Mark Nguyen

Music 233 Jazz Guitar

Professor Joe Jewell

December 12, 2010

Guitar Performance Report: Ron Eschete Trio and Ramon Banda

This Performance took place at Steamer’s Jazz Club and Café on November 4, 2010. I

had the privilege to see Ron Eschete and his Trio with Ramon Banda play. This was an

interesting show because they had a Ramon Banda, Latin-influenced drummer, on the drums

instead of their regular guy. The instruments used in this show were a 7-string guitar, a 6-string

bass, and drums.

I was very impressed by their level of skill. Both guitarists had an unusual instrument that

allowed them to redefine the limits of a guitar. Ron Eschete was very proficient with his 7-string

guitar, he was able to play both melodic lines and chords at the same time. It was hard to see

things like whether he was using pentatonic scales or not, but it sounded like he did in many

parts. His music selection weren’t very well known though. It was sometimes hard to relate to

his songs because they were unknown songs.

There were some songs he used that connected very well. Ron Eschete doesn’t do a very

good job of letting the audience know what song he is playing, most of the time he takes song

requests from his entourage who were sitting in the front row seats. However, his sixth song was

perhaps the highlight of the night. It was a 12-bar blues song, and it was one of those songs that

got the audience tapping their feet to the beat. There was a lot of good sound dynamics, and he

used a lot of strong chords before giving the solo to the bassist. The bassist was also very

impressive with his 6-string bass guitar. When it was his time to solo, he transformed the bass
into a regular 6 string guitar. He solo’d on it like a regular guitar even though the neck was 10

feet long. I was very impressed by how Ron Eschete used sound effects to his own favor.

During his solo, when it went very close to the climax, he changed it to reverb and that made

everything sound amazing.

Ron Eschete is a very technical player. His skill surpasses many Jazz players today, and

it shows in this performance. He made no mistake, there was nothing to complain about. He was

very fast and could place 30 notes in a matter of seconds. He also demonstrated many possible

chords that jazz has to offer. He probably played 50 different variations of dominant chords

during the night. Also, he was a master of arpeggios. There were times where he would play one

arpeggio after another until it made its own harmonic sound. I was very impressed by his level of

skill.