Bruce Forman developed his bebop chops over the decades he spent playing alongside jazz legends such as Ray Brown, Bobby Hutcherson and Roger Kellaway. These days, he employs those skills in his straight-ahead jazz trio as well as with his western swing band, Cow Bop, and Junkyard Duo, where he plays National steel guitar alongside a drummer who bangs found objects. Forman also has a podcast, Guitar Wank, which he cohosts with jazz-fusion guitarist Scott Henderson.
But the project closest to his heart is The Red Guitar, Forman’s one-man show based upon his life as a musician and his fixation on one particular instrument.
“I was performing at a guitar show in Wales, and there was this red archtop with a white mother-of-toilet-seat pickguard,” he explains. “All the jazz players snubbed it because it was too rockabilly. Out of spite, I picked it up and started playing. It was so full of sound that the entire hall went quiet.”
Stefan Sonntag, the guitar’s builder, let Forman use the instrument for his performances, and by the end of the show the guitarist was in love. The archtop was promised to another customer, but the luthier agreed to make one even nicer for Forman.
One day, following a concert where he performed with his new axe, Forman overheard two people talking. “Did you hear that guy last night?” asked one. “Who?” the acquaintance replied. “The guy with the red guitar,” came the answer. When, some time later, Forman was asked to play at a performing arts center, he recalled that conversation and was inspired to create a show based on the Sonntag. Over the next three months, he developed The Red Guitar, a musical monolog in which he explains what it’s like to be possessed by