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Alex Skolnick Trio — Goodbye to Romance: Standards for a New Generation
(Skol Productions SP 1001, 2002, CD)

by David Ashcraft, Published 2003-08-01

Goodbye to Romance: Standards for a New Generation Cover art

Alex Skolnick started out playing speed metal at the tender age of sixteen as lead guitarist for the Bay Area band Testament. After hearing the electric Miles Davis band, Skolnick was bitten by the jazz bug which led him to eventually leave Testament and earn his jazz degree in NYC. While his amazing fusion playing with Attention Deficit shows the jazz influence, this is Skolnick’s first true jazz album. The disc features an acoustic jazz trio playing material from rock and metal bands of the 70s and 80s. While conceptually this sounds like it could be a train wreck, the resulting product actually works beautifully, and in fact it proves that the original material had pretty strong melodies. Most of the time Skolnick and his trio play it straight with clean, warm, hollow-bodied guitar sounds that evoke Wes Montgomery. But you wouldn’t have found Wes covering tunes by the likes of Kiss, Scorpions, Black Sabbath, and Ozzy, as Skolnick does here. There are a few times when he can’t resist the urge to stomp on the volume and distortion pedals and really crank it up, and this adds some additional energy to the proceedings. The strongest track is an outer-limits exploration of “Pinball Wizard”, but the entire album really smokes. This one really has to be heard to be believed!

Filed under: New releases, Issue 27, 2002 releases

Related artist(s): Alex Skolnick

 

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