Purple Jazz Axis

Not that it was ever going to be possible, but had Jimi Hendrix lived, he would have been a ripe 74 this year. And probably casting some shade on a jazz bar in New Orleans. by Sam Lal.

- Sam Lal

HAD HE SURVIVED DINNER—RUMOURED TO be nine tablets of Vesparax, a sleeping pill that allegedly knocks you out faster than a light—the man described by Freddie Mercury as the “epitome of a rock star” would have plans. Instead, Jimi Hendrix exited planet Earth on the back of an asphyxia verdict, leaving behind three studio albums which, between them, completely reinvented the possibilities of the electric guitar.

There seems very little point revisiting Jimi’s credentials as a genuinely revolutionary creative tour de force. The very remarkable John Scofield puts it in perspective when he says, “When I first started to play guitar—this was before Hendrix—there was a chord known as the ‘Hold It’ chord, an E sharp 9. It was based on a break tune that came from an older generation, a Bill Doggett song from the ’50s. And then Hendrix started to play this chord and it became known as the Jimi Hendrix Chord. You can hear it on ‘Purple Haze.’ So the ‘Hold It’ chord became the Jimi Hendrix Chord in 1968. Now, that’s a big influence right there.”