Alissa Ordabai's Posts
In the world of instrumental guitar, composer/guitarist Gretchen Menn emerges as a genuine contender who knows her purpose. With photos by Max Crace.
“It’s not the notes,” says one of Segovia’s favorite students, “it’s how you put them together.” An esteemed player reflects on his life in music.
Album Review: Pat Metheny joins tenor saxophonist Chris Potter for a series of magnificent improvised narratives.
Album Review: The recording of the 2007 show at London’s O2 arena delivers an unvarnished portrait of patriarchs revisiting the myth of their glory days.
Album Review: Shred, shred, and more shred! The chief dignitary of neoclassical guitar continues his self-assertion.
Album Review: Gypsy swing guitarist Joscho Stephan teams up with klezmer clarinettist Helmut Eisel for a 13-track adventure.
Album Review: The Ten Years After guitarist’s new release makes stops at all of the important touchstones of his career.
Album Review: Brazil’s most charismatic rock guitar hero bridges the traditions of his homeland and North American styles.
Album Review: The Adagio frontman’s solo debut defies the stereotype of neoclassical guitar as the hotbed of fretboard solipsism.
Pure Guitar is excited to share an eye-popping Internet find: British teenager Jess Lewis, who at 17 singlehandedly puts a stop to the nature vs. nurture debate. Her talent is so organic, it suggests that sometimes nature apportions its blessings …
Our resident guitar guru Joe Gore comes up with an arrangement of the fourth movement from Béla Bartók’s Fourth String Quartet in an attempt to show us that it sounds like Martian spiders who were “force-fed a diet of chord …
After years of jotting down everyday occurrences, insights, and opinions in his hugely entertaining blog, heavy metal axe-man and jazz guitarist Alex Skolnick now publishes his first book. His chosen genre is memoir, but along with recollections of growing up …
We’re impressed with the new app Jammit, which allows you to play along with the original recordings of stellar musicians from Albert King to Pantera. You can isolate instruments, fade them in and out, and slow tracks down without changing …
Time waits for no one. It seems like not so long ago Mike Varney was telling us about his brand-new teenage virtuoso find Richie Kotzen, and now Richie’s daughter August is proving to be a proud heir of the Kotzen …
It is with sadness we report today that Wilko Johnson, founding member of R&B band Dr. Feelgood, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer of the pancreas. Johnson is widely cited as one of the most influential guitar players in Britain. …
The disciplined fury of John 5’s fretboard fireworks scorches even hotter on this new release when set against the quieter acoustic cuts. Contrasting contemplation against recklessness, he deliberately spotlights the widening gap between his trademark electric guitar methods and the …
Jimmy Page comes through as both elitist and cautious by not making this collection of his early-’70s avant-garde experiments available in any other format but vinyl LP. It feels that by cutting off a huge segment (if not the majority) …
