There are a few pop stars that Jazz musicians of my generation seem to universally love and admire: Stevie Wonder, Bob Marley, and James “Jimi” Marshall Hendrix. I recognize that reducing any of these three to simply being “pop stars” is not doing them justice, and it is for that very reason that they are revered by Jazz musicians--and most any musicians--worldwide. A new movie is being released this week about one of these men.
The producers of this film were not able to get the rights to any of Hendrix’s material. And I do believe that the various voices that make these decisions for The Beatles also did not sign off on this film. So how do you make a movie about Jimi Hendrix without using any of his music which also happens to be set in the late 60’s and you can’t use any Beatles tunes? Set it in 1966, end it at the Monterrey Pop Festival of 1967, and do your best!
The reviews I have seen of this film so far have not been nearly as positive as were the reviews for the James Brown movie. I enjoy watching “What The Flick” on youtube for their movie and television discussions and apparently Alonso Duralde walked out on this film about halfway through. I generally agree with his take on movies and television, so hearing he actually walked out does not bode well for the film.
When I was 10 and 11, my family bought for me every Beatles album via my birthday and xmas. And when I was 12 and wanted other records, my dad got for me The Essential Jimi Hendrix volume one and two. I was in High School in the early 80s when those horrid bands like Duran Duran and Culture Club hit the scene and MTV came into existence. What follows below the squiggle is the music that was my lifeblood (along with ELP and Yes) until I had my conversion moment around age 16 to the Church of Coltrane.
Psychedelia and British Blues. This is the musical context for Jimi Hendrix. Except unlike the British blues guitarists and most psychedelic musicians, Jimi was American and Black. Born in Seattle in 1942 (November 27th), Jimi began playing the guitar around age 15. In 1961 he joined the army, became a paratrooper, and received an honorable discharge in 1962. It was in the Army that he met Billie Cox who would eventually replace Noel Redding as Jimi’s bass player. Hendrix worked out of Tennessee for a while playing with R&B groups and eventually performed and recorded with The Isley Brothers and with Little Richard.
Here is the earliest known footage of Hendrix. This is with the Little Richard Band, but Richard isn’t on this one.
Hendrix leaves Richard by 1965 and moves to NYC and Greenwich Village. What is going on in NYC in 1965 and 1966? Well, there is Coltrane. And there is Sun Ra. Andy Warhol is doing his thing, but he doesn’t hook up with Lou Reed and John Cale until late ’66. There would be many organ groups around, Jimmy Smith and the like. But one needs to assume that 22 and 23 year old Jimi Hendrix is into what is cool and happening and current. And I think we need to start with one group that is long overdue for their spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Love
My Little Red Book
7 and 7 is
Love were the first interracial rock band. The influence of Love on The Doors and Hendrix is somewhat well documented (more so for The Doors since they were both LA bands). Love is much “harder” sounding than other American groups at the time (it’s still a touch early for the MC5). It’s not blues. It is early psychadelia and probably could be classified as what we now call “proto-punk”.
In the NYC area of the time, you also had The Rascals and The Vanilla Fudge. This next tune isn’t released until 1967 so it can’t be an early influence on Hendrix per se. But this is in many ways the NY/NJ sound that would have been around:
Ticket to ride
And NYC gives us this as well
But of course any soundtrack to 1965 and 66 MUST include some of this
the word
Rain (first recording of backwards lyrics on a pop single)
And let’s not forget this
Under My Thumb
The Third group in the Holy Trinity of British Rock and Roll are relatively unknown in the USA in 65 and 66. If Hendrix was a hip as we generally think he was, it’s fairly likely he was aware of them before going to England.
Cant Explain (Jimmy Page on rhythm guitar)
The Kids are Allright
And likely he was aware of The Kinks as well
But that already drifts across the pond. Back in California we had a more directly Coltrane influenced psychedelia: Eight Miles High
The Hippies and Psychedelia are more connected to Jazz and Beatnicks than most usually acknowledge.
Ginsberg and Cassidy
Ginsberg is the connecting line of the Beat poets to Dylan, but Neil Cassidy is the connecting point to Height-Ashbury. Neil drove the damn bus! (The Merry Pranksters’ bus). I can imagine a young Hendrix in 65 or 66 seeing the bus pulling into NYC and saying “wow, that’s really groovy man”. But it’s also important to recognize, Hendrix has nothing directly to do with the San Francisco scene until after his 1st album. But he is in the NYC version of the scene.
Being born in late October of 1967, I missed the Summer of Love by a few months. But clearly, Psychedelia and the “Flower Children” were already well in place by then. And Hendrix is clearly into this scene. The following clip parodies “Flower Children”
That’s Our Hitler!!!!!!!!!!!
Back in England, there are several young musicians enthralled with American Blues artists. What is most interesting to me is that (pre-Cream) these bands are rather boring when they play the blues and downright awesome when they don’t. What I mean is that the actual 12 bar blues recordings most of these bands make aren't that great, but the tunes they write inspired by the blues are among the best Rock and Roll tunes.
For Your Love—With Clapton, who leaves the Yardbirds because he is a blues purist. It's Beck in the video, Clapton left before this became an actual hit.
Heart of Stone—With Jeff Beck
Clapton with Cream take the blues and jamming to new places where other rock and rollers havn’t arrived yet.
Hendrix is on record many times saying how much he liked Cream.
Once Mick Taylor joins the Stones in 1969, they begin to touch on some amazing blues and make what are arguably their best records (“Get Your Ya-Yas Out”, “Sticky Fingers”,” Exile on Main Street” and “Goats Head Soup”), but that is all later. In 1966, I don’t think even Jimmy Page could have done this:
I think Keith and Clapton and Beck could do that now, but I do not think they could play this well at any point in the 1960s. MAYBE Page could. (as a session player, Page had a wider skill set at this young age than many of his peers).
Jazz musicians tend to acknowledge Hendrix in part because Hendrix could play. He didn't need to hide behind the studio. He could do it live. He could do it without an amp if need be. His command of the guitar in 1966 is beyond that of any of his peers, and his peers are all the clips I listed above.
In many ways, Hendrix plays like an old blues musician with his amp turned up to 11. If Lightning Hopkins or Howlin’ Wolf turned up and got a little psychedelic, maybe they would sound like Hendrix. I’ve heard this said many times over the years, and while I agree with it I also think it misses half the picture. The other half is that Hendrix was into the hip pop music of the day. The psychedelia and the R&B.
The story goes that Chas Chandler, former bassist of The Animals, saw Hendrix and his group in NYC and brought him to London to make him a star. Randy California also was invited but as he was 15 or 16 at the time, he could not go. Randy will go on to form Spirit in a couple of years and has recently been in the news for suing Led Zeppelin for recording an Am chord with descending 7ths on a folksy acoustic guitar. (yes….I have no idea what makes California think that he has a legal leg to stand on with his lawsuit over Stairway to Heaven 40 years after the fact. Plus you cannot copyright a chord progression).
Chandler has in mind to get a group to record Hey Joe and thinks it can be a big hit.
This is what the movie is about: The women who fall for early Hendrix and hook him up with Chas. Chas taking Hendrix to England and putting the band together. Jimi meeting Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding. Noel was a guitar player who was willing to play bass with Hendrix, but Noel resented playing bass all the time. He has his own tunes. He sings. Noel is out by 69. I wonder if the movie will speak to any of Noel’s dissatisfaction.
Hendrix begins to perform in London to rave reviews. And here is the linchpin to Hendrix’s fame: John and Paul thought he was the greatest thing ever. So even while this is being released and changing radio and rock and roll forever…..
...the word is out: The Beatles dig Hendrix. In a way, Hendrix is anointed.
“Hey Joe” is released in early May, 1967. Sir Paul tells the organizers of the Monterrey Pop Festival that they must include Hendrix. Brian Jones says something similar. No one knew much about him at all--this is essentially the San Fransisco scene to which Jimi has no connection yet. I do believe the current bio-pic is going to end with the Monterrey Pop Festival (june 16-18, 1967). I think this because clearly the promos for the film show clips of this. And the biggest tunes he performs are not written by Hendrix.
--I cannot in good conscience bring up the Monterrey Pop Festival and not post an Otis Redding clip. This is really the peek of Otis' career and he dies shortly afterwards. Look up Buffalo Springfield's performance on youtube on your own! And The Dead and The Airplane--
It's often told like this….Pete Townshend did not want to go on after Hendrix. Keep in mind too, this is very much The Who’s American debut as well. They had more albums out, had done some performances in the USA already (the legend of Keith Moon and Hotel rooms is born early), but this is pre Tommy and even pre I Can See For Miles. I'm pretty sure the Smothers Brothers appearance is after this.
Hendrix did not want to go on after The Who. They flipped a coin and The Who went on first. Pete smashed his guitar and Moonie kicked over the drums. It was a legendary performance in its own right.
Hendrix comes out, plays a few hits like Hey Joe and Foxy Lady. He opens with this tune.
I’ve read things that say only Hendrix could really pull that tune off besides Dylan. Maybe that is true. But consider the audience in Monterrey in 67, they would have known this song as well as….well, as well as everyone reading this diary does nearly 50 years later. It's a safe choice to perform and allows he audience to adjust to Hendrix's interpretation of....music.
Hendrix closes the show by out Pete Townshending Pete Townshend. I think the Who were just phenomenal at this show, but consider what many thought at the time: Hendrix blew The Who off the stage. Remember, up until this point The Who knew that they could blow away The Beatles or The Stones live. And here they were being upstaged! Hendrix gave up his guitar like an offering to the gods.
And then comes stardom. First a tour opening for The Monkees for some absurd reason. Followed by his own tours, and more albums. Hendrix creates and refines a new vocabulary for the guitar. It is the creativity in his use of the guitar to achieve new sounds that also impresses so many musicians.
In 1969 he changes the group to The Band of Gypsies, Suns and Moons. This is the group who performs at Woodstock. Noel is out and Hendrix’s old army buddy, Billy Cox, takes over on bass. Mitch plays at Woodstock but at the New Year’s Eve show at the Fillmore East he is replaced by Buddy Miles. This concert is also rather famous. There were three sets. Hendrix did the first set playing his hits and shaking his ass and doing his shtick and the promoter (Bill Graham? I can’t remember) suggests that the set was ok but not that impressive. Hendrix goes out for the 2nd set and does this while barely moving around
At the time of his death, Hendrix had recorded many tracks. His intention was to release a double album similar to Electric Ladyland, but he died before Rainbow Bridge could be released
The Hendrix estate has done some questionable things since Hendrix’s passing. They’ve released a fair amount of posthumous recordings, sometimes with the original backing tracks removed and replaced with new session players in the 1970s. More often just releasing stuff that probably never should have been released. Rainbow Bridge itself is a strong record (the single album version) but it is the one that was most frequently out of print.
We missed out on alot with his tragic and untimely passing. Gil Evans was in discussions with Hendrix to do an album together. Could Miles have been far behind? Hendrix with Clapton and Derek and the Dominoes? Hendrix with Bootsy and George Clinton? Hendrix with his Purple-ness? Or maybe he would go the Charles Lloyd route or a way similar to Sly Stone. The drug overdose killed him, but because he choked and not because the drugs were "too strong". He could have been saved. But he wasn't.
Hendrix left a musical legacy that few rock artist can begin to match. He created new ways of coaxing sounds out of a guitar. He had an interracial group at a time when there were very few. Jimi Hendrix set the bar for musical virtuosity in Rock and Roll. And even jazz guitarists post-Hendrix need to be aware of what he did and how he played. I was going to start listing guitarist who have been influenced by Hendrix, but the fact of the matter is Hendrix has an influence on music probably equal to that of Bird and Trane and Miles. Music in the years after them would be different if they had not existed.
Thanks for listening everyone! Back to actual Jazz next week. Please support your local jazz musicians and all local live music. We’re all bold as love…..just ask the axis.