I watched a Frank Gambale instructional video the other day: Monster Licks and Speed Picking. Aside from a strange captivation by his attire, I found it mostly worthless. He moves around all his scale and arpeggio shapes so that every string change is picked by sweeping, never alternate. It's a clever idea, but I'm not interested at the moment. And it's hell on the left hand.

One of the special features on the DVD was this John Scofield performance:

I've heard plenty of Scofield's music before, but this was the first time I realized how similar my approach to improvising is to his. Sparse, bluesy lines in a jazz setting, very melodic, lots of microbends, dirtier tone than the typical jazz guitar. I shall listen to more of this fellow with my new discovery in mind.

Anyone have favorite Scofield albums or YouTube videos? I've heard A Go Go, Uberjam, and Out Louder (with MMW). My usual strategy is to throw every one of an artist's albums in a playlist on Rhapsody and hit shuffle, but he has about 50.