More Satch

So Joe studied with Lennie Tristano. And he professes his appreciation for many of the bop greats, which got me thinking. You can hear the connection in his level of execution and the intensity of his improvisations; but you don't necessarily hear it in the harmony. And the improvs are very guitaristic in a rock way; riff-based and not using extended melodic lines. Jazz guitarists usually claim to be attempting to liberate the guitar from guitarisms so they can emulate a tenor player. Really Jim Hall, Allan Holdsworth and John Scofield have all said that. And you can hear it in the lineage from Charlie Christian to Pat Martino. Wes Montgomery excepted, I think. And despite what he says, Sco, along with other contemporaries like Adam Rogers are incorporating guitarisms into the jazz vocabulary. But Satch's music is just rock; its not a hybrid. His ambitions are personal, I guess I'm trying to say, and thats what gives him such a strong voice; its the sound of commitment.