Steve Vai

They also use a humbucker-single coil-humbucker pickup set-up and a locking tremolo bar. Pal Whiteman died at the age of 77 in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. They feature a handgrip cut into the top of the body of the guitar. After he disbanded his Orchestra, in the 1940s and 1950s Whiteman worked as a music director for the ABC Radio Network. Vai also helped design his signature Ibanez JEM series of guitars. In 1931, Whiteman married motion picture actress Margaret Livingston. He also enjoys keeping bees, which regularly produce a crop of honey that Steve sells for his chosen charity every year through his web site. Bing Crosby got his start singing with the Whiteman Orchestra.

Vai is married with two children (Julian Angel & Fire) to Pia (former Bassist of All-Female Group "Vixen", which can be seen in the movie "Hardbodies"). While Whiteman gave them very limited chances to improvise, he paid them top salaries and encouraged them to make small band jam recordings on the side. Steve Vai owns 'Favored Nations', a recording and publishing business which specialises in looking after both newly discovered and already high profile recording artists from around the world. Whiteman appreciated jazz musicians and hired many of the best white jazz men for his band, including Bix Beiderbecke, Frankie Trumbauer, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Steve Brown, Gussie Mueller, Jack Teagarden, and Bunny Berigan. Vai is an accomplished studio producer (he owns two: "The mother ship" and "The harmony hut") and his own recordings combine his signature guitar prowess with novel compositions and considerable use of studio and recording effects. Whiteman commissioned George Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue, which was premiered by Whiteman's Orchestra with Gershwin at the piano in 1924. Where Vai's contributions to others' material has been constrained by the largely rock or heavy-rock style of those bands, his own material is considerably more esoteric. Whiteman claimed that he was "making a lady out of jazz".

Vai received a Grammy Award in 1991. While it is easy to sneer at Whiteman in retrospect, his notions were critically popular and commercially successful at the time, and Whiteman's music was often the first jazz of any form that some people heard. The piece was heavily based on Paganini's Caprice # 5, and has become a favorite apprentice-piece among many guitar students. While today most fans of jazz consider improvisation to be essential to the musical style, Whiteman thought it sloppy and uncouth, and thought the music could be improved by eliminating it, except occasionally in elaborate arrangements. The 32nd note fast-paced "neo-classical" track (entitled "Eugene's Trick Bag") with which Macchio wins the competition was composed by Vai. Others reject thses notions, and regard Whiteman's music as an interesting development in jazz history. At the film's climax, Vai engages in a guitar duel with Macchio (whose guitar parts were dubbed by Vai himself). In the late 1920s and early 1930s Whiteman billed himself as The King of Jazz (see: Jazz royalty), though much of what his band played hasn't been considered "true" jazz by later generations.

He appeared onscreen in the 1986 Ralph Macchio movie Crossroads, playing the demonically-inspired Jack Butler. In the late 1920s he recorded for Columbia Records. Steve Vai's music has featured in a number of feature films, including Dudes, Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey and Ghosts of Mars. Whiteman's became the most popular band leader of the decade. G3 2003 features Steve, Joe Satriani and Yngwie Malmsteen. In 1920 he moved his band to New York City where they started making recordings for Victor Records which propelled Whiteman and his band to national prominence. Steve recently teamed up with former David Lee Roth band member Bassist Billy Sheehan for a world tour. He started out as a classical violinist and violist, then started leading a jazz-influenced dance band which became locally popular in San Francisco, California in 1918.

Steve Vai continues to tour regularly, both with his own group and with his one time teacher and fellow Grammy award winning guitar instrumentalist friend Joe Satriani (on the G3 series of tours). Whiteman was born in Denver, Colorado. Vai also stepped into guitarist Adrian Vandenberg's shoes to record with British rock legends Whitesnake (after Adrian Vandenberg injured his wrist due to some exercises he found in a book and tried out) shortly before recording was due to begin for the album Slip of the Tongue. Paul Whiteman (March 28, 1890 - December 29, 1967) was a popular United States orchestral leader. Then he joined former Van Halen front man David Lee Roth's group to record the albums Eat 'em and Smile and Skyscraper. In the early 80's he replaced Yngwie Malmsteen (a good friend) as lead guitarist in Graham Bonnett's Alcatrazz.

Steve Vai made his name playing 'stunt guitar' with the legendary rock performer, composer, music producer, and publishing mogul Frank Zappa. Vai is best known for his self-composed, performed and produced guitar instrumental music, but he has also played on the recordings of several other rock acts. Steve Vai, born Steven Siro Vai, is an American guitarist and composer, born June 6th, 1960 in Long Island, New York (making him six years old on the sixth day of the sixth month in 1966, as he noted in the introduction to his guitar transcription book of Frank Zappa).
.

For help, see How to Edit a Page and the Style and How-to Directory. After the article has been cleaned up, you may remove this message. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of article quality. Real Illusions: Reflections (2005).

The Infinite Steve Vai: An Anthology (2003). Elusive Light and Sound 1 (2002). Alive In An Ultra World (2001). The Seventh Song (2000).

The Ultra Zone (1999). Fire Garden (1996). Alien Love Secrets (1995). Sex and Religion (1993).

Passion and Warfare (1990). Flex-Able Leftovers (1984). Flex-Able (1984).