Glen South: Difference between revisions

For all his jazz influences, Holdsworth began by playing rock ‘n’ roll-and God knows what else: "I first played out in local bands, doing pop music, top twenty tunes. I listened to jazz, but I couldn’t play it. After a few years of that, I met '''[[Glenn''' '''South]]''', who had a band that worked a chain of ballrooms...top forty, foxtrots, quicksteps." Despite these humble beginnings, Allan evolved quickly; legend has it that several London musicians were knocked out by a demo tape Allan had done and went to Bradford to recruit him only to discover Holdsworth working in a shoe factory. Fortunately, Allan was persuaded not to follow in his father’s footsteps (at least so soon), and the short-lived but impressive Tempest was born. Soon, Holdsworth’s reputation as one of the most impressive wielders of altered state electro-flash brought him into the circle of musicians that were embarking on the first fresh drafts of what would become known (and later reviled) as fusion. A valuable currency of the era was speed, an d Holdsworth’s ability to incorporate dissonant modes and scales into flat-out rock scronch made even his earliest recorded solos truly arresting. His enormous hands gave him a unique ability to, as he told Guitar Player’s Tom Mulhern, "juggle the scales around. Most of the time, guitarists play the notes in a scale consecutively. I avoid that by playing intervals that are farther apart. They’re the same scales and chords, it’s just that I wanted them to be juggled around more."