Scott Henderson Discussion

[tomsan]

Hi Scott:

New to the forum. Not new to you because I saw you in Lauderdale back in the '80s. My memory is fuzzy but I think you must have been playing with Zawinul at the time. I do remember that it was a great live concert experience for me, as a fan. I understand you have musical influences but I hear in your playing that you have obviously worked hard to craft something unique and of really high quality over the years. Much respect.

Question: Can you name some of your favorite concert experiences as a fan?

Thanks,

Tom

[Scott Henderson]

Deep Purple - I saw them 3 times but one concert in Detroit really stood out as the best one. Ritchie is a great player, but inconsistent - on 2 of the gigs I saw, he was pissed off and didn't play that much, but he had some good temper tantrums. On the Detroit gig, he was in a good mood and it really showed in his playing - he had amazing tone and played his ass off.

Gentle Giant - unbelievable. I don't think virtuosity on that level will ever be heard in the prog rock world again. 5 guys played about 10 instruments each and sang like birds. Listening to their records, I never would've believed they could pull that music off live - but they did.

Herbie Hancock & Wayne Shorter - Wayne was beyond amazing that night. The opening band was George Howard, a wanna-be Kenny G. I was in the lobby for that set. When the real concert started, half the audience left, because I guess they were expecting "Rocket". Really pathetic, and it speaks volumes about Los Angeles. Anyway, an amazing concert and those guys are some of the finest musicians in jazz.

Toots Thielman & Kenny Werner - One of the most melodic concerts I've ever witnessed. Toots is famous for his beautiful melodic playing, and Kenny played equally as tasteful and melodic the whole night, even though he has monster chops. On the encore, they played Footprints, and Kenny let the chops loose - I thought the piano would catch on fire. He didn't play anything like that during the show, because it would've been out of place. It was a demonstration of respect, restraint, and the highest level of musical taste from one of the truly great jazz pianists.

Jeff Beck & BB King - Jeff's trio played first and it was a good show, but when BB's band came on, he asked Jeff to sit in and play a solo on the tune. After that, BB said "this guy sounds great - we're gonna keep him." So Jeff played the whole set - BB sang and Jeff played most of the solos. It was cool to hear him play traditional blues with a horn section - very fun show!

Philip DeGruy - just saw him play at MI last month. Words can't describe what he can do on the guitar - it's mind boggling. He's like Ted Greene but even more modern. Every guitar player on earth should see this guy play live.

I played with Joe Zawinul for 4 years. Every night, he played things that can only be described as pure genius. We had shows that were better than others, but the great ones when Joe was playing his best - wow. I feel lucky to have been a part of that.

[e123ms]

oh man Toots Thielman is incredible. the album he did with bill evans is one of my favorites