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As a guitarist in the jazz fusion world Alan Holdworth
ranks as among the best musicians around. Innovative, thoughtful
and creative Holdworth first made a name for himself with
a later incarnation of Soft Machine and, later still, UK
moving into the progressive rock arena. Holdsworth also
appeared with Tony Williams' Lifetime project replacing
jazz fusion guitarist John McLaughlin and appearing on two
of Williams albums. He moved through a succession of prog
rock and jazz influenced bands demonstrating a restless
creativity that truly didn't look at genre boundaries. ***
In the late 70's Holdsworth launched his solo career
releasing a number of strong albums. He has always had one
foot in the jazz world and with "Alan Holdsworth Live at
Yoshi's" recorded in April 2007, Holdsworth has released
one a terrific document of his live performance (I should
disclose that I was at the show so the review is somewhat
biased by having been there). Yoshi's is a famed jazz hotspot
located in Oakland, California and has been host to a variety
of musicians both from the rock world (Bruce Hornsby) and
more mainstream traditional jazz world. Holdsworth is joined
by keyboardist Alan Pasqua on this live disc. There are
very few guitarist from Holdsworth's generation that can
demonstrate the same creative flair and determination to
continually break new ground (Robert Fripp who preceded
Holdsworth by a few years comes to mind with the various
incarnations of King Crimson that he has led over the years,
his solo career, pairings with Andy Summers and his variety
of one-off projects such as "The League of Gentlemen").
The quartet that Holdsworth assembled for the show include
Chad Wackerman on drums and Jimmy Haslip on bass guitar.
***
The quartet play a wide variety of compositions from
throughout Holdsworth's solo career and the variety of bands
he has played with over the years. The nine compositions
taken from the Yoshi's show cover almost everything that
the band performed that night and it is a terrific overview
demonstrating the depth and breadth of all four musicians.
"The 5th" (Wackerman)
"Looking Glass" (Holdsworth)
"Fred" (Holdsworth)
"It Must Be Jazz" (Haslip, Holdsworth, Pasqua, Wackerman)
"Blue for Tony" (Pasqua)
"San Michele" (Pasqua)
"Pud Wud" (Holdsworth)
"Protocosmos" (Pasqua)
"Red Alert" (Haslip, Holdsworth, Newton, Wackerman)
Image & Sound:
Filmed in HD the show looks crisp with nice flesh tones
and color reproduction. Digital artifacts occasional crop
up such as video noise but, on the whole, the show looks
quite pleasing and the flaws are minor. The camera work
primarily focuses where it should--on the musicians performing
NOT the audience listening. ***
Audio is outstanding putting you front and center in
the show with a strong 5.1 mix that, although it is compressed
for the DVD format, doesn't betray any signs of compression
to the listener. Heck, you could just put this on and listen
to it on your system just for the music but watching these
amazing performers bring it together is worth it as well.
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