The Steel Guitar Forum

A friend of mine just sent me a long piece that he published in the current "Jazz Times" and I thought some would enjoy it so I'm posting it here.

https://jazztimes.com/features/profiles ... into-jazz/

I almost hesitate to post it because so often these attempts to talk about pedal-steel to a different (non-steel) audience just get slammed here on the forum; either for minor errors, or differences of opinion about who got left out, and of course by the people that only like country music (I'm thinking of the recent article about "ambient" steel).

I have some things I might argue about with the writer too (for one, at least some brief mention of Emmons, Jernigan, Franklin or others for historical context would make it a better piece IMHO) but it's still great to have intelligent discussions of the instrument outside of our little bubble. And certainly all the players discussed here are worthy, and to be commended for stretching the idea of what our instrument can do. And the opening story about jazz icon Charles Lloyd loving the steel growing up in Memphis is worth it to me all by itself.

Unlike that ambient country music article in Guardian, which I thought was a pretty fluff "music culture" piece, I think this is a well written, researched, and fairly deep article about how steel is really evolving now in the hands of four important modern players. He goes into enough depth about their individual musical journeys to get a reasonable picture about where they've been, where they're going, and why. He focuses on their music, and how they approach it. I thought all the other issues discussed support the story of their music, and are not the main course.

The article never pretends to be a history of the instrument, in jazz or any other context. But the depth in which he describes these four players gives a pretty good picture of that. But he wasn't writing about Emmons, Jernigan, Franklin, Chalker, and so on, so I don't fault him for not specifically including them. In fact, to include them in a meaningful way would have forced him to dedicate significant space to discuss their influence. I don't think name-dropping would have added anything important except, perhaps, to acknowledge other avenues of approach to development of the instrument in jazz.

Just my take. And I agree that the opening about Charles Lloyd and Al Vescovo was great, and not something I'd ever heard of previously. All and all, I think this is the best article on "alternate" approaches to steel guitar that I've read in a long time. Looks like a good and relevant suggested listening list also.

I didn't realize Al Vescovo was ever with the Snearly Ranch Boys---wonder what year that was? Al was born in 1936.

Maybe after Stan Kesler left them--late in the 50s.

Pretty funny about Susan Alcorn kicking off "The Other Woman" after having listened to Albert Ayler.

I agree completely, Dave; it's a great piece overall, and in a different category from the ambient piece in the Guardian. That might not have been the best example, but I'd bet you get my bigger point.

Anyway, Geoffrey's a great writer with really deep and wide-ranging knowledge of lots of different facets of music. I was really glad to see this article in a mainstream jazz magazine.

Pete - I get your bigger point, for sure. I just felt that I needed to try to distinguish the excellent quality of this article, as compared to what I felt were legitimate criticisms of the Guardian article that had nothing to do with narrow provincialism.

And hey, I get it. Jazz Times is a very, very different platform than the Guardian - and vive la différence.

FWIW, this made it to the ASCAP Daily Brief newsletter yesterday. The newsletter always has links to a bunch of music articles, but this was special enough that the subject line for yesterday's newsletter read "The pedal steel guitar slides into jazz". Pretty cool....

- Slim

Great article! I think the author's definition of jazz is slightly left of mine. His encompasses the ambient, new sounds, pushing the envelope types of musics. Mine is more in the lines of how interesting can you play a jazz standard.

Really nice to see some of our non-traditional community get some props.

Joe

Great article, Thanks for posting!

Agreed. That was a good read and a nice overview of some current steel players.