Guitare Xtreme Magazine numéro 120

Jeff Beck is certainly the greatest electric guitarist ever, and we don't rely on sports or Billboard-type rankings, because those criteria are useless in general, and even more so when applied to Beck. He had long since rendered the question of "Technique or Feeling" totally irrelevant, because his technique was mind-blowing and one hundred percent in service of his art. Jeff Beck is the only musician in his category who has never stopped improving since his debut. If we take as an example the musicians who played at the same time as him in the sixties, those who are not dead play at best as well as they did at that time, he played better than anyone at 78 years old. Despite this demi-god aura, he never sought anything other than his personal satisfaction as an artist, but also as a human being. He could drop a tour overnight to go back to his beloved engines, if he ever felt he was going in circles. What will certainly remain of him is his lyricism, his ability to put weight into every note, to play nothing that sounds like a plan. Those who don't know him or felt they were missing out on this sacred monster can revisit the 2008 Live at Ronnie Scott's. The musician plays better than ever, turns the room upside down, and seems to do it all with a casualness that barely allows one to realize the total control this man had over the instrument. Jeff Beck sounded like Jeff Beck, no matter what equipment he played on, no matter what musical context he chose to play in. Jazz, rock, blues, hard rock, rockab', music in the broadest sense, he put up no barriers. Commercial success was all around him without ever really embracing him (maybe Jon Bon Jovi's "Blaze Of Glory" solo, with those four amazing notes at the very end of a take that we know was done in one go, maybe Jeff Beck's Guitar Shop too, with a "Where Were You" that was simply inhuman in its mastery and sensitivity). He will not have been as copied or covered as his peers, simply because it is much easier to ape Hendrix, even with talent, than to simply start imitating Jeff Beck. All we have left to console ourselves are the records and videos on the Internet and the question, where were we when these concerts took place? What better thing could we have done than sit back and watch the magic happen? Where were we?