You can indulge all you want in all those post-boppish, avant garde, mainstream or fusionistic excesses, but I always 'come back home' to the music I grew up with - the so-called 'soundtrack of my life' ..
I'm proud to say that I owe my 'musical education,' or at least its formative period, to most of the artists from this particular genre, including Benson, Ritenour, Carlton, Spyro Gyra and much, much more ..
I've spent lots of countless nights wearing down my old, trusty cassette player (does anyone still use this nowadays?) and of course, my stacks of cassette tapes, in my futile attempts at nailing that elusive guitar solo ..
Looking back, I still think that was one of the best ways to learn. Left with nothing but the music that you hear and your instrument, you don't have any choice but to play it the way you hear and interpret it ..
Nowadays, kids have it all too easy, being spoonfed by dozens of videos and tabs ...
Just for the curious, did you know how much records were during that time? Way back 1978 or 79, I think a regular long-playing record cost something like twenty bucks ... yes, you read that right! Twenty bucks!
I remember tagging along with my classmate/musical mentor whenever he'd get a little extra from his baon and we'd hie over to Greenhills (was it Uni-Mart) or Cubao to get the latest Chick Corea or Lee Ritenour album.
Of course, we had DWWK 101.9 feeding us smooth jazz 24/7. Thanks to Pinky Aseron and Brother Wayne, of course ...
Man, this is turning out into one long nostalgic trip ...