Guitar master Steve Vai has just released his latest album, Fire Garden. 18 years a professional musician, and Vai is still experimenting and growing. With formal training at Berklee College of Music in jazz and classical music, Vai moved to Los Angeles and began a 5 year stint at age 18 as lead guitarist in Frank Zappa's band. With Zappa's illness and death, his "stunt guitarist" moved on to other bands, replacing Yngwie Malmstein in Alcatrazz, recording and touring with David Lee Roth, and touring with Whitesnake. Vai then did some movie scores (_Encino Man, Dudes, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey) and even appeared and performed in Crossroads.
Vai then turned to solo albums, releasing the 1990 blockbuster Passion and Warfare. Critically acclaimed, the album was nominated for a Grammy. This was followed by the disappointingly overdubbed Sex and Religion, but Vai recovered well with last year's Grammy-nominated Alien Love Secrets. Fire Garden is a guitar album and more. In this one Vai tries his hand at lyrics and vocals.
Instrumental tracks on Fire Garden show Steve Vai at his best, repeating the power of Passion and Warfare. The opening track "There's A Fire In the House" starts with a siren and explodes from the speakers, while "Hand on Heart" is in beautiful contrast with its lovely melody. The four part, 12 minute "Fire Garden Suite" was written for drums, acoustic and electric guitar, and piano and is a Vai tour de force. Two for the listening apprentice flash guitarist are "Genocide" and "The Mysterious Murder of Christian Tiera's Lover".
Fire Garden comes up short on its second half, the lyrical and vocal section of the album. Coming after the solid first half, this section seems to fragment and drag down the whole album. The lyrics and the vocals are just average. Fortunately, the album ends instrumentally with "Warm Regards", a great solo piece conceived, written and mixed in just two days.
In support of Fire Garden, Steve Vai is touring the U.S.
with fellow guitarists extraordinare, Joe Satriani and Eric Johnson.
On September 28 at the Eastman Concert Hall in Rochester, NY, Vai will
perform his original scores for guitar and 60 piece orchestra. For
information on the tour, to hear sound clips from Fire Garden, and to
vote on the instrumental versus vocals tracks, visit the Steve Vai
official web site at http://www.vai.com. Zappa's "stunt guitarist"
isn't sitting still. Catch him if you can.