Let me state from the outset that I am a contrarian on the Windham Hill
recordings. To my ear, both of them are disasters. My main criticisms may go
to the particular dynamics at play in Robbie's life and music at this time (or
not! who ever knows?) IMO, Robbie's forte was in the realms of "rasa" and of
musical sculpting, a classical sense of shaping, telling a story, and dynamics
while working in a fresh improvisatory way. Will Ackerman rightly points to the
sarod-like linear and melodic explorations on the middle strings..... But these
two albums show two strong tendencies that go against this grain.

One is to return to Fahey and early Basho style finger-picking, instead of the
open rhythmic landscapes possible with his own picking patterns. I'm guessing
that this was in response to seeing the commercial success of both DeGrassi and
Ackerman ('though Ackerman was never that good of a picker) and others. I
believe Robbie was truly impressed with DeGrassi especially (who had moved far
beyond the Travis pick), and may have reached into his own finger-picking roots
to try to get into that groove. But when Robbie returns to double-thumbing, to
my ear, his ideas become small, constricted and hackneyed, even allowing for the
weird Basho "modulations".

The other tendency, especially evidenced in Art of the Acoustic Steel String,
was an attempt to reference Western classical music and its traditions. I
believe he did this in an effort to legitimize his musical explorations.
However, as someone who has listened to classical music all his life, to my ear
the results of Basho's attempt to sample or appropriate or reference classical
music only showed how shallow his technical, theoretical, and musical
appreciation of this great tradition was. The lack of self-awareness and of a
true background makes these pieces sound pretentious to me. Referencing a
comment he makes in one of those 1970's interviews, how else can one explain
this guy claiming to have a greater guitar and musical mastery than Andres
Segovia?

I bet those comments sound fairly grumpy if not even mean-spirited to many. To
those who feel this way, I apologize. I have struggled with Basho a lot through
the years, like Jacob wrestling the angel. He was, in a way, the Buddha I met
on the path and had to slay. At this point, even though I sound very critical,
I am back to a place of being simply in awe of what he did accomplish.

When Glenn Jones asked me to contribute some notes for the "Bonn Ist Supreme"
album, I contacted Will Ackerman (a college pal) in the hope of getting some
stories and color to contribute. We held a brief interchange via e-mail.
According to Will, Basho was more or less given his head completely in the
recording of that album; Will stated that he was not involved at all in the
sessions. Because of my dislike of the album, I was questioning how the studio
session went and who exercised editorial control. I had had the hope at the
time that some strong producer or sound engineer might have reined him in. But
apparently this was not the case. What you hear is what Robbie wanted.
Basically, Will was already a very strong rising star in the recording industry
at the time, and, as he said, wanted to spread the benefit and largesse around
to people like Robbie who he admired.

Why there were only the two recordings with Windham Hill, I would bet was a pure
business decision: they didn't sell, time to move on.

It is a big surprise to me to hear how significant Robbie was to Will Ackerman.
In a way, though, I think I can really understand it from the standpoint that
Ackerman's forte was in the realm of "rasa". I'd bet that deep deep strength
and conviction of vision and feeling that was the horse that Robbie rode was
very inspiring to Will.


--- In robbiebasho_forum@yahoogroups.com, "Robbie Dawson" <robbie.dawson@...>
wrote:
>
> Well, it does seem odd in hindsight, but the power dynamics between Windham
and Basho were odd to begin with, and were not like that of a newly signed
artist. Basho was a BIG influence on Ackerman, he says so himself in very clear
terms, and as such it was a matter of course that he sign his idol and get him
recording again after his hiatus in the mid 1970s. But Windham was rapidly
becoming a highly aestheticized 'lifestyle' label and, as can be seen from the
first few records onwards, quickly developed its own presentation style- the
white border, pastoral american imagery, ahistorical, soft tones, warm chords...
To begin with, Basho's records did not correspond with this set-up visually, and
the content had way too many idiosyncrasies and loose ends (both inward and
outward, so to speak) for a label that was forming itself into one that produced
high-quality products for the consumers' lifestyle and well being.
>
>