Allan Holdsworth

Recorded twelve years before his latest release, the similarly-live All Night Wrong, and at the same location in Tokyo, guitarist Allan Holdsworth demonstrates that while he's come a long way in the ensuing years, there's absolutely no reason not to look back at archival material such as this and stand in awe of a stylist who has singularly redefined the potential of his instrument. Then! captures Holdsworth and his band, keyboardist Steve Hunt, bassist Jimmy Johnson and drummer Gary Husband, during a three-night club date in 1990 when sparks were flying.


Holdsworth's reputation as a perfectionist has kept this performance out of the public eye for all too long, and so kudos is due to Chris Hoard and Derek Wilson of Alternity Records for ultimately convincing him to release it. One wonders just how many other recordings are sitting in the can, and how much coaxing it will take to get Holdsworth to release them. Shows like this would go a long way in satisfying Holdsworth fans, and keeping their interest in the long space between studio releases.

One of the immediate pluses about Then! in comparison to All Night Wrong, which is a trio disk, is the presence of Hunt. Using many of Holdsworth's original synthesizer patches, the group is able to pull off tunes from Holdsworth's Synthaxe period, including “Atavachron” and ”Non-Brewed Condiment,” with no loss of orchestral richness. Holdsworth has always had a personal sound on synths, and while Hunt clearly has his own playing style, having the Synthaxe patches available help keep the proceedings well within Holdsworth's sonic universe.

Any misgivings Holdsworth may have had about his performances on this date are purely his own; there's nary a misstep during the entire performance, and Holdsworth executes his signature blinding legato runs with the apparent ease and personality that make him an often emulated but never copied guitar hero. With compositions that date as far back as the mid-'70s Alan Pasqua tune, ”Proto-Cosmos,” from his time with the New Tony Williams Lifetime, and an instrumental version of ”White Line” from his I.O.U. days, Holdsworth is in stellar form.

But as much as Holdsworth's own compositions dwell in their own harmonic space, what may be the most revealing tracks on Then! are the three “Zone” pieces, group improvs that bookend the recording and break it up in the middle. Rarely settling into any semblance of rhythm or groove, these are more textural works that demonstrate a group with its own take on free improvisation. While his style is clearly his own, Husband's debt to Tony Williams is clear, and it's difficult to imagine that the chops-laden Jimmy Johnson has also been the simple groove-meister of singer James Taylor's band for over ten years.

Then! captures Holdsworth at one of his many high points. With a new studio record in the making, and a two-disc compilation of his past work imminent on Alternity, Then! provides another perspective of a guitarist who has, quite literally, reshaped the face of the instrument.

~ John Kelman - All About Jazz

Tonight at the Barbican, London, when John Scofield pits his sophisticated wits and considerable muscle against a younger generation of 21st-century fusion players with Uberjam, audiences will get an awesome earful of one course of evolution for a middle-aged guitar star who grew up on 1970s jazz-rock crossover. But Bradford-born Allan Holdsworth - a former member of Tony Williams's Lifetime, Bill Bruford's bands and late-edition Soft Machine, as well as a composer and group leader - seems to prefer to stay in the sealed room he's inhabited since his emigration to the US in the 1980s.

Holdsworth is a mind-bogglingly virtuosic guitarist who plays in a dense legato style that some have compared to the hurtling torrents of John Coltrane's saxophone sound. On this live set, his atmospheric ambient-chord sounds over cymbal washes are very dramatic (check the elegiac violin-like long meditation on Above and Below) and the range of his melodic imagination backed by storming technique is always breathtaking. If you track-hop and listen only to the way a Holdsworth improvisation initially builds while the rhythmic feel is still quite loose, he always sounds astonishing.

But the appropriately-named former Frank Zappa drummer Chad Wackerman is a relentlessly histrionic performer who locks the music resolutely into a 1970s jazz-rock feel - before a new generation of open percussionists made much more fluid dialogues between the ambiguities of jazz- time and the backbeat-marking of a groove. As a rare Holdsworth live disc (from his 2002 Japanese tour) regular fans will kill for it, but for the unconverted there's just too much unbroken heavy-metalwork and wall-to-wall drums - The Guardian

Whether it’s Charlie Christian drawing inspiration from tenor giant Lester Young, or John McLaughlin channeling the spirit of John Coltrane, guitarists of all stripes have been infatuated by the endlessly inventive improvisations and tonal complexity of modern saxophone masters. However, the guitar is obviously a lot different from a saxophone. To get anywhere near that ideal with a plank of wood and six strings is a Herculean task, because guitarists don’t have the steady stream of wind that a horn player uses to nimbly deliver lines that dance across measures with an Astaire-like grace. And then there’s the tone—guys like Cannonball Adderley and Charlie Parker produced some of the most expressive, organic timbres you’re ever going to hear from any instrument.

Well, Allan Holdsworth not only mastered horn-like phrasing and tone, but he managed to do it whether he used Gibsons, Fenders, Charvels, Steinbergers, tube amps, or solid-state amps. And, unlike many other players seeking bell-like sounds, Holdsworth didn’t plug an archtop into a Polytone and call it a day. He copped his horn timbres by using distortion—which he hates, by the way—and tremolo bars, and by avoiding picked notes. By sheer force of will, Holdsworth created one of the most identifiable guitar voices in modern music. That, my friends, is why he’s a bad-ass of the highest order—and we’re only talking about his solo tone.

Beginning with his 1982 release, I.O.U., Holdsworth introduced an otherworldly chordal style that relied on tightly- clustered intervals and expansive voicings that was previously unheard of. His instructional book, Reaching for the Uncommon Chord, is essential food for any guitarist looking to move beyond the norm. The guy is a giant.

His latest album, All Night Wrong [Favored Nations], was recorded live to stereo at Tokyo, Japan’s Roppongi Pit Inn. And even though Holdsworth hates live recordings, there is no better setting to hear a modern master at work.

You’re not a big fan of live records. Why?
Well, I have a problem known as “red-light fever.” If I know the gig is being recorded, I’ll just fall apart. Couple that with the fact there are hundreds of bootlegs of my gigs out there, so it’s like, why bother? Also, I kind of believe that a live show is an event that’s only meant to be experienced by the people who happened to be there at that point in time.

Did you record multiple shows?
We were going to record two nights. But, unfortunately—and much to my horror—when we returned the second night, the engineers had torn all the mics down. I don’t know if they were paranoid about them being stolen or what, but I’ve worked in studios where people have been fired for moving mics. We thought about setting them up again, but I just lost it and said, “Forget it.”

Is there anything you do before a gig to put yourself in the best headspace to improvise?
There are two things, but they’re not always easy to do. I like talking to the fans, but, before the gig, I start thinking more about their concerns, rather than my own. I can’t empty my head. So if it’s possible, I’ll go to a corner café and hide. Then, I won’t have to talk to anyone. The other thing I like to do is to put my hands in a bowl of hot water. I used to just sit and play the guitar before I went on, but I’d find myself falling into all these patterns and things I didn’t want to play. So rather than predicting any particular motion with my fingers during warm up exercises, I’ll just wiggle them in hot water until they’re loose. I also like the way the water makes my skin feel. The moisture gets into my skin, and I can grab the strings better.

Do you ever get into prolonged ruts?
Oh, yeah. I hit a dry spell when I was going through some personal stuff over the past four years, but that affected my composing more than my soloing. I felt my improvising during that time was okay, and I’d occasionally hear stuff that I’d never played before. But to compose, I have to sit down with a guitar and focus, and when things aren’t as I want them, it’s very easy to get scatterbrained and drift from one thing to another—which results in a cycle of non-productivity.

I’ve never heard you cite any compositional influences.
Most of them are classical composers such as Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky, Copland, and Bartok—particularly his string quartets. I still can’t listen to Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” because, if I do, I’ll cry [laughs]. I can’t get past the first two bars. It’s really weird, man. It tears me up. What I took from those guys was how their tunes make me feel in my heart. It’s about the emotion, rather than what the piece actually is. I think that’s because I want to be influenced, which is a whole lot different than trying to work out precisely what someone is doing.

Do you hear solo lines in your head before you play them?
I wish I could hear a solo in my head from the very first note to the very last, but they kind of go their own way. I c - Guitar Player Magazine