Keira WitherKay wrote:
? no one can own that title of "ultimate".........
+1. Some players you can cite because they changed the game completely: Hendrix, EvH, Vai, etc. but then you have to look back to others who did the same in their day too - Hank Garland, Charlie Christian, Django Reinhard, etc.
Tops for me is Frank Zappa - not just a mean (and unusual) player but an incredibly skilled and innovative composer, engineer, social commentator, businessman, conductor, and filmmaker too. Not only did he march to his own drummer, but he wrote the drum parts for him too.
The closest I have found to Zappa in a modern player is Bumblefoot, who pushes the technical envelope as a player, but still composes good music that has many influences and lots of unusual musical nods of the head that can make me laugh. Mattias Eklundh gets an honorary mention for pushing the technique envelope.
Vai has always been a favourite because of his Zappa influence and the showmanship and compositional abilities. Not the fastest or most technical player by modern standards, and his innovativeness seems to have tapered off, but he's still far more musical than most.
Another player I love because of his unique approach to the instrument is Adrian Belew.
