Purple: Celebrating Jimi Hendrix
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TITLE: |
Purple: Celebrating Jimi Hendrix |
| ARTIST: | Le Nguyen | |
| WRITER: |
David SO | |
| In paying a tribute to Jimi Hendrix, a musician can imitate Hendrix's signature sounds and may win applause from the audience. However, we should not forget that this attempt is fated to doom as the legendary Hendrix cannot be outshone. So a more possible way is acknowledging Hendrix's contribution and then extending it in new directions. | ||
| Le Nguyen's "Purple: Celebrating Jimi Hendrix" is heading towards the latter direction. In Nguyen's words, "the music has its gods and its myths, and Jimi Hendrix is these. Each one of its notes still burns and I read again his music with the same respect and same freedom that an jazzman can play a standard, thus taking possession of his mythical songs, making them mine". Instead of reproducing Hendrix's licks on guitar, Nguyen has attempted updating Hendrix's music. First, he adopts woman vocalists - Terri Lyne Carrington (also the drummer), the French women Corin Curschellas and Aida Khann, warning the Hendrix's fans not to have wrong expectation that Hendrix's signature sounds are reproduced. Besides, Nguyen has made changes to Hendrix's classics like in making "Purple Haze" funk, Africanising "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)" by adding and making Karim Ziad's North Africa percussion, and making "If 6 Was 9" more jazz by adding the jazz pianist Bojan Zulfikarpasic's jazz playing. Undoubtedly, by modernizing the feel of the songs in wake of globalization of jazz and adapting to cultural changes in the world since Hendrix left us, Nguyen has moved Hendrix's music from the realm of rock to world jazz by fusing rock elements with exotic and disparate elements in Hendrix's songs. "Purple: Celebrating Jimi Hendrix" is therefore as ambitious as Gil Evans' "The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix". |
Purple: Celebrating Jimi Hendrix