Scott Henderson (guitarist)

Scott Henderson 2010, greenhouse Innsbruck

Scott Henderson (born August 26, 1954 in West Palm Beach ) is an American rock and fusion guitarist. He became known as a co-founder of the jazz rock band Tribal Tech and through his solo projects.

biography

Henderson grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he made his first appearances in clubs. His first musical influences included Jimi Hendrix , Jeff Beck , Jimmy Page and blues guitarists like Albert King and Albert Collins . Later came the influence of jazz and Henderson got to know the music of different artists and bands such as Charlie Parker , Weather Report , Miles Davis and Wayne Shorter .

After graduating from Florida Atlantic University with a degree in music , Henderson moved to Los Angeles in 1980 , where he attended the Guitar Institute of Technology (GIT), now part of the Musicians Institute . He later became a guitar lecturer at the academy himself. In 1984 he founded the band Tribal Tech together with bassist Gary Willis , with whom he toured repeatedly and released ten albums (and one compilation) by 2012. In 1986 he toured with Chick Corea's Elektric Band , but left this band after six months due to personal and musical differences. From 1987 to 1990 he worked with Joe Zawinul's Syndicate , after which he fully concentrated on tribal tech.

Henderson has been releasing albums under his own name since 1994. Soul singer Thelma Houston can be heard on the albums Tore Down House and Well To The Bone . His album Vibe Station was released in 2015.

style

Scott Henderson, 2007

Henderson's style of music is somewhere between blues , jazz and rock . Henderson combines the influence of the blues with chord progressions and lines from the bebop and jazz rock of the 1970s , both compositionally and as a soloist . He describes the influence of jazz as more intellectual and that of the blues as more emotional.

While Henderson played jazz or fusion in some large ensembles at Tribal Tech in the 1980s and early 1990s , he turned to the blues and trio line- up with Dog Party (1994) . Since then, his music has moved closer to jazz again, and Henderson is now trying to combine both influences in his music. Today he describes his trio as a mixture of “tribal tech and blues band”.

Henderson uses the guitar's vibrato lever to mimic the sound of the slide guitar . The playing technique and the associated tone are reminiscent of Jeff Beck . Henderson occasionally plays jazz standards at concerts and always places great emphasis on rhythm in his music.

Equipment

In the 1980s and 90s, Henderson was an endorser for Ibanez , playing guitars that were specially made for him. These guitars were not commercially available. It was the guitars Stratocaster design with Seymour Duncan Double-screw - humbuckers that are very soft by one, distinguished middle-heavy sound. Henderson calls this sound thin today and criticizes the lack of bass frequencies.

In the late 1990s, Henderson switched to Suhr Guitars and has been playing guitars of the Suhr Classic model , which are traditional Stratocaster replicas with single coils , ever since . Henderson and John Suhr met when Suhr was still working in the Fender Custom Shop. The neck of these guitars has a D-shape , which is flatter compared to the more traditional C-shape . In addition, the fingerboard radius of these necks is flatter than usual for Strats and more typical of Gibson instruments . Henderson has voiced his preference for Gibson necks in interviews.

Henderson plays Custom Audio Amplifiers OD-100 amplifiers , Suhr SH-100 amplifiers and a '71 Marshall . On tour, Henderson often plays on a borrowed Marshall JCM 2000 DSL100 because amplifiers are too expensive to air transport.

Discographic notes

1994: Dog Party
1997: Tore Down House
2002: Well to the Bone
2005: Live!
2007: Collection (compilation of older recordings)
2015: Vibe Station

Vital Tech Tones (with Victor Wooten and Steve Smith )

1998: Vital Tech Tones
2000: VTT2

HBC (with Jeff Berlin and Dennis Chambers )

2012: HBC

with other artists

1985: Fables (Jean-Luc Ponty)
1985: Champion (Jeff Berlin)
1986: The Chick Corea Elektric Band (Chick Corea Elektric Band)
1987: Players (Jeff Berlin with T. Lavitz and Steve Smith)
1988: The Immigrants (Zawinul Syndicate)
1989: Black Water (Zawinul Syndicate)
1994: Forbidden Zone ( Tom Coster )
1997: Just Add Water ( Virgil Donati )
1999: Crossroads (Jeff Berlin)

Teaching materials

Videos

1988: Jazz Fusion Improvisation. REH video
1992: Melodic Phrasing. REH video
2007: Jazz Rock Mastery. Alfred Publishing ( Jazz Fusion Improvisation and Melodic Phrasing. On one DVD)

Books

Scott Henderson Guitar Book. Alfred Publishing, 1993, ISBN 0-7935-1125-9 . (Transcriptions of Tribal Tech Pieces) (re-released 2008)
Hemme B Luttjeboer: The Best Of Scott Henderson. Hal Leonard, Milwaukee, WI 1996, ISBN 0-7935-5884-0 . (Transcriptions of Tribal Tech pieces)
Scott Henderson: Jazz Guitar Chord System. (= Musicians institute. Private lessons). Hal Leonard, Milwaukee, WI 1998, ISBN 0-7935-9165-1 .
Addi Booth: Blues Guitar Collection. Hal Leonard, Milwaukee, WI 2008, ISBN 978-1-4234-1227-4 .

literature

Martin Kunzler : Jazz Lexicon. Volume 1: A – L (= rororo-Sachbuch. Vol. 16512). 2nd Edition. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2004, ISBN 3-499-16512-0 .