''Guitar Solos 3'' is the third in a series of three albums of

improvised Improvisation is the activity of making or doing something not planned beforehand, using whatever can be found. Improvisation in the performing arts is a very spontaneous performance without specific or scripted preparation. The skills of impr ...

guitar solo A guitar solo is a melodic passage, instrumental section, or entire piece of music, pre-written (or improvised) to be played on a classical guitar, electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. In 20th and 21st century traditional music and popular m ...

s by various musicians, and was released in the United States by Rift Records in 1979.

Fred Frith Jeremy Webster "Fred" Frith (born 17 February 1949) is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser. Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock ...

coordinated and produced the series, which began with his 1974 debut solo album, ''

Guitar Solos A guitar solo is a melodic passage, instrumental section, or entire piece of music, pre-written (or improvised) to be played on a classical guitar, electric guitar or an acoustic guitar. In 20th and 21st century traditional music and popular mus ...

''. The three Frith tracks on this album were later included on the 1991 CD reissue of Frith's, ''Guitar Solos''.

Reception

In a review of ''Guitar Solos 3'', and the previous album in this series, '' Guitar Solos 2'', Tony Coulter wrote in '' Ear Magazine'' that " aditional guitar playing is most definitely not the focus of these two LPs." He called these compilations by Frith "an indispensable introduction to the world of freely improvising guitarists." Coulter added that these albums emphasize

extended technique In music, extended technique is unconventional, unorthodox, or non-traditional methods of singing or of playing musical instruments employed to obtain unusual sounds or timbres.Burtner, Matthew (2005).Making Noise: Extended Techniques after Expe ...

and showcase these guitarists at their best. Writing in ''Sonic Transports: New Frontiers in Our Music'' (1990), Nicole V. Gagné noted that Frith's three improvised pieces on the album have little in the way of recognizable guitar music. "Alienated Industrial Seagulls etc." sounds like "a motorcycle gang trashing the loading dock of a screen-door warehouse", and "Song of River Nights" "is delicate and transparent ... evoking the sounds of old timbers and ropes and water", but in neither is there anything resembling a guitar. Gagné said it is only in Frith's final track, "Should Old Arthur" – "a brief, lopsided lullaby played on one of the guitar strings with a violin bow" – that a guitar is evident.

Track listing

Source: LP liner notes, Fred Frith discography,

Discogs Discogs (short for discographies) is a database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. While the site was originally created with a goal of becoming the la ...

Track notes

;Side A *Tracks 1,2 were recorded at Walden Studios,

Carmel Highlands, California Carmel Highlands is an unincorporated community in Monterey County, California, United States. It is south of Carmel-by-the-Sea (better known as simply, "Carmel"), at an elevation of 318 feet (97 m). Carmel Highlands is also located just south ...

on January 6, 1979 *Track 3 was recorded at home in

Davis, California Davis is the most populous city in Yolo County, California. Located in the Sacramento Valley region of Northern California, the city had a population of 66,850 in 2020, not including the on-campus population of the University of California, Da ...

on December 22, 1977 *Track 4 was recorded at home in Davis, California on July 8, 1978 *Track 5 was recorded at home in Davis, California on April 1, 1978 *Track 6 was recorded in

Utrecht Utrecht ( , , ) is the List of cities in the Netherlands by province, fourth-largest city and a List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the Provinces of the Netherlands, pro ...

Holland Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former province on the western coast of the Netherlands. From the 10th to the 16th c ...

in June 1976 *Track 7 was recorded in December 1978 ;Side B *Tracks 1–3 were recorded at Briollay,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

in October 1978 *Tracks 4,5 were recorded at Grogkill Studio, Willow,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

on November 27, 1978 *Track 6 was recorded at Trans Studio,

Tuscaloosa, Alabama Tuscaloosa ( ) is a city in and the seat of Tuscaloosa County in west-central Alabama, United States, on the Black Warrior River where the Gulf Coastal and Piedmont plains meet. Alabama's fifth-largest city, it had an estimated population of 1 ...

on September 28, 1978 *Track 7 was recorded at Saito Studio,

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

on November 28, 1978 Source: LP liner notes, Fred Frith discography.

Personnel

–

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

* Henry Kaiser – guitar *Chip Handy –

prepared guitar A prepared guitar is a guitar that has had its timbre altered by placing various objects on or between the instrument's strings, including other extended techniques. This practice is sometimes called tabletop guitar, because many prepared guitar ...

* Peter Cusack –

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

Keith Rowe Keith may refer to: People and fictional characters * Keith (given name), includes a list of people and fictional characters * Keith (surname) * Keith (singer), American singer James Keefer (born 1949) * Baron Keith, a line of Scottish barons ...

– guitars *

Eugene Chadbourne Eugene Chadbourne (born January 4, 1954) is an American banjoist, guitarist and music critic. Life and career Chadbourne was born in Mount Vernon, New York, but grew up in Boulder, Colorado. He started playing guitar when he was eleven or twel ...

–

Dobro Dobro is an American brand of resonator guitars, currently owned by Gibson and manufactured by its subsidiary Epiphone. The term "dobro" is also used as a generic term for any wood-bodied, single-cone resonator guitar. The Dobro was originally ...

, guitar * Davey Williams – guitar *Akira Iijima – acoustic guitar

Sound and artwork

*Masahiko Ebitani – engineer (track B7) *Mike Mantler – engineer (tracks B4, B5) *Tetsuo Saito – engineer (track B7) *Jean-Paul Bossard – engineer (tracks B1–B3) *

Alfreda Benge Alfreda Benge is a lyricist and illustrator. She was born in 1940 in Austria to a Polish mother, and came to England in 1947. Her stepfather, Ronald Benge, was a prominent librarian who established library schools in developing countries. She has b ...

– sleeve design Source: LP liner notes, Fred Frith discography,

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1979 albums Experimental music albums Free improvisation albums Albums produced by Fred Frith