Gene Bertoncini live with fantastic group

[Isfahan]

Gene Bertoncini playing plectrum style on archtop, a clinic in comping and improv
Lots of fun surprises from these superb musicians
Bertoncini is stellar, top notch

[Cunamara]

Thanks for posting this! I had Gene for an instructor as a jazz camp for several years, a wonderful man and inspiring teacher. And his jokes... well... a great guitarist and an inspiring teacher.

[Isfahan]

I met him when he was playing at Madeline's in NYC in 1977. A real gentleman. Was playing plectrum on the same guitar I believe. Michael Moore on bass. Phenomenal.

[Cunamara]

It is a D'Aquisto electric (laminate body, possibly preassembled, with Jimmy D's neck, bridge, finishing, etc.).

[sgcim]

He studied with JS, but he went in an entirely different direction.

[Isfahan]

Wish GB did more plectrum style. I was studying with a student of Dennis Sandole who raved Gene, called him a heavyweight.
My fellow freshman guitar major buddy and I sat about ten feet away from Gene, MM and that D'Aquisto.
The restaurant might have been called Little Madeline's, I'm not sure. It was uptown and upscale. Gene had a residency there. Waitress was cool, served us a couple glasses of wine (don't tell anyone).
His book Approaching the Guitar was helpful for learning to extract the appropriate scale from every type of altered/chord voicing.

[sgcim]

In his earlier days, he was part of the "NY Guitar Mafia", led by Tony Mottola, which included Bucky, Al Casamente, Jay Berliner, Don Arnone, george barnes, and others, who locked up all the commercial studio work in NYC. He was still using a pick back then.

[Cunamara]

Wish GB did more plectrum style. I was studying with a student of Dennis Sandole who raved Gene, called him a heavyweight.
My fellow freshman guitar major buddy and I sat about ten feet away from Gene, MM and that D'Aquisto.
The restaurant might have been called Little Madeline's, I'm not sure. It was uptown and upscale. Gene had a residency there. Waitress was cool, served us a couple glasses of wine (don't tell anyone).
His book Approaching the Guitar was helpful for learning to extract the appropriate scale from every type of altered/chord voicing.

La Madeleine, I think. Gene said he played solo there like every Monday evening for years. Closed down a decade or more ago. I don't know if Gene ever found another steady gig like that.

I really, really like Gene's fingerstyle playing and could listen to it all day (and have more than once). But he plays quite differently with the pick, it seems to bring out a different way of thinking and that is a lot of fun too. He is as thoroughly modern harmonically on the classical guitar as are Ben Monder, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Peter Bernstein, etc.

Gene has moved to a senior residence and seems to be using a wheelchair and/or walker according to the pictures I've seen. I don't know how actively he is playing, but he has put out two albums in the past year: Love Like Ours which is a wonderful set of duos with several musicians, and Dream Dancing with Melissa Stylianou and Ike Sturm (haven't listened to that one yet). His playing remains inventive, if perhaps a bit less deft than in his prime. One of my favorite guitarists. I have to go back to "Approaching the Guitar," which I found very helpful.