Hal Leonard keeps up their highest level of excellence in their expanding and improving Hot Licks series with a masterful presentation by Duke Robillard. Duke is “a guitarist’s guitarist”, an often-used phrase that is rarely explained. To me it means a guitarist who other guitarists listen to for two reasons: 1) to learn new licks and techniques, and 2) for the pure enjoyment of the music and hearing our instrument played so well. This is why Neil Peart (who we miss greatly) is a drummer’s drummer, and Geddy Lee is a bass player’s bassist. (Sorry Alex, but this is Duke’s review!)
Few instrumentalists have mastered as many genres as Duke Robillard, and his combinations of styles make him absolutely unique. The little I knew of him a while ago had me thinking of him as a rock and roll player influenced by R & B. Then an acquaintance, out of the blue, gave me a copy of Conversations in Swing Guitar (Stony Plain, 1999), a duo album that Duke did with Herb Ellis that has some of the finest swing guitar ever recorded! That album comes the closest I have ever heard to my swing hero, George Barnes.
Duke Robillard is a most enthusiastic student of all styles of blues, early jazz and swing, and several other artists who combine multiple influences. He starts off with one such artist, T-Bone Walker (no relation, unfortunately) and the depth of his knowledge of T-Bone’s styles is staggering. If anyone has missed out on this fundamental guitarist, you will be amazed at the influence T-Bone Walker continues to have on all sorts of modern styles. This chapter leads naturally into Blues-Based Jazz Styles, which is full of licks and ideas that will fit into all sorts of genres. and is a real joy for swing players. Another artist who blended styles in surprising ways was Les Paul, who Duke obviously has great respect for. At this point it becomes obvious that the master class has been building forward, with Les’ style including swing, blues, and jazz with his own unique take on all of them.
Following the migration of the blues northward, Duke next demonstrates some killer Chicago Blues Style. By now you will see that Duke can barely keep from playing, often as he talks. We are at the start of Chapter 4 here and we are already at Example 43 — and what an example it is! There are so many techniques demonstrated that it will take you a while to work through them, but it is well worth the effort.Vibrato styles, double-stop slides, tremolo-picking (with palm mute), and slides are some of the techniques that make up this expansion of blues style. Double Stops, or as Duke prefers to call them “Chord Fragments“, make up a short but important chapter on using thirds (mostly) to build up complex chords melodically, incorporating different ways of using slides with them.
Another meaty chapter is Texas Influence & Rock ‘n’ Roll. This is one of those chapters where you will have to learn the examples slowly and then speed them up. This is clearly a style that Duke loves, as he flies through Example 58, climaxing in a Free time bar over a simple F major chord before returning to more “normal” time such as the 15/8 bar on page 51, ending in 12/8. Texas has produced its own sound with many great guitarists hailing from there, and Duke has studied many of them carefully to be able to demonstrate their several variations on that sound.
Duke makes a surprising confession that he had trouble with producing the finger-tremolo sounds of his early heroes, so he got the sound using his whammy-bar. His demonstrations show how he has mastered the use of the bar, and also that he now also has it in his fingers. Taking advantage of this “problem”, he came up with several unique uses for the bar in his playing. The final notated chapter is Jazz Chords in the Blues, and the title is an important distinction. This is not jazz blues, but how he slips some jazz chords into his blues playing. He points out the importance of knowing when to insert these chords, and not overdoing it.
The master class ends with two performances: Les Paul’s “I’m Confessin’ ” (a particular favourite of Duke’s) followed by his own version of Jay McShann’s “The Jumpin’ Blues“. Unfortunately, these are not transcribed, due to a combination of copyright law and running out of space. With 78 good-sized examples the book already is jammed full of information that you want, so there is no point in bemoaning this. In fact, this is a great opportunity to transcribe these great performances yourself. They are not too long — 2:25 and 3:39 respectively — and Duke explains what techniques he will be using as well as a couple of new ones. If you have worked on the techniques throughout the book, especially the jazzier ones, you should have no trouble figuring out what he is playing, especially since both hands are shown in close-up.
You can playback the videos from your MyLibrary page at Hal Leonard, but unfortunately their Playback+ does not support video files. If you feel you need help in transcribing these last two songs, you can download the files, especially the last chapter that contains these songs. Note that Duke also introduces a couple of new techniques that he uses in the songs, so there’s a bonus for watching this video! There are several ways to slow down the video, so I’ll just mention a few ideas. One is to use the VLC Player and its slowdown capability, but the pitch drops as you slow the video; maybe not the best solution. If you have QuickTime or QuickTime Player, you can use New Audio Recording (from the File menu) and record just the songs. You can then use another app to slow down the audio but keep the pitch the same. I like iRehearse for this or Hal Leonard’s own ASD (Amazing Slow Downer).
SUMMARY: This whole series is simply amazing and I unreservedly recommend ANY of the book/video combinations. This is an ongoing project at Hal Leonard so if your favourite Hot Licks video has not yet been done, give them some time! The Duke Robillard version is a brilliant addition to a superb series that includes some of the greatest players of all time, and Duke could measure up to any of them. So far I have concentrated on jazz and swing players, with more rock ‘n’ roll added from Duke Robillard, but there are several Nashville artists and country players, chicken pickin’, metal players, slide guitar as well as artists like Brian Setzer, Buddy Guy, Eric Johnson, and many more on the way. With great transcriptions that cover the finest nuances but remain easy to read in both notation and TAB, you can’t lose with these fantastic master classes. If you can’t get to your favourite music store, check them all out at https://www.halleonard.com/.
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