Scott Henderson Discussion

[ultraknilch]

Hey Scott,
a fellow guitar wanker here...
I just came by this cool video of zawinul recording in the studio... maybe you haven‘t seen it yet. He seems like such a cool dude!
greetings from Hamburg, Germany!
Mads

https://youtu.be/xcqQ1pYWtlM[/url]

[Scott Henderson]

Yeah, exactly as I remember him, totally cool, and 100% about the work. He woke up at 7am every morning, ate breakfast and went directly to his studio. He told me once that he had over 100 tunes ready to go. I've heard a few of them - harmonic masterpieces that never got to see the light of day.

I'm sure there's a bunch of jazz musicians out there who'll hate me for saying this (they hate me anyway so who cares), but I'm glad Joe grew to dislike bebop jazz, because that's what made him the innovator he became.

We played once at a festival with Phil Woods opening up for us. I was digging Phil - definitely one of the greatest bebop alto players of all time. Joe was furious backstage and calling him every dirty name in the book - and words can't describe how he felt about young players coming out of music schools sounding like that. No wonder he loved playing with Wayne, the polar opposite of that style.

I don't hate anything, whether it's old and traditional or modern, but I think Joe, having played bebop for half his life, lost it at some point and had to say fuck this shit and everyone who does it, in order to totally immerse himself into what he was developing. It takes huge balls to do that.

I also love that he never gave a fuck what other musicians thought about him. He didn't play solos so people would applaud, he just played for the music. He loved to blur the lines between what was improvised and what was written, and for him music was all about being creative, not showing off. No licks allowed - ever!

An un-named friend of mine told me once about Weather Report, "sounds like a lot of the time those guys aren't even playing". I can see how someone who considers music as streams of eighth notes would feel that way. Whatever, I can still get into bebop, but thank goodness I have Joe's music to listen to.