Twenty-three years ago today, when Les Paul turned 72 years young, Jimmy Page turned up at Fat Tuesday's jazz club in New York for a jam session attended by stars including Jeff Beck.
On Monday nights between 1984 and 1996, Paul played weekly sets there. From 1996 on, he moved those gigs to his own New York jazz club, the Iridium. The innovator of modern guitar and recording was just that accessible to fans long after he was said to have "retired from performing" all the way back in 1964.
Last night, Beck returned to New York, performing at the Iridium the first of two shows, in part to celebrate the first Les Paul birthday since his death last summer. Beck's second show takes place tonight, on the same day a foundation established in Paul's name officially launches a new, interactive website, www.LesPaulFoundation.org.
Jimmy Page spent his teen years teaching himself how to play guitar, and one of the jazz guitarists who inspired him at that time was LesPaul.
Page once said, "LesPaul was so far ahead of the time, he was like a scientist."
Paul died today at a hospital in White Plains, N.Y., after a bout with pneumonia. He was 94.
In addition to being a pioneer in utilizing the complexities of the electric guitar, Paul was also responsible for developing multi-track recording processes.
Page grew up listening to the jazzy hit records LesPaul made in the 1950s with his wife, Mary Ford, on vocals. Often, Ford would be harmonizing with herself on two separate tracks, while her husband would be playing a lead track on top of a rhythm track.
Multi-tracking became an industry standard, and it is certainly a part of the Led Zeppelin sound on albums.
In the movie "It Might Get Loud," which opens tomorrow in New York and Los Angeles, Page tells his fellow guitarists Jack White and The Edge that as a kid, he used to listen to any records that had guitar in them at all. This clip, which also shows Page playing air guitar to "Rumble" by Link Wray, is available below:
Les Paul played weekly jazz sets in New York, often with special guests. Page attended Paul's birthday celebration on June 9, 1987, and the two jammed together.
