Top guitarists honor Les Paul by playing his Monday slot
Published: December 11, 2009, 12:30 am
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NEW YORK — Even an old hand like Grammy-winning guitarist Jose Feliciano can find it humbling to play the Iridium Jazz Club’s Monday slot, where Les Paul held court.
“I feel like I’m taking over Derek Jeter’s spot as shortstop for the Yankees,” said Feliciano, 64, sporting sunglasses and black threads head-to-toe in the club’s green room.
When Les Paul died in August at age 94, Ron Sturm, Iridium’s founder and co-owner, asked top guitarists to play in Paul’s slot as a way to pay their respects.
“Les Paul was someone who taught us something about the guitar, whether you were Jimi Hendrix or Eddie Van Halen,” Feliciano said.
The ad hoc tributes evolved into a regular Monday night series honoring the electric guitar innovator and pioneer. Featured guitarists have included Feliciano, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, Steve Miller, Mike Stern, Stanley Jordan and Larry Coryell. Sturm said he has been talking with British rock legend Jeff Beck about playing a few nights in 2010.
Iridium, which occupies a basement space on Broadway, plans to donate 20 percent of the gate from its Les Paul Guitar Tribute Mondays to the Les Paul Foundation, said Sturm. It hopes to raise $50,000 to $100,000 by next year.
Paul set up the foundation in 1995 to give scholarships and produce exhibitions of his inventions, Michael Braunstein, a New York-based accountant and Paul’s longtime manager, said in a phone interview.
“We want to keep Les’ name alive because he gave us 13 years of his spirit and business, and we feel that we should be paying him back,” Sturm said. “Otherwise, we would just be cashing in on him.”
Besides his mastery of guitar, Paul was an innovator who has been credited with creating reverb and echo sound effects, a solid-body electric guitar that Gibson Guitar Corp. mass-produced, the 8-track recording machine and sound-on-sound recording techniques.
Miller, a rock-blues band-leader and vocalist who made a wave of chart-topping hits in the 1970s such as “Take the Money and Run” and “Fly Like an Eagle,” sold out both his Monday night shows in November. Miller’s bluesy vocals and fluid playing on several electric guitars attracted autograph-seekers after the show holding club programs and album jackets from the “The Joker,” his platinum-selling 1973 album.
“When I pull out my Les Paul guitar and put it on, 10,000 kids stand up and cheer,” Miller said to the sold-out Iridium crowd of clapping baby boomers and young guitar players. “They all know him, and they all love him.”
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