Would you consider Hendrix a Prog Musician?

[John Watt]

I hafta add, come on, are you actually listening to Hendrix? He played all six strings faster than most guitarists play single note runs. He wasn't shredding. I'm tired of the same old guitar magazines now saying Eddie's rhythms were unsung influences. Eddie never played a rhythm, being bombast at best. Come on! He never played a six note barre chord onstage. Even he switched to synths to progress with his lack of guitar ability. If you hafta compare Hendrix or anyone, be real about it. Play a Hendrix track. Add the beat or bass riff you like. Is Hendrix's music solid enough to allow that? Try to just sing along with your voice. Can you blend in or harmonize? You can play Hendrix songs and sing with just the basic three chords of western music. That won't mix with the real wild thing, but Hendrix was grounded with the blues and talked about Wagner and starting a rock orchestra, sky church music. I'll admit, without being there, live during that era, it's hard to look back through the haze of sound and lighting effects and studio trickery and psychological ruminations. It's getting difficult to look here, finding hype more than musical discussion. So I'll make a bet. Say something guitar or musical. See if I or any of the other musicians making it here can add to your ability. I can make a bet I can relate a technique or way to sound like a song, here for free. You just have to start ranting about music technically. If "come take a pebble, and toss it to the sea" by Emerson, Lake and Palmer featured Jimi, you would have heard the surf, a few splashes, and behind the quiet build of classical piano, from the former piano and drum duoist Emerson, you would hear soft and phased and chorussed floating washes of echoed chords and quietly whooshing leads trailing off resolution notes. But the lame almost folk singing of Greg Lake, holding vocal attention with proper sounding English style, after being in King Crimson, one of the biggest acid rock bands around, would have kept Jimi away. Side by side, those two bands may have had a race to see who could switch effects and wires between songs, but that's the only jam I can see them getting into. I'm going to have to visit the municipal and estate sponsored public park, museum and house Jimi lived in, in Seattle, to find some new grounding experience. I even think Hendrix clones and new Hendrix tours will supplant Elvis imitators as an industry. Hendrix and his influence on the recording industry already has.
And Jimi, what would he say here? He'd ask you to take some time to groove away, handing you his guitar so you can riff that day. Trouble for Jimi was, no-one ever wanted to take it away, from his hands.
Walking away, smiling onstage, the Experience all waved the peace sign, and most of us peaced back. No encore, no clapping, no shouting, no matches in the air, total silence, until you could hear roadies, starting to walk around, starting to really wind it up. Jimi never did. His mechanically created sounds carry on now digitally even as this thread. It really was too bad he was seen as black. Too much of America missed who he was and what he did. It's a good thing he wasn't born later. He never would have made it now, never being in rehab, not needing reality shows. Put on the headphones, please. Listen to Electric Ladyland, laying in the dark. Give Jimi's sonic atmospheres a chance. You might find yourself "smashing your own room full of mirrors, looking at the whole world for you to see, and waiting for your love to be". No more Jimi here, not from me. Unless there are specific musical requests for how to play his... uh... songs.

[ModernJazz89]

I think Hendrix was progressive and experimental. He is hard to classify. Many Progressive Rock artists were influenced by Classical Music, odd time signatures, some where influenced by Indian Music and jazz. That is why he is not classed as Progressive Rock. He was a huge influence because of his guitar playing. He was heading into a jazz direction I hear before he died. That is sad because there is no doubt in my mind he would have aced it.

[sunwaiter]

he was heading towards jazz right from his first JH Experiene album, with "third stone from the sun" a track our fellow John Watt seems to love, as maybe all of the others.

he was funky too, and displayed his ability to create and let flow grooves which he didn't feel the need to fill with soli all the time, though he did often. buddy miles helepd him a lot to do that,among other musicians.

John Watt and i were discussing over the Jimi/Miles issue in a former post. this encounter, fruitful or not, looks like a proof that Jimi was open, or at least that he didn't stay in his own "rock" world.

[sunwaiter]

i meant, Miles DAVIS.