Jump to content

Jimmy Page Session Man


Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, SteveAJones said:

^^^

Those were reissued on compact disc.

I recently saw one of them stickered three for five pounds or one ninety nine each in a second hand CD/DVD shop.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Apparently there are few different CD's and bootlegs, even though I bought it at Tower Records eons ago. 

Jimmy Page Jeff Beck Eric Clapton - Blue Eyed Blues CD is a bootleg also and stumbled across this lawsuit between MCA

MCA Records, Inc. v. Charly Records, Ltd., 865 F. Supp. 649 (C.D. Cal. 1994)

http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/865/649/1506321/

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I will probably be strung up for saying this, Jimmy obviously was an excellent player as  session musician, However

maybe Jimmy was instructed to keep the solos low key, because of the ton of session material Iv'e heard, a few songs

have decent solos,but a lot do not show at all the monster Page would become in Zep. Certainly there are some tracks

with excellent acoustic work, interesting fills, etc. The Guitar Boogie album IMO is damn good, Beck, Page, and Clapton,

and Page is cranking out some head-spinning fast blues, with excellent technique as well, close to shredding.

I guess I was one of the few who had got those session albums, and I was pretty disappointed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, that's a damn good one. Actually Jimmy got out of the session thing because I think he mentioned diff fads

with little guitar, engineers not understanding fuzz guitar/distortion, and so on. So it's not a surprise that Jimmy

couldn't express his rock'in ideas much doing sessions. Regardless though Zep gave Jimmy a supersonic boost 

of energy and creativity which wouldn't neccessarily have come in another band. You can hear this from live 

Yardbirds boots/releases. Jimmy is damn good, excellent at times, but as develocped as Clapton, Hendrix,or

Beck ???. No, Jimmy is on his way, no doubt, but he needed Zep to become brilliant.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was looking at the CD today called Stroll On and see no mention of Page or Beck helping out with Santa Barbara Machine Head.   It seems like a project band before Deep Purple but don't see much info about them or if Page was a session player ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

 Session work  usually means going in and reading off charts or music and doing your bit but to the producers or lesser degree the artists direction.This still happens today.Page hadn't really found his style yet and he was mainly doing these sessions to pay the bills.Ritchie Black more and others were doing the same.Some musicians are happy doing sessions ,it pays the bills,but dare I say it these people are great musicians but don't seem to have the artistic flair like Page had with Zep.I had a 2cd of Pages sessions that I picked up in a reject shop.There was very little evidence that you could tell it was Page playing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah that's a very good summation of the session man syndrome, although in the 70's there were players who were

actually used for their unique style( Jeff Baxter, Larry Coryell, Steve Lukather,etc.). Still, these hired guns were mainly

used for solos. None of them had Page's almost global musical perspective or compositional sense. Agreed too that

Page is on all these tracks, yet apparently the suits in charge don't want too much personality from the guitar. I also

must say that Jimmy may not have been a real session man playing jazz. Page did a little bit, but no way is someone

gonna tell me that Jimmy could get up at a jazz jam and just  slide in . Jazz is basically exponentially harder than most

other styles.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, I've heard this before. If you notice, the rest of the band eventually falls into regular blues structures, as Page is not

really able to handle the Jazz changes. What I'm saying has been said or reported by the press or writers etc. before, not

just my opinion. Regardless, Jimmy does play real well. Look, if Page dedicated a few hrs a day practicing for a year or so

solely to jazz, he still wouldn't be a master, but if he got a few dozen standards together, and he could pick and choose

the songs , he would probably sound pretty good. Remember that Jimmy couldn't even get the solo in Hot Dog live right,

a song with 3 or 4 chords( but you have to change with the chords, like jazz). Having said that , certainly there were live

versions of Zep songs and Page guitar parts just as difficult as tricky jazz.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Agree mithril Jimmy loved rock and roll and songwriting. I love Zep jams but they were mainly funk and blues based. Again Page had a knowledge of jazz chords and phrasing but as you've said not in a manner to be thrown in with true jazz players. JPJ maybe though. Not to say that Page couldn't construct a jazz tune as I feel that The Rain Song has a jazz feel to its chord melodies and even something like The Wanton Song with its heavy riffs has some jazzy chord melodies. This diversity adds to the Zep appeal.

Sath even though Jaco is in that jam its just blues ... 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah, the Rain Song( I learned it, 20,30 chords, and more, counting arpeggios). And certain sections of the Rockabilly jams

in WLL, not just blues licks, some jazzy licks and "outside" lines. Jimmy actually was a big fan of Django Reinhardt and 

here and there you can hear his influence on Jimmy, although the influence is more on Jimmy's rhythmic groupings

of notes in solos than the melodic content. Well, the studio and Jimmy's own curiosity makes him possibly the most

versatile rock guitarist ever. Actually, numerous times I've heard Jimmy get slightly annoyed being referred to as either

a blues or rock player. Pretty sure he just wanted to be called a musician.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I like musicians and bands that have  identity.I can tell when it's Page,Blackmore,Knopfler,Gilmor,Lifeson,etc when there playing.I remember seeing the film clip to the Stones, One Hit To The Body for the first time and hearing these bendy lead lines all over the place.My mate and me just looked at each other and said'thats gotta be Page'.I don't really like bands like Steely Dan,even though the music well done and the vocals are distinctive enough to say yeah that's Steely Dan ,it just sounds a little in personable.Just my little rant.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 hours ago, grasbo said:

I like musicians and bands that have  identity.I can tell when it's Page,Blackmore,Knopfler,Gilmor,Lifeson,etc when there playing.I remember seeing the film clip to the Stones, One Hit To The Body for the first time and hearing these bendy lead lines all over the place.My mate and me just looked at each other and said'thats gotta be Page'.I don't really like bands like Steely Dan,even though the music well done and the vocals are distinctive enough to say yeah that's Steely Dan ,it just sounds a little in personable.Just my little rant.

 

Jimmy's playing on OHTTB sounds very much like stuff he did with The Firm

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...