L.A. ‘Guitar Summit’ Reveals Distinctions

Guitars are generally played with fingers, but you could tell a lot about the four participants in the “Guitar Summit” tour stop Saturday at the Veterans Wadsworth Theater by watching their feet.

Jazz master Herb Ellis, starting off the evening’s solo sets, had his right foot up over his left knee as he leaned back in his chair, cool and relaxed. Sharon Isbin’s right foot was up on a pedestal to give her perfect classical posture. Rory Block stomped her high-heeled cowgirl-booted right foot to her folk-blues syncopation. And finally, Michael Hedges stood barefoot, which, combined with his shaved head, gave him the manner of a Zen monk.

Each player’s pedal proclivities mirrored his or her musical distinctiveness. Ellis strung together swingin’ runs of single notes and grouped chords with casual ease, making up for what precision he has lost to age (he’s 76) with undiminished spirit, especially on a sizzling “Sweet Georgia Brown.” Isbin, in contrast, dazzled with precision but also with her full command of nuance and dynamics, which she challenged both with classical Iberian repertoire standards and new South American pieces pushing past conventional classical lines.

Block offered engagingly unkempt acoustic blues, attacking the strings with earthy fury that eschews the eviscerating politeness endemic to many blues folkies. But Hedges was the star, with an unclassifiable amalgam of styles and eye-popping, ear-bending technique that even seeing isn’t believing. Block introduced him as “the guitar Buddha,” and his music is indeed meditative but very playful and rarely peaceful.

Hedges’ set capped off the composite illustration of the guitar as perhaps the most individual of all instruments. But it is also the most universal, and as the four teamed on an encore of the folk ballad “The Water Is Wide,” the unlikely mesh made for a rich tapestry, confirming the guitar as the instrument of modern times. After all, you don’t see too many people playing air bassoon, do you?