The Manrilla Blog | Life. Art. Religion. Culture.

It’s barely been a week and I’ve seen two of my musical heroes; two geniuses. Billy Harper and now Allan Holdsworth. I have been listening to Holdsworth most of my life, being that my middle brother is a professional guitar player and Holdsworth is almost prophetic to guitar players. Metal Fatigue is the first album I heard him on so it was great that Chad Wackerman also happened to be there last night. Jimmy Johnson sat in on bass.

A small note: sound is so important to live, musical performances. I say this because for the first half of the gig, I could hear nothing but Wackerman’s drums. So, please, if you’re the sound people, do a real sound check and see if it sounds any good! Okay, on to the performance.

Wow!! I got to hear Allan Holdsworth! Yeah, it was kinda like that. His playing is truly difficult to describe (so listen to the video clips); at once fiery, enigmatic, and tranquil. His sound is haunting, filled with complex harmonics, and is a key component to Holdsworth. In terms of history, he’s in the jazz tradition, having played with Tony Williams (The Believe album is off the chain!) and other jazz artists but if I were to peg him he would most certainly fall in the realm of fusion (though personally I’ve always thought of Holdsworth sound as akin to that of Coltrane’s sheets of sound).

The band played through some great old standards off of Holdsworth’s previous albums as well as two from the Believe date with Williams (Fred and Proto Cosmos). You can tell that Wackerman has played with Holdsworth many, many times. They locked very well together and did a great job of setting and off-setting each other rhythmically. Johnson is a monster on the electric bass. If you can, see this group at the Iridium in NYC.

I am really happy that I met him and that I got to exchange a few words with him; a man who’s so quiet and unassuming (looks more like a chimney sweep than a monster musician). Enjoy the video clips as well: 1, 2, and 3.

Allan with Chad

At last, we meet