on 1/14/04 4:32 PM, Peter Gannushkin at shkin@shkin.com wrote:
I'm not sure though that it is better than No Escape From The Blues: The Electric Lady Sessions.
Personally, I prefer it myself. BLACK ROCK was a huge inspiration to me. When I got sucked into a life in jazz, it was one of the contemporary records that really touched a deep chord in me. At that time (about 1983), the Berklee-ite guitar style of John Scofield and Mike Stern was all the rage, and Stanley Jordan was huge. Looking for non-fusion contemporary jazz guitar building blocks at that time wasn't really easy. So Blood, Frisell, and Sharrock were a big deal. My style borrowed much from those guys, plus Grant green (who was, at that time, frowned upon), Bill Jennings, Oscar Moore, T-Bone Walker, Andy Gill, and Hubert Sumlin. Blood was the only guy that seemed to feel totally natural next to all those guys. His style was and still seems to be total. (My playing style at the time could best be described as something lie the Marc Ribot played on Ellery Esklein's THE SUN DIED, except nowhere near as well formed. But I was 18, so I give myself some slack.) When RAIN DOGS came out, Ribot became one of the major voices so much so that even his ROOTLESS COSMOPOLITANS disc couldn't tarnish his standing). Guys like me and Joe Morris and others our age look at Blood (and Frisell) with a lot of reverence. He deserves the world. skip h np: Louis Armstrong, AMBASSADOR SATCH