Musician Sees Promise, Pitfalls in High-Tech Gadgets

CHICAGO —  Guitarist John Abercrombie stood in a tangle of foot switches and wires on stage at the Jazz Showcase, nodding toward a guitar synthesizer and bank of boxes sparkling with twinkling lights behind him.

He introduced his next number, adding that it was the last before he would “unleash all this beastly equipment.”

By today’s standards of sound processing, it was a modest-looking collection of electronic wizardry, including his synthesizer, a digital reverb and delay and a stereo chorus in addition to his Ibanez guitar and standard power amplifier and pre-amplifier.

Yet there was one of the most progressive jazz guitar stylists feeling his way through the technical forest. It was clear evidence that music technology can outstrip a musician’s ability to adapt it to his playing.

“I like it,” Abercrombie said of advances in music technology. “It’s frustrating, but definitely it’s another instrument. The synthesizer makes me hear differently. It makes me compose differently.

“It becomes another way to express yourself, and that’s what you want to do.”

Abercrombie and trio mates Peter Erskine on drums and Marc Johnson on bass were in Chicago recently at the start of a 2 1/2-week tour. Abercrombie, 43, lives in New York. He’s been a force in guitar improvisation for most of the 20 years he has spent touring the world.

Advances in music technology are another step in the evolution of jazz, which has progressed partly through a one-upmanship philosophy, he said.

During the be-bop era that was the style du jour.

“It wasn’t technology, but it’s keeping up with the Joneses until the next cat comes along and says, ‘I want to do something different,’ ” he said.

Advances in technology also have helped Abercrombie in his own music.

“I think overall, this technology has helped my guitar playing. I think it has made me a more fluid player and made me appreciate the guitar more,” he said.

Appreciation--at least popular and commercial appreciation--still elude Abercrombie, although he claims no hardship.

A steady player and recording artist for German-based ECM Records, Abercrombie acknowledges that his music isn’t easily grasped by an American public that defines jazz as “more pop-oriented” music.

Abercrombie’s playing is easily described as eclectic. A blues riff might give way to introspective brooding before rising to rock-level decibels. He’ll toss in a hook from a jazz standard for good measure.

European jazz fans seem to accept Abercrombie more than their U.S. counterparts, he says.

“I think my music has always been a little off to the weird side,” Abercrombie said. “It’s not always music people sit down and listen to. It all has to do with accessibility.

“I think the music I choose to play is less accessible to many people,” he said. “It’s more important for me and the people I know to try to expand” the jazz tradition.

“And if that means using technology, I will.”