Allan Holdsworth Glasgow video - "Devil Take The Hindmost"

Several great videos of Allan Holdsworth's Sept 25th show in Glasgow Scotland have been upped to YouTube. This one is awesome. It's "Devil Take The Hindmost" - a Holdsworth classic. Chad Wackerman is on drums, Ernest Tibbs is on bass. Dig how Wackerman follows Holdsworth's lick at the 4:03 mark. Great stuff....

Comments

[Stratoblogster]

AH & CW have been playing together for over 20 years. It shows.

During the AH solo, when Tibbs sits out, do you think he's counting measures-- or is AH cueing him when to come back and change??

They shift bass players a lot-- Flim, Haslip, Tibbs, who else?

[Rich]

I've heard several versions of this song live where they do the "bass drops out" thing. I don't think it's the same length every time. In this particular video, you can see Wackerman say something to Tibbs right before he comes back in, so I think Wackerman is the one who decides when to bring it back home. I love hearing Holdsworth solo on single key "modal jams" like this, because he throws in tons of outside lines, and you can actually comprehend them as a listener. Sometimes when he's playing over his super-advanced chord changes, I'm just like "WTF is he doing?" I can't tell what's in, and what's out half the time. As an improviser, he's over just about everyone else's head.

As far as bass players go, he's used Jimmy Johnson the majority of the time since the mid 80's. I think he only played with Haslip for those Alan Pasqua "Tony Williams Tribute" shows. Tibbs seems to be the guy he uses nowadays if he's not using Johnson. Holdsworth has played and/or recorded with lots of other great bass players too; Jeff Berlin, Jack Bruce, Paul Carmichael, Stanley Clarke, Gary Willis, Skulli Sverisson, Dave Carpenter, etc.

[Stratoblogster]

I bet Wackerman has everything bracketed up and may even help guide AH. That's just speculation as I haven't a clue, but considering how long he's worked with AH and the fact CW toured with Zappa too, I'm thinkin' he could be holding a lot of it together while AH explores the options for that night.