Fruit Of The Fripperboard   February 5, 2012
Written by happypig

This is the essence of Robert Fripp’s Guitar Work, for me, at least. The interlocking stuff, the complex-timed constructions, the Soundscapes, I wait (and sometimes suffer) through all of that to get the smidgen of this. Solos like the "Hammond Song", like "St. Elmo’s Fire"-A sui generis tone, playing melodies not based in the blues, but having just as much emotion. The few notes of "Heroes" says more than all the notes of all the shredders together. A reviewer once wrote "Withering" and I couldn’t agree more.

I often wanted to attend a Guitar Craft course, just for the chance  to ask RF a "burning question" -"Why are you so parsimonious with these gems?" The Frippertronics shows of yore were rich with the melodic solos, but they really shine as part of a song. A fantasy of mine would put RF in a studio with Art Garfunkel or Aaron Neville, a piano trio (preferably Larry Goldings) and new songs by people who know better.  Produced "audio verité" style. That guitar with those voices, in that setting. Traditional and cutting edge simultaneously. And I’ll bet that record would shift a few units as well.

But I digress...

I do not mean to dismiss the larger portion of RF’s work, but the "Gamelan Guitars" start to sound like The Hanon and Czerny exercises I had to endure as a student. The Soundscapes remind  me of Tangerine Dream and Eno’s ambient stuff. The aleatoric-ish Crim tunes sometimes sound like they are dense and difficult for their own sake. I continue to buy Crim and Fripp-related music because I am assured that there will always be something that will interest me therein, and there is always a chance that there will be some sort of Fripp melodic moment contained.

2¢ deposited, Soapbox collapsed. And if anyone has Art or Aaron’s phone number, pass it over to RF-I have Larry’s...

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