Allan Holdsworth Leverkusen '97 CD/DVD Out Now
LEVERKUSEN ’97, the latest release in the continuing series of classic live recordings by Allan Holdsworth, is out now from Manifesto Records.
The double-disc CD/DVD set features the guitar great live in performance at the Leverkusen Jazztage Festival in Germany on October 16, 1997. The package offers audio and visual versions of the 11-song set recorded and filmed for German television. The already high-quality audio and video have been digitally remastered from the original tapes.
For the performance, Holdsworth was backed by acclaimed drummer and long-time collaborator Chad Wackerman and ace bassist Dave Carpenter. Wackerman also wrote liner notes for the set, based on his personal memories of Holdsworth and playing with Carpenter on the 1997 European tour.
“Allan wrote incredible music that defied categorization,” Wackerman writes. “It is beautiful, powerful, harmonically rich, and rhythmically interesting with creative song forms. And yet very soulful.” The drummer, whose musical relationship with Holdsworth dates back to 1982, is also interviewed in Also contributing liner notes and offering his take on Holdsworth’s career and performance at Leverkusen in 1997 is Allan Holdsworth aficionado Manning Bartlett, who runs the influential Facebook group The Unreal Allan Holdsworth.
LEVERKUSEN ’97 follows the previous three releases in the Allan Holdsworth Live CD/DVD series, LIVE IN JAPAN 1984, SUMMER JAZZ DAYS ’98, and FRANKFURT ’86, which were embraced by Holdsworth’s hardcore fanbase.
