought it because of Bill Bruford. Goes without saying that this album is unsurprisingly bonkers because of the drums and that the other players know their stuff but it doesn’t stop there - the guitar playing is unreal. I totally get why Zappa rated him so highly and why after he died quite a few members of the FZ band went on to play with AH. He’s a guitarist’s guitarist for sure. He’s also a lot like Robert Fripp and some of the guitar on OOAK is frankly, stomach-turning in much the same way. But it’s brilliant. There is SO much crammed into that album. It’s constantly changing and much of it, particularly AH’s playing, seems to be improvised yet it’s so clinical and tight. It’s a very strange record. They manage to be funky on occasion and I would imagine that this is the band Level 42 would have liked to have been and probably got AH the job in Level 42 in 1990. But he can be hard on the ear. A friend who knows his jazz & fusion better than me went to see AH & Gary Husband live and said that afterwards he felt “utterly traumatised both physically and emotionally” or words to that effect. However, he did like “One Of A Kind”, which I still play a few times every few months. I’ve never been a massive AH fan but this is a stunning album and totally deserves to be on your list.
I own to the essential six the UK album and Jean Luke Ponty both are awesome I'll have to look hard for some of the others down here in the panhandle of Florida some of that's not so popular but I have people across the country that are looking for albums for me all the time and I'll put my feelers open I don't have that gong I'm going to try to find it but thank you great information on a great guitarist and I'd like to hear more one thing you might consider doing and you may not be able to do it all the time but consider playing excerpts especially from those rarer artists but thanks again appreciate the ride looking forward to the next one
Thanks very much for this Andy, I will be checking out the ones I haven't heard before. Coincidentally I was playing the JLP album earlier in the day - great stuff.
I first saw Holdsworth at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall in May 1973, playing in Tempest together with Patto's Ollie Halsall. It was quite a night for guitarists. I subsequently saw him with The New Tony Williams Lifetime in Washington DC in 1976, with UK near Baltimore MD in 1978 and a number of times with his own bands.
Yes, Andy, you can buy the 2 Tempest albums together on 1 disc. On the 2nd disc of the set is the BBC live recording with Allan and Ollie together. It's a good set!
Self taught, got it! But what does patronize mean? 😂 😉 Thanks for highlighting this era! Much vital, creative output during this time. Different but no less essential. My mentor’s descriptions of hearing him live on gigs with Tony Williams are fascinating. All the interactivity so often lost in later, more personality driven fusion.
I agree with most of this. I think Gazeuze is an excellent album. The Gazeuze lineup is a very distinctive group, which brings together various threads that were in the air at the time. The multiple percussionists remind me a bit of of Santana, except they don’t sound especially latin. There’s also a hint of Stomu Yamashta’s fusion work. I believe that, like Yamashta, some members of Moerlen’s group had a background in avant-garde classical percussion. The multiple mallet sound is also reminiscent of Steve Reich. I particularly like Francis Moze’s contribution. His composition, “Mireille”, is my favourite track.
My ears pricked up on this guitarist through hearing Bruford's solo material then I heard Heavy Metal Fatigue on a fusion show here in Melbourne,Oz back in the 80's.
I have all those essential ones except the Tony Williams. I will have to check that one out and I have 2 solo records, Metal Fatigue and Atavachron. I agree that Gong Gazeuse! is awesome. His acoustic playing toward the end of Shadows of give me goosebumps every time.
That "Raaawwwk!" at the end was worth watching all the way through. Of course, I appreciated the rest as well, especially because I'm unfamiliar with AH. 😮😂
GonG, Gazeuse! What a masterpiece. I first heard Holdsworth on Bruford's Feels Good to Me in the mid 80's (via my teen Prog purist phase, checking Yes solo stuff) then a couple of years later (still a teenager but now I've discovered weed and Camembert Electique) I bought Gazeuse and there's Allan again. Fan ever since.
Lifelong Allan mega fan here but gotta admit I find MDL a hard listen. Anything by Allan is great but the writing on this isn’t and I wish Tony had stuck with the Believe It formula rather than chase commerciality with MDL.
good evening in the 77s in France in a small room maybe 150 spectators, I went to see bill bruford the famous drummer. I spent 2 hours listening to him. the bassist and the guitarist seemed cool. I didn't know it was allan and jeff berlin on bass 😂
Believe it....Tony Williams / Allan Holdsworth.....a must.
Totally agree..his solos on that are unbelievable!!
Yes indeed!
One of the greatest jazz rock albums ever made.
Word.
The whole album grooves and shreds and everything you’d want, hands down one of my favorites
You never made a boring episode ! And - this Allan Refugium is a beautiful love letter to the greatest guitarist ever ,- 😘👍
For a life long Holdsworth fan, this is incredible. Thanks for sharing, mate!
To have a visible picture of Zappa in the frame is particularly apropos. Zappa spoke most highly of Holdsworth. Last year I saw a video of Zappa mentioning him, then I soon saw a Rick Beato video about him and thought “I have to check this guy out.” How Holdsworth has escaped my notice before that mystifies me. Now I can’t get enough.
Feels Good To Me was my introduction to Holdsworth. I was a big fan of Bill Bruford's drumming in Yes, and bought his first solo album not knowing anything about it other than what was printed on the back of the LP jacket. It was a bit of a shock - both how jazzy it was, and Annette Peacock's unique vocal style. I wasn't quite sure what to make of the album at the time, but Holdsworth's guitar playing definitely got my attention!
Fast-forward a year or so, and I picked up One Of A Kind. Musically it was a life-changing album for me, and from that point forward I was hooked. After that I followed both Holdsworth's and Bruford's careers fairly obsessively, and have made a point of acquiring every recording I could get my hands on featuring either one of them.
I also credit Bruford and Holdsworth with being my "gateway drug" into the wider world of fusion and jazz, which has been an incredible decades-long journey.
Totally agree with you about One of A Kind. It's one of the greatest albums ever made. For me it was not just an introduction to Allan Holdsworth, but to Dave Stewart too - possibly England' truly finest keyboard player!
I saw Allan Holdsworth at the Strand Theater in Santa Monica around 1989, totally mind blowing, he was chugging beers and lighting the fretboard on fire!
Yes, bring on the 80's Holdsworth.
One of my favourite players. When I first heard the solo on Hazard Profile (pt1) I was inspired, despairing and terrified in equal measure. Man was a genius. Saw him in UK Tour at Guildford Civic Hall on my 21st birthday.
Got to see Tempest in 73!! Never heard of Allan till then! Became a huge fan after that!! Great work Andy!! Thanks for your analysis of this master!!
A great synopsis, thank you. Also thanks for giving the late, great Ollie Halsall a shout out.
Agreed, Velvet Darkness shows him at his extemporaneous best, tightrope walking on a razor's edge, holding his perfectionism to the side, unbalanced, human, and truly monstrous. Gazeuse is sublime... This was so needed Andy. Cheers.
The solo in Fred on the Lifetime album and the one in Egnimatic Ocean Suite part 3 are two my favorites. That being said, I like all his stuff
Great survey, Andy. 👏👏👏
You almost have to train your ears to understand Holdsworth, because He is so unique
@@AndrewjWilson this point is very true. I didn't get Allan on first listening, it took many years, of listening. One day a switch in my brain tripped, during a listen to Nevermore, UK (even though I had heard it many times before). Then I just pretty much looked for any album that Allan played on. More recently, my mind has been blown, because the studio recorded albums are only one view of Allan's playing and pretty much every live show is different. So there is so much more music to investigate and listen to. It's clear to me that Allan was way ahead of his time.
Believe it was the peak of fusion for Tony and Allan.
Enigmatic Ocean, UK and One of a Kind are three of my favourite albums ever, sublime music. The other three I need, you are a bad influence sir, getting me to spend money 😅
Thank you Andy! Yes please for an 80s dive into AH!!
Saw them at My Father's Place Long Island and was blown away. When I asked how he did that he said with a plectrum
lol - I saw him - "warming up" to stanley Clarke - in Copenhagen - i had the audacity to jell "Turn up the GUITAR !" - He quietly remarked "What Guitar ?"
He was - ofcourse playing his synthAXE ! 🥲
Andy, ... great session ... having learned so much on Allan Holdsworth ... and my biggest discovery is Ollie Hallstal .. woh
Andy, that was absolutely F*&^king brilliant!! I thoroughly enjoyed evvery minute of it! Thank you sooo much.. I've always been a fan of Holdsworth, and I have always found his early stuff a bit more fun to listen to (because of the struggle, as you say). I now have some more records to check out, whcih I'm very much looking forward to. thank you again, and regards from Melbourne Australia 🤘
I saw him in the Rochester NY club, the Red Creek in the early 1990s. In between sets, I went to the bar in another room and ordered a beer. A couple minutes later , he came in and sat down right next to me where there was an open seat and ordered a pint. I don't know if anybody even noticed that he was there because he did not get bothered.
We talked a little bit and he very friendly. He had a good sized crowd that night and people were astonished by his playing. It was much more advanced than it had been in the 1970s. I'll never forget that experience. Just a regular guy at a pub. A friend had told me years earlier that one of the reasons Allan had such fluidity on the guitar was that he had huge hands. I mentioned that to him and he took my hand and held it up to his and pressed down between our fingers so that we could compare. His hands were fairly normal-sized. I'm 6' 4" and my hands are large. He told me that his hands weren't particularly big, but he felt that his fingers were very flexible. Again - super nice guy.
Great video Andy Allan Holdsworth one the greatest guitarists of all time. very underrated. Tony Williams lifetime believe it is one of the greatest jazz rock albums ever. Velvet darkness my favorite Alan Holdsworth album. iOU is great to.
Loving This! I have always needed an AH education. Thanks!!!
Thanks. Gonna listen to those albums. Heard some of it before but not all of em. 👍
Great episode, looking forward to part 2, the 80s. When I got Gazeuse on vinyl, I had no idea who Allan Holdsworth was, but I loved the guitar playing and later recognized it on Enigmatic Oceans and U.K.
Helpful video ... handy to have the essential albums cover sleeve montage at the end ... snap shot taken as my homework list ... bonus points for the last minute !! ... CMcG, Aberdeen, Scotland
So much info, so much music to listen to. This is gonna take some time. Next - Ollie Halsall.
Thanks for that Andy: great video spoken direct to camera about a musician the music of whom you’ve obviously spent a lot of time listening to and thinking about. Holdsworth was a truly extraordinary musician. The vast majority of guitar players rely on licks and patterns whereas Alan Holdsworth was genuinely improvising much like the sax player he may well have preferred to have been. He actually said in an interview that he didn’t like the slightly percussive sound the guitar makes. Great stuff, cheers.
Listening to Bundles. The first track - Allan rips of a wonderful solo showing his skills perfectly. A great start of that album.
Absolutely! And the great John Marshall's drumming is epoch making as well - this album is really all about just those two.
Lovely selection apart from Velvet Darkness lol, I understand why he despises it. My favorite of the guitar solo legends by far. His phrasing is otherworldly. City Nights from Secrets is mind blowing.
Another great video Andy. I need to look at the same for the 80s, especially the collaborations. Keep up the good work!
I love Annette Peacock
Still with Dave Stewart and a huge influence on Leslie Hunt of the wonderful District 97. Coincidentally, huge Holdsworth / Bruford fans.
There is a point between Bundles to Gazeuse, where you hear a further development of Allan's style. Longer slurred notes with the use of the tremelo bar and further integration of picked and fretted notes into what subsequently became his very individual and brilliant legato approach.
Excellent! Your deep dives into Holdsworth are always appreciated. There's much more even to be plumbed and understood, IMO.
Great lyrics.. powerful
Brilliant list. Would like to see the next decade covered. I do have most of those albums. Bundles and Gazeuse are masterpieces.
ONe of my best friends met Holdsworth back i the day. He got some records signed, one of which was "Velvet Darkness". He signed it "I hate this - Allan Holdsworth"
My introduction to Holdsworth was the Tempest album, bought solely on my thinking the cover was cool. Had no clue as to who these guys were. My next encounter was through progressive rock radio, WKAR from Michigan State University and their Audio Aftermath show, where they played a track off of Soft Machine's Bundles, the DJ then runs through the members of the band, and Holdsworth name comes up. My fandom was cemented when I bought Believe It, followed by Velvet Darkness a year later. I agree with you, Andy, his mythology having grown since his passing, but not by a whole lot, and I know I'm stating the obvious, when your best work is on other people's records, you tend to get forgotten. He remains, to this day, a very underrated guitarist.
As a drummer myself, I was always drawn to Allan’s work. The list of top notch drummers Allan has played with is staggering. Jon Hiseman, Chad Wackerman, John Marshall, Andrea Marcelli, Tony Williams, Bill Bruford, Gary Novak, Vinnie Colauita, Michael Walden, Gary Husband, Steve Smith, Pierre Moerlen, John Stevens, Anders Johannson, Virgil Donati. Allan was an incredible musician.
I LOVE these long off topic rants about your production and other stuff 😂❤
"Gazeuze!" is such an incredible masterpiece, even I like it. And I'm not even a Jazz guy. I'm actually so little of a Jazz guy that I right away hate myself for liking it. Yet the whole thing is so perfect, the only flaw about this album is just your pronunciation of the title.
The First Tony Williams Lifetime Record after John McLaughlin left, is a Percussion Record with Ted Dunbar, a Jazz Guitar Player. The Live Concerts of that Band in Europe as can be found on TH-cam are amazing. Polydor was in some Ways an early Promoter of JazzRock Fusion but the Productions are suboptimal and surely on a Low Budget.
So I think the Record is okay but I really recommend to check out the Live Dates from 1971, among them the Concert in Montreux.
Coming from a completely naive stance on Holdsworth, I've needed something like your discussion to get a start listening to him. Thanks Andy.
Brilliant episode
I remember being a big Mclaughlin and Al Di Meola fan of their 1970's stuff and then I heard Holdsworth's solo on Nostalgic Lady on Enigmatic Ocean, and I was sort of confused like, " can't nobody play like that, and who the heck is this." Loved his sound and performance on JLP's Individual Choice in 1983 as well. My only wish was when they released the "Then" album, that they would have scrapped the Zone improv pieces and included the live versions of Devil take the Hindmost, Looking Glass and Shallow Sea.
Andy, I started watching your videos at first because of your drumming and now I stick around for all the other stuff. All the while I was growing up I only cared about rock and you're showing a whole new side to music I never knew much about and telling it in an interesting way. I wish you much (more) success.
My first exposure to AH was on Bruford's One of a Kind album. On the opening track, Hell's Bells, my attention suddenly narrowed when I heard the sound of the lead guitarist entering his solo. I've been playing guitar for 47 years now, and if I'd thought that Holdsworth represented the average guitarist back then, I would have sold my instrument and applied my creative energies elsewhere. I started playing at 17, and was quite skilled after 18 months of playing. Over the years, I've been able to reasonably mirror most well known personalities, including Fripp,May, Clapton, ect. I had trouble with EVH but struggled most with Holdsworth's work. Like many players, I don't utilize my baby finger very much in my fingerings, it's a little weak and somewhat awkward. My present day view of Holdsworth is that he was someone who operated and executed at another level. Thanks for this video sir!
This was excellent and very informative. Been adding to the playlist. Thanks for the name drops👍🎶
I‘m very happy that ‚Velvet Darkness‘ gets it due! It‘s a great album and Andy makes a great point about acoustic guitar tracks not possibly being ‚rehearsals‘. BTW, producer Ted Templeman has a great book out and he talks about the Holdsworth album he was supposed to co-produce with Eddie Van Halen: Holdsworth told them that he doesn‘t want them in the studio with him! Obviously Holdsworth had serious issues I guess with a combination of crippling perfectionism, self-doubt and alcoholism. But the man was a musical genius!
Andy, your Holdsworth videos are always on point.
Always fun to revisit Holdsworth's legacy. Thanks for making this video.
Ask someone who also worships at the altar of St. Holdsworth, this content/spreading awareness of his work is sincerely appreciated!
Hello Andy. Thank you for your superb videos. I agree with all of the astute aesthetic judgements you have made about Alan's many albums in the 1970's, except, for one. Any album following the all time classic Believe It would pale, yet the criticism directed, at the time, towards Million Dollar Legs was glib & reactionary. Because of one funk vocal song (with hilarious lyrics: "You messed up my mind, girl."), jazzers,& proggers went nuts. Oh, the horror. A happy song sung by Tony Newton from Motown. Songs like "Sweet Revenge" which features one of Holdsworth's most devestating & satisfying chordal riffs ever, "Lady Jane", "What you do to me", & especially, the magnificent epic "Inspirations Of Love" are as good as the tremendous songs on Believe It. For your pleasure, I urge you, & all readers of this comment, to give a fair hearing to this classic album. Anyone can accept a popular glib dismissal, or they can enjoy a stupendous musical journey. I saw The New Tony Williams Lifetime Lifetime @ The Cellar Door in DC (w Marlon Graves on guitar), & U.K. @ Penn's Landing, Philadelphia, Pa, USA (w Alan Holdsworth). To dismiss Million Dollar Legs is to throw away some of Alan Holdsworth's & Tony Willams greatest playing. Tony Newton's playing is very cool & Alan Pasqua is spectacular on both albums. Give yourself a gift, & listen to Million Dollar Legs. (The CBS Contemporary Jazz Masters cd from 1992 sounds thin. If you can listen to the 2016 Japanese remaster, your ears will thank you!) Enjoy! Best to you & yours, Andy.
I thought, I had heard every name in the 60 s, 70s as far as Rock and Jazz is concerned... but Olli Halsall is an experience in/on his own .. thnx for this info
Good stuff! He was raised by his grandparents . I got to chat with him many times just keeping it to small talk at the bar.
Brilliant episode i have them all ! i like a lot Heavy Machinery with the Johansson brothers is an amazing album. Thanks Andy.
Daevid Allen got stuck in France because Soft Machine came back from their European tour and they realised his UK visa had expired (he was Australian of course). So they didn't let him back in. He went to Paris and got in touch with William Burroughs who he knew a tiny bit, stayed with him and Brion Gysin I think, then gradually put together the Gong band. The rest is history...
Andy, this is incredible! Please do more on Holdsworth covering his essential 80's/90's work till his passing please.. solid gold!
And if so, have you done the same on John McLaughlin as he was sort of Alan's contemporary?
Cheers,
K
Beside of the unfortunately not yet released "Sherwood Forest" demos of Jon Hiseman, Allan Holdsworth and Jack Bruce there also has been an unreleased album of Tony William's Lifetime with Jack Bruce and Allan Holdsworth: The Lost Wildlife Sessions (also referred to as The Lost Wildlife Tapes 1974)
Luckily these recordings have been released:
Didier Lockwood, Gordon Beck, Allan Holdsworth, Aldo Romano, Jean-François Jenny-Clarke "The Unique Concert"
Jack Bruce, Allan Holdsworth, Billy Cobham, Didier Lockwood, David Sancious "A Gathering Of Minds "Live At The Montreux"
Epic episode. Your knowledge and humor astound! Thanks!!!
Thanks for this great video
Thank you so much Andy, I had the chance to see AH end of the seventies with Gordon Beck at a small venue , for Gordon's Beck album Sunbird.
Thanks very much, Andy! I'm very much into Holdsworth's 1980's albums, and UK, Bruford and Soft Machine, but I never checked out Believe It, Enigmatic Oceans, Gazeuse and even Velvet Darkness. None of my 'music friends", not even the proggier ones, seem to appreciate Holdsworth much, so I'm happy that you give him a lot of credit! Thanks for the essential listening suggestions!
Looking forward to the next exploration (although lists are also good).
Great video. Love all the albums you talked about. That Tempest Live album with Allan Holdsworth & Ollie Halsall playing together is brilliant. Thanks for another great video.
very enjoyable and informative stuff Andy. i got all the Albums you recommended and pretty much everything else those artists/bands have done, as i am a massive jazz/fusion aficionado. though there are some you mentioned i look forward to explore in more detail (gordon beck, pat smythe...) so thanks for that. ps: do you realise you keep rocking back and forth during your video's; sorry but this takes away some of my concentration :)
Gazeuse!, Enigmatic Ocean, UK, Feels Good To Me, One Of A Kind: My teenage years of 'being at one with the carpet' condensed. Saw UK in 79 at Kent Uni in Canterbury (sans Allan and Bill but still great) and the man himself just the once in Washington DC in 86, supporting Chick Corea's Elektric Band for an evening of muscular fusion. Love all his 70s output, when he scared the pants off everyone and rewrote the rules. Still the benchmark. He should have been a lot richer and more famous than he was. Devastated when he passed.
Recently subbed and haven’t been disappointed yet, Andy knows whats up
Mostly, I find it's Allan's stereo clean tone that stands out....the ballads like Above and Below ❤
Great video Andy, thanks
Essential Andy Edwards
Superb episode Andy 👍
Great video.
I discovered Holdsworth through the Bruford LP “One Of A Kind” which I found in the local bargain bucket when I was about 15. As an aspiring drummer, I bought it because of Bill Bruford. Goes without saying that this album is unsurprisingly bonkers because of the drums and that the other players know their stuff but it doesn’t stop there - the guitar playing is unreal. I totally get why Zappa rated him so highly and why after he died quite a few members of the FZ band went on to play with AH. He’s a guitarist’s guitarist for sure. He’s also a lot like Robert Fripp and some of the guitar on OOAK is frankly, stomach-turning in much the same way. But it’s brilliant. There is SO much crammed into that album. It’s constantly changing and much of it, particularly AH’s playing, seems to be improvised yet it’s so clinical and tight. It’s a very strange record. They manage to be funky on occasion and I would imagine that this is the band Level 42 would have liked to have been and probably got AH the job in Level 42 in 1990. But he can be hard on the ear. A friend who knows his jazz & fusion better than me went to see AH & Gary Husband live and said that afterwards he felt “utterly traumatised both physically and emotionally” or words to that effect. However, he did like “One Of A Kind”, which I still play a few times every few months. I’ve never been a massive AH fan but this is a stunning album and totally deserves to be on your list.
I own to the essential six the UK album and Jean Luke Ponty both are awesome I'll have to look hard for some of the others down here in the panhandle of Florida some of that's not so popular but I have people across the country that are looking for albums for me all the time and I'll put my feelers open I don't have that gong I'm going to try to find it but thank you great information on a great guitarist and I'd like to hear more one thing you might consider doing and you may not be able to do it all the time but consider playing excerpts especially from those rarer artists but thanks again appreciate the ride looking forward to the next one
What a fantastic video have a wonderful weekend Andy 😊❤
Thank you! You too!
As always thx for sharing your knowledge and thougts on topic
Great video and would love an exploration of Holdsworth through the decades.
Thanks andy , enjoyed this, it's helping me grow my appreciation of Alan.
On a side note, can you make a video on Frank Gambale please ?😊
Have to have Jean Lun Ponty's Enigmatic Ocean. Also the first two Gong albums he was on, The Tony Williams lifetimes ones and both Bruford albums.
Sitting in front of your albums but now on a TV! Nice touch
Thanks very much for this Andy, I will be checking out the ones I haven't heard before. Coincidentally I was playing the JLP album earlier in the day - great stuff.
Great approach Andy !
I first saw Holdsworth at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall in May 1973, playing in Tempest together with Patto's Ollie Halsall. It was quite a night for guitarists. I subsequently saw him with The New Tony Williams Lifetime in Washington DC in 1976, with UK near Baltimore MD in 1978 and a number of times with his own bands.
His 80s and 90s albums is much nicer ❤
Brilliant exegesis. Bravo, Andy!
Yes, Andy, you can buy the 2 Tempest albums together on 1 disc. On the 2nd disc of the set is the BBC live recording with Allan and Ollie together.
It's a good set!
Self taught, got it! But what does patronize mean? 😂 😉
Thanks for highlighting this era! Much vital, creative output during this time. Different but no less essential.
My mentor’s descriptions of hearing him live on gigs with Tony Williams are fascinating. All the interactivity so often lost in later, more personality driven fusion.
Andy Edwards: "My faves in order are...Allan Holdsworth, Posh Spice, Scary Spice, Baby Spice..."
I agree with most of this. I think Gazeuze is an excellent album. The Gazeuze lineup is a very distinctive group, which brings together various threads that were in the air at the time. The multiple percussionists remind me a bit of of Santana, except they don’t sound especially latin. There’s also a hint of Stomu Yamashta’s fusion work. I believe that, like Yamashta, some members of Moerlen’s group had a background in avant-garde classical percussion. The multiple mallet sound is also reminiscent of Steve Reich. I particularly like Francis Moze’s contribution. His composition, “Mireille”, is my favourite track.
Would love to look at his violin playing - and his evolution with that instrument.
My ears pricked up on this guitarist through hearing Bruford's solo material then I heard Heavy Metal Fatigue on a fusion show here in Melbourne,Oz back in the 80's.
Bundles endlessly inspiring to me, also Tempest
I have all those essential ones except the Tony Williams. I will have to check that one out and I have 2 solo records, Metal Fatigue and Atavachron. I agree that Gong Gazeuse! is awesome. His acoustic playing toward the end of Shadows of give me goosebumps every time.
Bundles -Soft Machine
Gong - Gauzue
Gong -Espresso II
Tony Williams - Believe it!
Uk -Dead of the night.
Bruford - Feels Good to Me
Don't forget jean-Luc Ponty's Enigmatic Ocean. Can't forget that one.
@@thewestfaceofdhaulagiri6697 Of course, he shares guitar duties with Daryl Stuermer.
That "Raaawwwk!" at the end was worth watching all the way through. Of course, I appreciated the rest as well, especially because I'm unfamiliar with AH. 😮😂
GonG, Gazeuse! What a masterpiece. I first heard Holdsworth on Bruford's Feels Good to Me in the mid 80's (via my teen Prog purist phase, checking Yes solo stuff) then a couple of years later (still a teenager but now I've discovered weed and Camembert Electique) I bought Gazeuse and there's Allan again. Fan ever since.
Tony williams Million dollar legs is underrated
I will give it another listen.
Lifelong Allan mega fan here but gotta admit I find MDL a hard listen. Anything by Allan is great but the writing on this isn’t and I wish Tony had stuck with the Believe It formula rather than chase commerciality with MDL.
Don't let the cover put you off. "Believe it" and "MDL" is like a double album to me
I liked what I heard just fine. Don't get the apprehension
Ian Carr - Belladonna👍. Never thought I'd hear Allan doing Shaft-esque wah-wah, but I guess he's a complicated man......🙂
good evening in the 77s in France in a small room maybe 150 spectators, I went to see bill bruford the famous drummer. I spent 2 hours listening to him. the bassist and the guitarist seemed cool. I didn't know it was allan and jeff berlin on bass 😂