Allan Holdsworth

[DroneDaily]

We have established that Hindemith and Russell formulated the idea of interval tonics, and that Russell has a more sophisticated concept than Hindemith; the next step if you will. Many more modern composers have developed harmonic principles further, Eric Whitacre owes more to modal jazz than to traditional classical music, and Allan Holdsworth has developed a harmonic vocabulary all his own, but what i'm wondering is if Holdsworth owes more to Russell or to some other theoretical concept, his chords are insane.

[guitarjazz]

I love Holdworth's playing. I met him in 1983 and found him to be one of the most self-deprecating people I've ever met. It would be interesting if he were influenced by George Russell. It has been documented in interviews with people that used to play with him, that he used to woodshed with Nicolas Slonimsky's Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns.