virtuoso warmthofrelease Plenty of players can make a guitar cry or wail or shred or rattle windows or finger tap with a blistering pace or deliver sounds through pedal effects from the astral plane or quietly haunt in the background or just simply set a steady headbangable pace. Some do it better than others. Some can claim to be virtuosos. But it's pretty much all been done. Joe_Pass be the only motherfucker I ever knew could make a guitar dance. He made a 1973 jazz album self-importantly yet justifiably titling it Virtuoso. The Chord progressions, the crazy business of it, the lines twisting and rambling so far out of standard rhythm patterns and into improvisation coupled with precision. But not at the complete expense of melody and context, in the songs he interprets. One hell_of_a_rabbit_hole. 240406 ... raze lenny breau is right up there for me. his playing was as lyrical as his life was chaotic. he remains the closest thing i've ever heard to bill_evans on a seven-string guitar. i'm not sure anyone has or ever will tap into the melodic webs he was able to weave with artificial harmonics, though jaco pastorious got pretty close with the fretless bass and moments of transcendent beauty like "portrait of tracy". come to think of it, chet atkins is another cat who did a pretty remarkable job of never losing the melody no matter how tangled things got. and mark knopfler might be his one still-living spiritual successor. shredding has just never spoken to me on a gut level. i can appreciate the technical precision involved, but if the soul of the song gets lost, i start to check out emotionally. i guess i'd rather hear an instrument weep than be subjected to its screams. lucky for me, a lot of folks have seen fit to give their guitars something to cry about. 240406 what's it to you? who go blather from