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Post by aliensporebomb on Aug 10, 2012 14:03:22 GMT -5
George finds ways to fit some interesting guitar in those jazz lite pieces so it's not totally awful stuff although if you really want obscuro avant-jazz he's kind of been there done that.
It would be like expecting IE to keep regurgitating "jupiter menace" type things over and over. People move on.
George makes a great living at what he does and there are plenty of young guns who are willing to starve to play weird stuff.
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mirth
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Post by mirth on Aug 10, 2012 15:52:24 GMT -5
Oh, I don't knock him for making a living. It's just too bad it's rather cheesy. I often wonder how the cats who make money doing the popular stuff, but are very capable of other stuff don't do more other stuff during down times. Do you think it's contract obligations?
The current level of production of music artists has really slowed down. Used to be multiple albums out a year, now you wait 7 years between records. Kind of weird to me? Benson strikes me as a guy that probably would do more variety of stuff, but his contract is probably pretty thick.
The IE example is Okay, but George has been playing the same stuff now for the last 30 years, it really hasn't changed much. So I imagine Jupiter Menace is still rather fresh in comparison.
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Post by Infinite Ego on Aug 10, 2012 17:17:02 GMT -5
Everybody hates Jupiter Whatever....it's totally sloppy ;-)
I reckon with GB he put out some burnin' records and now just doesn't have the time or energy to focus on hard core music. I mean, really, he has nothing to prove and nothing to gain from it. And, if you think about it, 30 years isn't even half of his total professional career which began at age 7 in 1950! He may have another project for the 'latter part.' LOL
"At the age of 7, Benson first played the ukulele in a corner drug store for which he was paid a few dollars; at the age of 8, he was playing guitar in an unlicensed nightclub on Friday and Saturday nights which was soon closed down by the police. At the age of 10, George recorded his first single record with RCA-Victor in New York, called 'She Makes Me Mad'."
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Post by jahloon on Aug 10, 2012 18:05:30 GMT -5
Whatever, George is a huge role model for the black musicians / guitarists in South Africa, go into any music shop and you will find a guy playing in George's style. Sadly the ticket prices at the South African concert I attended prevented all these guys seeing their hero. So you had a quarter full stadium paying $45 a ticket, Western World Pricing, and you could have sold the cheap seats for $1, and made a whole country happy.
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ck1
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Post by ck1 on Aug 10, 2012 22:59:03 GMT -5
Everybody hates Jupiter Whatever....it's totally sloppy ;-)   |
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Post by dasein on Aug 10, 2012 23:11:25 GMT -5
Whatever, George is a huge role model for the black musicians / guitarists in South Africa, go into any music shop and you will find a guy playing in George's style. Sadly the ticket prices at the South African concert I attended prevented all these guys seeing their hero. So you had a quarter full stadium paying $45 a ticket, Western World Pricing, and you could have sold the cheap seats for $1, and made a whole country happy. Benson was/is a pretty big influence on a number of black jazz guitarists... Rodney Jones, Russell Malone, Bobby Broom, etc. Say what you want about Breezin' and all the rest, but after Wes Montgomery died, Benson was probably the best jazz guitarist on the planet for a number of years. Remember that version of "Oleo" I posted? He really had it all... groove, tone, chops to spare... I think he still can do it, and he's done several albums over the years to showcase his jazz playing (that album "Tenderly" or the live album he did with McCoy Tyner). And honestly, can you really blame him for the smooth stuff if it got him the money that it did? He and his children are all set for life, which is more than 99% of jazz guitarists can say. Jim Hall has a nice house but I wonder if that's more because of his famous psychiatrist wife... |
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Post by aliensporebomb on Aug 10, 2012 23:44:39 GMT -5
I'm not slagging on Jupiter - I name-drop it because in some ways if someone said "play me a bofatron track" I'd play that and just watch their face. I personally like it.
In some ways the most polarizing yet short and distilled to its essence BS track.
That being said - George is in a career track where he's still in his moneymaking years - he probably won't do the heavy jazz thing again until later when he's pushing towards retirement. He looks pretty good and looks like he's got at least 10 years of good touring left maybe more.
And yes, make no mistake - Benson is a monster player. He is not someone to get into a guitar duel with no how.
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Post by aliensporebomb on Aug 15, 2012 16:03:46 GMT -5
Update:
I was on a news website yesterday that indicated Kenny G was divorcing his wife and apparently was making a big stink about not providing her spousal support.
Maybe she just preferred someone else who could suck and blow better (okay, this is terrible but I couldn't resist).
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mirth
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Post by mirth on Aug 16, 2012 6:00:39 GMT -5
"In other news, Kenny G's ex-wife admits having a husband who could subtlety blow continuously for 24 hours wasn't as great as it first sounded..."
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