À la base, au principe, au commencement (style biblique), Brian a appris très tôt l'idiome du jazz (enfant et adolescent, ses deux profs étaient des jazzmen ; le premier, Henry Scurti, était un saxophoniste qui eut le p'tit Setzer comme élève pendant six ans ; le deuxième, Roy Gogarty, possédait et jouait une D'Angelico New Yorker originale : celle–là même que Line 6 a, paraît–il, modélisée pour le preset "Archtop" d'une de ses guitares, la Variax 700).
« I knew I wanted to play guitar when I was about six years old. I bugged my parents, and after about two years they finally got me a teacher. I took guitar lessons until I was about 15. They were formal instructions out of books, like the Mel Bay courses. My first teacher was a saxophonist named Henry Scurti. He didn’t even play guitar, which I think is good in a way. He didn’t impose any kind of a style on me. Basically, he taught me out of books for six years, and in the meantime I was learning my Chuck Berry songs. My chords and sense of melody all kind of happened together little by little. I finished those books, and then took jazz lessons from a teacher name Roy Gogarty. He taught me a lot of nice chords, and 1 started listening to people like Django Reinhardt. I think it’s important that kids take guitar lessons. It really can’t hurt. Learning out of books enabled me to learn the music I preferred more easily, like Beatles songs, Chuck Berry, all that kind of stuff. It’s important that you have both. »
Brian Setzer, September 1983, in Guitar Player.
Donc, au "fiat lux", Brain était un jazzman ou un jazzchild qui s'est mis à faire du rockab'.
Mais on entend la longue voix du jazz dans presque toutes ses phrases...
«Wir leben unter finsteren Himmeln, und –es gibt wenig Menschen. Darum gibt es wohl auch so wenig Gedichte. Die Hoffnungen, die ich noch habe, sind nicht groß. Ich versuche, mir das mir Verbliebene zu erhalten. »
Paul Celan, 18 mai 1960, Lettre à Hans Bender.
