Guitar Lessons London

1. LONDON GUITAR CLUB Guitar Lessons London. The legendary American guitarist, Larry Carlton, played a three night gig at Ronnie Scott’s this past week. In attendance on Friday night was our esteemed chief bandleader James Stratton, and your intrepid mogger (“music blogger”) Randy Sesson. Prior to the concert, we had a fabulous Spanish tapas dinner at Sabor, just off Regent Street, washed down with a bottle of Pintia. A great start even before heading to Scott’s! Carlton is a nineteen-time Grammy nominee and four-time winner, who has 30 albums to his credit and has played on another 100 that have achieved Gold or Platinum status. He originally built his career as a studio musician in the 1970s and '80s for acts such as Steely Dan, Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Michael Jackson, Quincy Jones, Bobby Bland, Sammy Davis, Jr., Paulinho Da Costa, the Fifth Dimension, Herb Alpert, Christopher Cross, Dolly Parton and Andy Williams His guitar work on Steely Dan's "Kid Charlemagne" from their 1976 LP The Royal Scam was ranked No. 80 on a list of the best guitar songs by Rolling Stone magazine. He has also been a member of the jazz fusion groups - The Crusaders and Fourplay. More succinctly, this guy is one of the best living guitarists on the planet. His style is clearly more jazz, jazz fusion, blues and pop oriented than hard rock histrionics. Señor Stratton compares him to other great living blues practioners such as Jeff Beck and . Carlton typically plays a Gibson ES 335 as his main instrument, but has also played Les Pauls, Telecasters and Strats on his various recordings. His own Gibson didn’t make it to London, so he had to borrow a new red 335 from one of the local music stores. His pedal board was pretty simple - volume, wah, chorus, delay and reverb. No matter, he gave a master class in tone, showing really impressive technique up and down the fretboard, producing a really incredible range of sounds, and a great knack for memorable licks. He played a number of songs from his Crusader days, in addition to Minute by Minute, Josie, She’s Out of My Life and the Hill Street Blues theme song. As most people already know his work from Steely Dan, try listening to a sample of some of his solo and jazz fusion albums to hear the breadth and depth of his guitar playing. Ideally with some tapas and a great bottle of Spanish red at hand.