Jazz Articles about Jimmy Herring

Jimmy Herring: Talkin' Blues, Bluegrass and More

by Alan Bryson
November 14, 2012

The spark of bringing together unusual combinations, like a classically trained bluegrass fiddler, a Cameroonian bassist, and a high energy guitarist, could have resulted in a musical culture clash, but for Jimmy Herring the bet paid off. While he might be modest and deferential on a personal level, his latest album is bold and expansive. It reveals a musician and composer comfortable tackling a wide array of styles and moods. “I thought of the studio itself an instrument, ...

Jimmy Herring: Subject to Change Without Notice

by AAJ Staff
November 14, 2012

With his first record since his stunning 2008 debut as a leader, Lifeboat (Abstract Logix), guitarist Jimmy Herring capitalizes on that album's strengths and ups the ante even further on Subject to Change Without Notice (Abstract Logix, 2012), featuring a core group of players with all the chemistry he needs, and some high-powered guest artists to ratchet things up even further. By Alan BrysonMy favorite groups and albums often have this in common: the whole is ...

Jimmy Herring: Subject to Change without Notice

by Ian Patterson
November 9, 2012

It's been four years since Lifeboat (Abstract Logix, 2008), guitarist Jimmy Herring's outstanding debut as leader. Herring hasn't been idle though, recording and touring with Widespread Panic. And given that it took several decades to make the first CD, four years isn't so long to wait for another-especially one this good. The emphasis is emphatically on melody, with tunes inspired, according to the guitarist, by the human voice. Herring's six-stringed voice is as sweet as a silver-tongued lark, but there's ...

Talkin' Blues with Jimmy Herring

by Alan Bryson
December 27, 2011

Jimmy Herring is a musician who blurs lines, both in terms of genres and roles. Over the past two decades his work with the Aquarium Rescue Unit, Gov't Mule, The Allman Brothers Band, Frogwings, Phil Lesh & Friends, Project Z, Jazz is Dead, and Widespread Panic has cemented his position as one of the world's premier progressive rock guitarists. He has the uncanny ability to fuse the visceral power of rock with the ingenuity of jazz harmonics without diminishing the ...

Jimmy Herring: Lifeboat

by Ian Patterson
October 26, 2008

Jimmy Herring Lifeboat Abstract Logix 2008

Jimmy Herring is widely considered to be one of the greatest electric guitarists in the world. Long years lighting up the music of the Aquarium Rescue Unit, Jazz is Dead, Project Z and--in recent years--the Dead, Phil Lesh and Friends, and Widespread Panic have established his reputation as a guitarist with very few peers. Lifeboat, his first solo release, has plenty of electrifying playing from the man from ...

Jimmy Herring: Lifeboat

by John Kelman
October 21, 2008

No matter how adept they are at finding the place where rock energy and jazz harmony meets, fusion guitarists almost invariably favor one side of the equation. As raw and visceral as John McLaughlin and John Scofield can be, jazz remains the core of who they are, just as Jeff Beck and Carlos Santana are rockers at heart, despite occasionally turning to more jazz-centric material. Which makes Jimmy Herring all the rarer-- a guitarist sitting right in the middle, possessing ...

Jimmy Herring: The Lifeboat Sessions and More

by Phil DiPietro
October 21, 2008

Jimmy Herring has transitioned from an underground favorite to one of America's elite guitarists. The resume is now a dream, progressing from GIT to ARU, Frogwings to the Allman Brothers, Jazz is Dead to Phil Lesh and then on to the real thing--the actual Dead, if you will. Herring is the archetype for the melody-drenched lead man that can take it to far off galaxies. Somehow, nobody plays like Herring, but he's always capable of reminding sometimes huge audiences exactly ...