Jazz Articles about Steve Vai

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Mike Keneally: The Thing That Knowledge Can't Eat

by Mick Raubenheimer
April 12, 2023

A new Mike Keneally album is always a thing of humming excitement and intrigue. And pending contradictions eloquently resolved. Forever searching along and within nooks and crannies of the soniverse for fresh sounds and patterns, Keneally surveys the majestic reaches and possibilities of music and grins. A shockingly talented musician, Keneally has the calm energy of someone who can pull off the most complex musical riff (on keyboards and/or guitar, sometimes simultaneously) in an effortless manner, in this way appearing ...

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Steve Vai: Alive in an Ultra World

by Todd S. Jenkins
November 1, 2001

Just maybe, the best set yet from the master of cultivated shred. On his 2000 world tour Vai recorded these fifteen songs, each inspired by and dedicated to a different nation he has visited sometime in his career. Some of the excellent tunes were created spontaneously at soundchecks just prior to the shows, and it’s a testament to the players’ skills that none of them sound off-the-cuff in the least.

Each tune does indeed convey a bit of the spirit ...

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Steve Vai: The Ultra Zone

by Scott Andrews
January 1, 2001

Guitarist/composer Steve Vai helped lead the late 80s instrumental metal, “shred" guitar wave with his lead guitar work in several metal bands and his second solo album Passion and Warfare (1990). However, Vai's roots ran musically deeper than most of his instrumental metal colleagues, partly due to his stint in Frank Zappa's band and his idiosyncratic first solo record Flex-able (1984). Flex-able showed monster chops and unpredictable songwriting, understandably Zappa influenced, and all recorded in Vai's garage. Passion and Warfare ...