(Translation by Ken Restivo and piero scaruffi)
Allan Holdworth, one of the great British guitar virtuosos, has followed
an oblique path in which he has collaborated with the giants of the Canturbury school, with the monsters of Heavy Metal, and with the visionaries of jazz-rock.
Trained as a clarinet and saxophone player, he pioneered the application of those techniques to stringed instruments.
His unique, fluid, free-form style often employed unorthodox scales and let
notes fall like like cloudbursts.
His career began with the band Igginbottom, with whom he released Wrench (1969),
and with Sunship, the band of Alan Gowen, before joining Nucleus, Soft Machine and U.K.
In 1975 he joined Tony Williams' Lifetime, and shocked the jazz world with
his incendiary guitar work on
Believe It (1975).
His first solo albums, Velvet Darkness(CTI,1976), with Good Clean Filth, and I.O.U. (Crack Moon, 1982), with
Letters of Marque and
The Things You See, were mere showcases for
his technique.
His evolution peaked with a series of spectacular albums for small ensemble
that ideally followed up in the vein of
Jeff Beck's
tour de forces,
Holdsworth's fusion style matured on
Metal Fatigue (Enigma, 1983), an album dominated by the lengthy
The Un-Merry-Go-Round but that also includes
Devil Take The Hindmost (opened by one of his best solos)
and Metal Fatigue, although ruined by the vocal parts.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
The mini-album Road Games (Warner, 1983) marked a return to a stronger
sound, but the material was generally weak and erratic, except for
Tokyo Dreams, despite the stellar lineup of
Chad Wackerman on drums, Jeff Berlin on Bass and Jack Bruce on vocals.
Atavachron (Enigma, 1986) brought mixed news. The good news is that
all tracks except one are instrumental (his vocal tracks are a real curse).
The real good news is that his orchestrations often duel with
Frank Zappa's in terms of eccentricity and
randomness. The bad news is that Holdsworth embraced an electronic guitar-like
instrument called "synthaxe", which allowed him to produce symphonic sounds
but also overloaded the arrangements (Non Brewed Condiment,
Dominant Plague).
It is not a coincidence that simpler pieces such as
Funnels and Looking Glass sound more vital.
That format was improved on the six pieces of Sand (Relativity, 1987),
notably Pud Wud,
and reached a baroque sort of peak on Secrets (Intima, 1989), whose
subtle and sophisticated compositions (especially City Nights) are
soothing the way "soft jazz" used to be, but without ever sounding moronic.
Vincent Colaiuta played drums.
The live album Then (2003)
contains Proto-Cosmos, recorded in 1990.
The guitarist mostly abandoned the synthaxed and returned to a rocking sound
with Wardenclyffe Tower (Restless, 1992) that includes a celebrated solo
in Zarabeth and the ferocious 5 to 10.
Subsequent albums
Hard Hat Area (Polydor, 1993), with the lengthy
Low Levels High Stakes, the hypersonic fusion of Ruhkukah, and House of Mirrors,
None Too Soon (Polydor, 1996), with the title-track and Gordon Beck on
piano,
Heavy Machinery (Heptagon, 1996), a trio with Anders Johansson and Jens Johansson,
The Sixteen Men Of Tain (Polydor, 1999), with
the melodic Above And Below and the longer 0274,
and
Flat Tire-Music For A Non-Existent Movie (Megazoidal, 2001),
continued to display his skills and a unique passion for genre deconstruction.
All Night Wrong (Favored Nations, 2003) was Holdsworth's first live
album.
Against the Clock (Alternity, 2005) is a career retrospective.
Blues For Tony (2009)
is a live double-disc album.
Propensity (Art of Life, 2011) contains
previously unreleased recordings
by Holdsworth
from september 1978
with
bassist Danny Thompson (ex Pentangle and John Martyn)
and
drummer John Stevens (ex Spontaneous Music Ensemble and Derek Bailey), notably
Jools Toon (10:39) and It Could Have Been Mono (15:48).
Holdsworth died in 2017 at the age of 70.
