Everything being considered let us all acknowledge a truth:
It is extremely hard if not impossible to appreciate and or connect with a place one has never been to.
For those of us whom have never been to the 'Zone' you'll never understand the fact that time ceases to exist in the Zone or the colors you see in the Zone. neither will you be able to appreciate the emotional calm or absence of emotion at times when in the Zone. There is an point of spirit where there is no emotion things simply are.
Often times we discredit some extremely passionate and emotional players with saying they have no emotion in there playing when in act they merely have out grown the place we view them from. Weckl, Lang, (Chris)Coleman, Donati even Chambers amongst others have fallen into this category.
I do not deny that some people/players loose connection with their audience however WE THE AUDIENCE cannot limit the artist to our own stunted growth. we have a responsibility to grow with the artist in order too support that artist or the art of music itself. Most of us are still trying to reach the level Tony Royster, Jr. was at when he was 12 which we are just now able to wrap our heads around. When you spend some time really listening to Planet X, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Porcupine Tree, Return to Forever, Al DiMeola, Tony MacAlpine and countless others you find out that there is a whole other planes that exists in music. These other planes call for the listener to embrace a something far beyond and deeper than where they are currently. Often times this place is exclusive and the majority simply were not meant to go.
I had some change so I thought I'd add my two cents.
In other words. Tony is a Vulcan and the rest of you are mere humans or even worse, Klingons.
You STAR TREK fanatics will get that reference.
It's funny, as imperfect beings, when we encounter "perfection" we often don't understand it and thus critique it according to our own imperfect mindset. We state that NOBODY can be that clean, fast, accurate, have perfect timing, perfect pitch etc ,etc. And once a person has reached that level on an instrument I had heard on more than one occassion the following phrase" That person is quite mechanical and their playing is devoid of emotion." [Actually the same thing applies to other things in life as well e.g. a great surgeon, a fantastic attorney, etc.] That's because emotion is flawed to a degree...I won't digress into any type of philosophical discussion right now...
I'm not knocking a person for stating that because extreme book knowledge (read proficiency) can oftentimes make a person appear aloof, uninspiring or even dismissive to us, when in fact they are at one with their instrument. Does that mean that I'm saying that you have to feel Tony's style of playing, No. To each his own, you say toMAYto, I say toMAHto.
It's that this proficiency vs emotion argument has been going on forever. Hopefully, I contributed something positive to the discussion. If not, I'm sure I'll be called out.....
