Robert Fripp 4: The League Of Crafty Guitarists

The years following the end of the ‘80s incarnation of King Crimson found Robert Fripp immersed in a music instruction-cum-philosophy retreat called Guitar Craft, the most notable public result of which being the implementation of an alternate tuning he’d devised. As more students joined the course over time, it was almost inevitable that new music would arise out of the quorum, and soon The League of Crafty Guitarists was formed.

The first release from the conglomerate was mostly recorded at a series of college gigs, and shows how seventeen similarly tuned acoustic guitars can combine while Fripp directs and/or solos on top. The three main “Guitar Craft Theme[s]” appear out of order but recall some of the experiments of Michael Hedges and his ilk, while most of the given piece titles aren’t as leading as “Tight Muscle Party At Love Beach”—one of three tracks not credited solely to Fripp—overall the music is mesmerizing and occasionally soothing. The closing “Crafty March” is particularly interesting, as we hear the musicians enter and exit the hall while playing. (Not that the album needed filling out, but “The New World” is a separately recorded Frippertronics piece with a nice solo atop it, and one of the better examples of that genre.)

Five years went by before another incarnation of Crafties came together for an album. Show Of Hands boasted more individual Crafty compositions of varying success but further intricacy. However, just over a half-hour of music is split up by, frankly, disruptive solo vocal selections from one Patricia Leavitt. Still, “Eye Of The Needle”, “Scaling The Whales”, “Asturias”, and “A Connecticut Yankee In The Court Of King Arthur” recall the better parts of Live!, and “The Moving Force” is a lovely trilling piece with added viola that sounds like it uses fewer players than the seventeen listed.

A better representation of this League’s potential came four years later when Intergalactic Boogie Express, an official bootleg of the subsequent tour, appeared as one of the first releases on Fripp’s new Discipline Global Mobile label. Highlights include some Bach pieces, a new Fripp composition called “Larks’ Thrak”, and a wonderful arrangement of the traditional chestnut “Wabash Cannonball”, while seven pages of liner notes in small print document the financial hassles with his old label that loomed large over the tour and nearly bankrupted him. (Even before that, The Bridge Between was the only release by the pompously dubbed Robert Fripp String Quintet, which consisted of the auteur with key collaborator Trey Gunn and three Crafties who’d formed the California Guitar Trio. Once again original compositions are peppered with Bach pieces, but with more electronic touches via the Chapman stick and E-bows and whatnot that vary between complementary and distracting. While something of a tangent, the album still nicely fills in the years between Crimson incarnations.)

Robert Fripp and the League Of Crafty Guitarists Live! (1986)—3
Robert Fripp & The League Of Crafty Guitarists Show Of Hands (1991)—2½
The Robert Fripp String Quintet The Bridge Between (1993)—3
Robert Fripp & The League Of Crafty Guitarists Intergalactic Boogie Express — Live In Europe 1991 (1995)—3