It was very hard to keep track of all the different people who were talking during the DVD, but it's really what they were saying that's most important. At one point one of them says, Jimi saw music as colours and would talk about how he would want a gold sound or something this colour or that. Nobody else was really on the same page as he was most of the time, and that probably led to a lot of the frustration that is mentioned on the DVD on the part of Noel Redding.
It wasn't just him, but others too who weren't accustomed to the way Jimi wanted to work. He wasn't interested in "schedules." When he was ready to work, when the spirit or the muse took him, he wanted to work – but that didn't necessarily mean according to any clock that anybody else might have thought they were working on.
But mainly I think it sounds like nobody else could understand the language he was speaking and he ended up picking up their instruments and doing things himself because they weren't able to produce the sound he wanted. He wanted to try different things at different times; if someone, even a cabbie or a delivery person, could play an instrument he didn't have to hand – they were told to come back with it and sit in so he could hear if their sound was part of the picture in his head.
There is one beautiful story about the song "Crosstown Traffic" where he heard what he wanted in his head, but he couldn't get his guitar to make it. So he got a comb and some cellophane and blew through it for the sound he wanted in his guitar solo. Those really odd sounds in his guitar solo just before the chorus aren’t a guitar at all – they're a jury-rigged kazoo.
Classic Albums: Electric Ladyland is full of amazing details like that. Insights into the creative genius that has been hidden behind the electric guitar reputation for too many years are brought to light on this disc. Not only that, but quite a few myths about the album are laid to rest as well.
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