The jazz musician Jimmy Page “learned a hell of a lot from”
Doing session work alongside icons like The Who and Joe Cocker will sharpen your guitar playing somewhat. As Jimmy Page will attest, so too will a spell in the Yardbirds. The free-form jams of Led Zeppelin might have also drawn out his skill, but the man who laid the foundations was John McLaughlin, a prolific jazz fusion guitarist who, for a brief period, was Page’s guitar teacher.
In around 1960, the British guitar scene was brimming with exceptionally talented guitarists, and case in point, in ’63, McLaughlin did a spell in the Graham Bong Quartet alongside fellow virtuososos Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce. It was around this time he met Page, who he thought was already “great” at only 18 years old.
“I knew a little more about harmony and jazz,” he told Hit. “Also, I know John Paul Jones the bass player [of Led Zeppelin]. I used to teach him harmony – we were in a rhythm and blues band together. Then I knew Jimmy [Page].”
He and Page ran in similar circles as session musicians, a role both seemed bored by. “We all were session players because that was how we could survive, playing pop and rock,” he admitted. “But we had a lot of fun. When Jimmy and John Paul made Led Zeppelin – wow. It was fantastic.”
Page was quick to return his mentor’s praise, saying their lessons covering jazz and Ricky Nelson numbers were some of the most valuable moments in building his sound. “I would say he was the best jazz guitarist in England then, in the traditional mode of Johnny Smith and Tal Farlow,” an emphatic Page once shared.
Adding: “He certainly taught me a lot about chord progressions and things like that. He was so fluent and so far ahead, way out there, and I learned a hell of a lot.”
Reflecting on their meeting in the maelstrom of talent the British music scene boasted in the ’60s, Page told Reverb he could already sense McLaughlin was “instinctively the best” guitarist of all, which is quite the compliment when you consider Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton were on the scene.
While Page didn’t listen to a lot of jazz, he just sensed McLaughlin’s ability soared above the other musicians playing it. “I knew that he was easily the best that I was gonna hear – he was the best one I was going to see, that’s for sure,” he said. He often caught him at London’s Selmer music shop, which became a cultural mecca for guitarists of the time.
“He was working there, really, to practice all week, because the only day that was busy was Saturday,” recalled Page. “That’s what he said. Fantastic! This bloke knows what he’s doing and he knows where he’s going.”
