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Credit: Far Out \/ 2025 Paradise Pictures Ltd<\/p>\n
Thu 30 July 2026 15:00, UK <\/p>\n
You can say a lot of things about the career of Jimmy Page<\/a> \u2013 that he \u2018borrowed\u2019 a lot of riffs from forgotten blues pioneers, or that some of his most lauded tracks are actually rather simplistic in structure \u2013 but it is virtually impossible to doubt the sheer technical skill imbued by the Led Zeppelin guitarist, which has infatuated and infuriated his fellow guitarists for decades. <\/p>\n Virtually every rock and roll guitarist for the past 50 years has hoped, on some level, to be able to knock out a tune like Jimmy Page. In many ways, the Zeppelin axeman is the archetypal rock and roll guitarist, establishing many of the most enduring images of hedonistic, flamboyant rock guitar playing. To his credit, though, Page never allowed his incredible skills to get to his head, always maintaining a deep appreciation for his fellow players, even if their proficiency with a six-string arguably outweighed his own. <\/p>\n After all, Page spent the majority of the 1960s rubbing shoulders with the greatest movers and shakers of London\u2019s blossoming music scene. Across his extensive early career as a sought-after session musician, recording with everybody from Petula Clark to The Who, and propping up many early releases by Andrew Loog Oldham\u2019s Immediate Records<\/a>, the guitarist was exposed to virtually every music scene housed in England\u2019s capital, including its illustrious jazz scene. <\/p>\n Jazz was on a rapid rise in 1960s London, spurred on by the various nightclubs springing up to meet the demand of the jazz-obsessed mod subculture, and that scene soon collided with the rock and roll world, too. So much so that the likes of Jeff Beck eventually abandoned rock and roll to pursue the artistically \u2013 if not commercially \u2013 rewarding realm of jazz fusion. <\/p>\n Although Page did not follow his former Yardbirds bandmate down that path, remaining rooted in the rock world that would soon provide a stage for Led Zeppelin, he certainly struck upon an appreciation for the emerging jazz fusion scene in London\u2026 It was, after all, chock full of incredible guitarists, of whom few could rival the great John McLaughlin<\/a>. <\/p>\n It was in the hallowed walls of the Selmer music shop on Charing Cross Road in London that Page first crossed paths with the future jazz fusion hero. \u201cHe came down from [Doncaster], and he was living in London,\u201d Page once recalled. <\/p>\n \u201cHe was sort of introducing himself onto the jazz scene and welcomed with open arms, as you can imagine.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n Even during those early days, though, before McLaughlin had lent his incredible talents to the likes of Miles Davis, Wayne Shorter, Santana, and countless others, it was clear to Jimmy Page that the guitarist was destined for greatness. <\/p>\n \u201cHe was instinctively the best, I could tell,\u201d the Led Zeppelin man declared.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t listen to a lot of jazz \u2013 or it was selective, what I listened to \u2013 but I could tell from what I knew that he was easily the best that I was gonna hear or witness in front of me,\u201d he added. \u201cHe was the best one I was going to see, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n True to Page\u2019s prophecy, it didn\u2019t take McLaughlin long to rise to the very top of London\u2019s 1960s jazz scene, becoming one of the nation\u2019s most lauded, sought-after players in the process. Although his chosen field of jazz didn\u2019t afford him quite the same mainstream attention as somebody like Jimmy Page, there was no doubting who would come out on top in a high noon guitar duel. <\/p>\n
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