Jim Campilongo @ The Living Room

Freddy Parish


Jim Campilongo is a simultaneously traditional and experimental guitar player from San Francisco, who now resides in Brooklyn. He has a critically acclaimed weekly gig at the Living Room monday nights accompanied by his band, the Electric Trio. The Living Room is an intimate space, where I got to witness some of the most timeless and inventive guitar playing and songwriting I've ever seen.
    What is so striking about his artistry is that its extremely experimental, yet its source is very recognizable. He draws from country, blues and jazz primarily. Melodically and harmonically, his inventions are not drastically new. He uses strange chords and scales, but nothing that hasn't been done by jazz musicians of the 50's. But in combining sharp country picking and gentle jazz sounds, for example, he creates a new context for both, and in doing so creates an entirely new sound, that you've heard before, but not really.
    He also refreshes old styles by redefining them through the use of extended technique (physically playing the guitar in new ways). He bends the strings by pressing on them behind the nut (where they string through the tuners). He hits chords of harmonics (overtones produced by touching and striking the string in certain places), then bends them behind the nut into new chords. Again, individually these techniques have been done, but he is a pioneer in his combinations of them, as just described. Also worth noting is that all the strange sounds he makes are coming from his skill, and not from any effects. He plugs his guitar directly into his amp, no pedals, no tuner. He uses the volume knob, his hand to mute the strings, unique articulations, bends, harmonics and the tuners themselves (detuning and retuning strings), to create his effects.
    Therefor the era associated with his sound is ambiguous. If you heard it without knowing what it was, you wouldn't know when it was from, only that it must have been, and or is now, a unique sound. Also he never lets guitar virtuosity get in the way of a good song. He never presents his inventions as a spectacle, they are part of the music, they function. So while they are amazing and striking (especially to me as a guitarist) they blend into the music and operate within it, rather than showcasing themselves. He seems to view technique as a tool for songwriting, whereas many guitar virtuosos do the opposite.

    After the show I realized that what I respect about Jim Campilongo and his artistry shares a lot of ground with what I look for in poetry and other arts. He doesn't imitate, but emulates styles around him, takes them in, and spits them out in a new order that creates drastic changes to the whole. And yet he is grounded in the traditions that he reinvents. If you are aware that you will never entirely break out of the history of the art you are making, then you are more likely to learn from it. If you can learn from it, then you are more likely to actually reinvent.