Had the fun opportunity to check out the sound check at the Gregg Rolie show this past week. This is Wally Minko playing keyboards...fast! Wally is a virtuoso. He does some very complex voicings combinations as he plays. I really need to study what he's playing to understand how he makes it work, but it just flows from him. I've studied a lot of improv theory, chord voicing, scales and how it all fits or doesn't fit together. As I listened to his playing this time, I realized that I clearly didn't know what he was doing. Kind of like a magician doing a trick and you can't figure out how they did it. You can hear Wally playing the keyboards with Jean-Luc Ponty No Absolute Time. It's got some funky African rhythms, but totally a Jean-Luc Ponty slant to it. The best thing you can do is just go see Wally playing live in the Gregg Rolie Band.Almost forgot, go buy the Gregg Rolie Roots CD too.
