NAMM comes to my local coffee house

I stopped by my local coffee joint about four this afternoon to cop a cup of joe and do a little quiet guitar noodling in the sidewalk cafe. While I was there I ran into guitarist Jim Earp, who I'd never met but who walked by and asked me about my Silver Creek 000. He was in town for NAMM and had put together a "fingerstyle guitar summit" at the coffee shop that evening with National Fingerstyle champ Bob Evans and Grammy Winner Doug Smith. No cover. My local hang. How could I not go?

I wasn't able to stay for the whole show but I caught the first sets by Jim and Bob, both fine players (and I heard Doug's music on Rhapsody, so I can assure you he's an excellent player, despite the onerous burden of a Grammy... )

Funny thing was, I saw all these vaguely familiar faces in the spillover crowd, and, of course, saw a lot of old friends hugging and shaking hands. The large coffee house was packed and the crowd spilled out across the sidewalk and into the street. Someone was smart enough to stick some traffic cones out. At times it was a bit hard to hear from my perch on the curb (Long Beach has more than its share of Harleys but not nearly its share of Harleys with unmodified exhausts) but the rich, complex melodies of the guitarists floated on a surprisingly summery breeze.

Very nice.

more on the players

Did your coffee house joint feature *this*? ^^

'Cuz that's part of what was goin' down at NAMM.

Electric, fretless, bass lute?

There was definitely a bit of tapping, but it was under control, for the most part. It actually was very tasteful and musical. You could close your eyes and it sounded like music -- not technique.

In fact, the thing that probably impressed me most was how relaxed and natural the two players I saw were. They did some tough stuff, but it all came off as easy and natural.

Ah. The dude in the photo played very athletically.

When I was first learning guitar and idolizing a lot of sweating, grunting, writhing, face-making guitar players, my then-GF, in the thrall of Allan Watts and college freshman Zen, used to say things like, Effort is a sign of imperfect mastery... Used to tick me off, since I thought my expansive effort and grimace of pain while trying to play a barred F made me look soulful...

Do you do jazz face now?

Only when I'm barring an F.