Allan Holdsworth
“The first thing i heard [of Allan’s] was the song Road Games and i didn’t know what to think of it. it’s the
more rock’n’roll side of what he does, but then the solo came in and i was like, ‘What is this?’ it was almost scary. it took some processing time from when you hear him the first time for it to click. then i got Atavachron and it just blew my mind. i started searching for everything else he played on – the Bruford records, tony Williams, soft Machine, level 42. he was a true original.
“We played with him – it might have been one of his last gigs. We did the cruise to the edge with his trio. that was really cool. i was as close as i could get, just taking it all in.
“i met him when i was younger. i was teaching at this local music school and he did a clinic performance there. i was too starstruck to say anything of value to him. he was very chilled out, and very self-effacing. he was just making fun of himself the whole time. i have a fusion group, the tom Monda trio, and
we would do a couple of tunes that he was famous for, just for fun, some tony Williams’ stuff like Fred and proto-cosmos.
“he totally transcends the instrument. you can listen to him and forget you’re listening to guitar. it sounds like pure music. i think any person who’s great on an instrument, they go beyond the instrument and it’s just sound. you don’t hear any of the constraints of the guitar in holdsworth’s playing, and he sets a high precedent for everybody coming after him. there is so much intention behind everything that he plays, and he’s getting it to come out exactly like the picture he sees in his head. his touch and his tone, the way that he writes, every facet is so recognisable on an instrument where there are so many guitar players. it’s really hard to be that idiosyncratic, and you hear one note and you immediately know who it is. it’s a hard instrument to do that on.”