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Avi Bortnick

From backing up John Scofield to side projects like Cornpone and Shitty Shitty Jam Band, Avi Bortnick's guitar adds rhythm wherever he plugs in. Bortnick possesses a locked-in groove rarely found outside of late-night jams in basement bars of New York City. Born in Petah Tikva, Israel, Bortnick has a diverse style encompassing jazz, Caribbean, Brazilian and African styles. This varied background enables Bortnick to blend syncopations and inject "da funk" into every corner of the world. After a recent Scofield tour, Bortnick sat down with us to discuss how Live has changed the way he approaches playing on stage.

"One of Live's most unique attributes is the way that almost all sounds and parameters can be mapped to both MIDI and the computer keyboard. This enables me to play guitar while I control Live with a MIDI foot controller or with a quick tap on the computer keyboard. And because of Live's unique quantize feature, I can hit a MIDI button anytime in the measure before, but have the action occur on the beat."

"With Scofield, Live is really the fifth member (or maybe fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth...). More and more, the band writes together and interacts together based on what I coax out of my iBook running Live. It gives the band an infinite palate of musical colors, ready to inspire. Fantastic."

Avi Bortnick, Rhythm Guitarist of John Scofield Band

Read the complete interview here...

Avi Bortnick shows how he uses Live in this movie from Guitar One magazine.