Spanish composer and guitarist Paco de Lucía (b. 1947), born Francisco Sánchez Gómez, is a proponent of the modern flamenco style and one of the very few flamenco guitarists who has successfully crossed over into other genres of music, including jazz, funk, classical and world music. The son of Gypsy flamenco guitarist Antonio Sánchez, he adopted ...
Computer music can be defined as music that is generated by, or composed and produced by means of, a computer. The idea that computers might have a role to play in the production of music actually goes back a lot further than one might think. As early as 1843, Lady Ada Lovelace suggested in a published article that ...
Al Di Meola (b. 1954) rose to the top tier of contemporary jazz guitarists through his work with Chick Corea’s Return To Forever in the Seventies. In addition to a prolific solo career, he has collaborated on projects with bassist Stanley Clarke, keyboardist Jan Hammer, violinist Jean-Luc Ponty and guitarists John McLaughlin and Paco de Lucía. Al Laurence ...
(Guitar, b. 1966) A French gypsy, Lagrene was hailed as Django Reinhardt’s heir upon the release of his first album at the age of 13. He has performed gypsy jazz in the company of swing veterans Benny Carter, Benny Goodman and Stéphane Grappelli, but has also developed a personal, fusion-oriented style and mixes both approaches in ...
John McLaughlin (b. 1942) led the Mahavishnu Orchestra and a series of other bands that stretched the boundaries of jazz-rock fusion and world music, as he inspired guitarists worldwide with his inventiveness and devotion to exotic sounds and spirituality. McLaughlin started on guitar when he was 11 and was initially inspired by blues and swing players. McLaughlin worked with Alexis ...
By turns avant-garde adventurer, high-voltage rocker and Third World explorer, Yorkshire-born guitarist John McLaughlin has seldom repeated himself. Born in 1942, McLaughlin studied piano from the age of nine and taught himself guitar after becoming interested in country blues, flamenco and Django Reinhardt. A gig with Pete Deuchar’s Professors of Ragtime in 1958 was his ticket to ...
Juan Cristóbal Martín (b. 1948) was born in Málaga, Spain, and started learning the guitar at the age of six. In his early twenties he moved to Madrid to study under Nino Ricardo and Paco de Lucía. Martín was influenced by classic flamenco and the Spanish classical guitar tradition. His major influences included de Lucía, Tomatito and Andrés ...
Larry Coryell (b. 1943), a father of jazz-rock fusion, has recorded more than 70 albums over the past 35 years. Born in Galveston, Texas, Coryell tried his hand at a number of instruments before settling on the guitar. Chet Atkins, Chuck Berry and Wes Montgomery were major influences. As a child Coryell studied piano, switching to ...
Brooklyn’s Steve Stevens (b. 1959) grew up as a fan of progressive rock and honed his chops by studying guitar at Manhattan’s LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts. He worked the Long Island and Manhattan club scenes with bands and eventually was hired for session work, including tracks for ex-Kiss drummer Peter Criss. But Stevens’ star really began to shine ...
‘Fusion’ can be applied to any music that blends two or more different styles, though it is normally used to describe the electronic jazz rock movement that emerged in the late 1960s. Some of the musicians expanded the boundaries of both jazz and rock, while others focused on producing sophisticated, but shallow, ‘background’ music. Although fusion records ...
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