Music review: When guitarists converge on one jazzy bluesy night

How many guitarists does it take to screw in a light bulb?

 

Eleven. One to actually screw it in, and 10 others to say how much better they could've done it.

 

We guitar players are a competitive lot. And we're typically hard put to praise our fellow guitarists.

 

Having said that, though, this writer/guitarist must—however grudgingly—pay homage to his brethren six stringers, some of whom did great jobs at the recently concluded 1st International Jazz & Blues Guitar Festival.

 

The whole event ran for two days, June 1 and 2, at the Sofitel Philippine Plaza's Sunset Pavilion, and boasted such guitar luminaries as lauded jazz guitarist John Abercrombie, Korean YouTube sensation Sungha Jung, and Pinoy guitarists Tonet Lipana, Cowboy Santos, Joey Puyat, this writer himself, and the phenomenal wunderkind Luis Galang.

 

On June 2, on a night chock-full of good guitarists, to these ears, the best guitarist there was 12-year-old metal kid Luis Galang, who weighed in with a cover of Eric Johnson's quintessential guitar boogie hoedown, “Cliffs of Dover.”

 

Even fully grown guitarists are hard put to execute “Cliffs of Dover” cleanly. Luis, on the other hand, seemed to breeze through the most difficult sections with dismaying ease.

 

He is one of the scariest guitarists these ears have ever heard! The kid's just incredible.

 

To start at the beginning, though, we must mention the workshop conducted by jazz guitarist John Abercrombie and drummer Adam Nussbaum in the afternoon, before the concert proper started at around 5 p.m.

Allow us to preface by mentioning that Abercrombie is something of a pioneer in the field of modern jazz guitar. Influenced by jazz giant Jim Hall, John helped pave the way for much of contemporary jazz guitar playing. With the landmark Gateway trio, John led the charge toward looser, less overt, less literal, more abstract playing. To generations brought up on the Charlie Christian school of swingin' jazz guitar, Abercrombie's playing was a radical leap forward. 

 

It is perhaps not hyperbole to assert that without John Abercrombie, there would be no jazz-rock fusion.

 

It was therefore thrilling to bear witness to the great man's workshop.

 

He spoke of, and demonstrated, various approaches to improvisation—from playing variations of the literal melody, to spelling chord changes out with arpeggios, to running longer post-bop lines through the composition.

 

To musicians ready to take the next step in their musical maturity, the workshop was heady, life-changing stuff!

 

As for the concert proper, it was a surfeit of great guitar playing.

 

Among the memorable performers were bluesman Bong Sotto and Nitoy Adriano, who let it all hang out in their Stevie Ray Vaughn-inflected set.

 

Blues lovers whooped at each six string sting and bluesy jab.

 

Their performance gave new life to the joke “how many guitarists does it take to cover a Stevie Ray Vaughn tune? Apparently, all of them.”

 

It's a pithy joke, as it has a semblance of truth to it, which serves to underscore the undeniable fact that the blues is the root of virtually all modern western music.

 

Many guitarists dug into the wellspring that is the blues for their sets. Wary of being cut off in midset, guitarist Cowboy Santos, son of rock icon Sampaguita, played his behind off on one rockin' blues-rock song. He blew the roof off on that one tune before ceding the stage to the next performer.

 

By the way, it must be said that on an evening of fantastic six string performances, the best performance of the evening was one made on a four string electric bass. As said earlier, Luis Galang was, in our estimation, the best guitarist of the night.  

The best performance, however, was that of bassist Empi Martinez, who blew our socks off with a rendition of Tuck Andress' solo guitar cover of Wacko Jacko's “Man In The Mirror.”

 

MAN!!!!! That tune is hard enough to play on six strings, let alone four!

 

But Empi just killed it! Killer time, killer groove, killer tone, killer chops. On solo bass! Outstanding!

Noteworthy too was the set played by three female classical guitarists who call themselves, collectively, Triple Fret. That all three ladies are undeniably well-trained classical guitarists is impressive enough, as classical guitar is one of the most difficult things to do on earth. That all three of them are attractive to boot is proof that life is seldom fair.

 

Personal sentimental fave guitarist Tonet Lipana deserves special mention, as he is both musician par excellence and gracious friend.

 

And really, what's a music festival all about at heart but friendship?

 

Tonet's fretwork on Chick Corea's “Windows” was truly exemplary, a virtual workshop on jazz guitar.

 

Noteworthy too were jazzer Carlos Jesena, young blues virtuoso.

 

The evening's superstar and main crowd drawer was, of course, Korean Sungha Jung. He's famous for being so good at such a young age, for playing solo guitar renditions of modern tunes such as “My Ship Has Sunk But My Heart Will Go On,” and for being so darned cute.  

Ah, would that we too could draw shrieks and applause from teenage girls while merely tuning our instrument.

 

Thank God Koreans make better guitar players than they do rockets.

 

The kid zoomed into orbit from the word go, and his set was both a guitar extravaganza and a teenybopper shriekfest.

 

While his guitar playing is not quite as stellar as that of others we could mention, 10 million Elvis fans can't be wrong.

 

Props to the kid for capturing—and holding—the attention of the crowd with only a guitar on his side. It's no mean feat, believe us. —KG, GMA News