Guitar Magic (3): Young guns

 

In decreasing order of age…

 

Generations

With the passing or retirement of the previous generations of blues guitarists, and most notably the untimely death of Stevie Ray Vaughan, a lot of people in the music business, as well as fans, figured it might be all over for the Blues.  But there are a handful of young stars who love the Blues, foremost among them John Mayer and Derek Trucks.  Like Vaughan before them, they never hesitate to give kudos to the older masters.  The older guys, in turn, have welcomed them into the club with open arms.  Here is Mayer on stage with Eric Clapton, to help celebrate Eric’s 70^th birthday.  Consider it the changing of the guard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8C4wV74vrY

A small rant

Isaac Newton was a genius. He co-invented calculus, came up with the theory of gravity...and then spent the last 20 years of his life trying to calculate the age of the earth based on the generations listed in the Old Testament.  In other words, somewhere along the way, he went off the rails.

 

John Mayer is one of the most talented, versatile guitarists alive today.  Old hands like Eric Clapton have acknowledged his brilliance.  Yet he dedicated much of the past couple of years to a project called Dead and Company, which is basically a rehabilitation of the Greatful Dead.  WTF? 

 

Mayer is 10x the guitarist Jerry Garcia was.  Almost everything he does, including his online guitar lessons, is more interesting than anything the Dead managed after their first year or two of existence.  This project feels like Newton counting generations in the Bible.

 

Thankfully, Mayer still does other stuff, and some of it is insanely good—like this: “Neon”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DfQC5qHhbo

Jack Thammarat: “SRV”

Jack won several international guitar competitions, and is now touring with his own band.  He hasn't broken through as a global star, but he’s got great touch with the guitar and has a dedicated following. Here he does a beautiful cover of Eric Johnson’s tribute to the late Stevie Ray Vaughan, “SRV”.  This is practically a clinic on how to play electric guitar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmoIu-qyNS8

 

Ayla:  Smooth as silk

Canadian prodigy Ayla Tesler-Mabe is still a teenager, but she has two touring bands (one progressive jazz-rock, one straight rock).  She first attracted attention with a series of youtube posts that display masterful technique, amazing use of tone, and most of all, swing.  She has an intuitive feel for the music.  Here she is doing an apartment jam with one of her mentors and another friend, covering Santana.  She sounds better than Carlos--see for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmFKJgoSmbw 

 

 

More Ayla:

Life isn’t fair, and when talent was given out, some people got extra helpings.  Here is Ayla with her jazz-rock trio, which she formed in high school with two friends. She wrote and composed this.  It has a delightful retro feel, with a modern edge and some funk thrown in.  Her voice is still developing but she already has a great timbre for this sort of music. In a world swamped with factory-produced music, it's important that there are young people still interested in doing stuff like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BD39z0Ld7g

Lisa-X and Hazuki

Lisa-X is 15 and is quickly building a reputation as a highly technical guitarist and talented songwriter.  Here she is supported by frequent collaborator Hazuki, herself a young gun who is in the process of breaking through with the thrash-metal band Nemophila.  This is an early pandemic living-room performance of one of Lisa-X's singles

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mN_oLqTka6M

 

Saving the best for last:  Asterism. 

I included their “Rising Moon” in my post on power trios, because it really showcases all three members.  This clip, “Dawn”, focuses on guitarist Haruka Noma.  You will see why she’s generating buzz as possibly the best electric guitarist in the world today.  Decide for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buQPvINJcA0