When i said that, i was responding to you saying that Batio's playing was nothing new, and i meant that technical ability doesnt have to be something new in order to be recognized as impressive, and a person doesnt have to be doing anything new when it comes to technicality in order to be recognized as doing it better than others.
I think your actually missing my point as well. I'm not arguing that Hendrix shouldnt be regarded as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, because i personally do regard him as one of the greatest guitarists of all time. The virtuosity that you alluded to is the very reason i feel that way, and its a very common sentiment. I'm arguing that you cant simplify it by stating that a person is objectively the greatest ever when it comes an art form.
Doing something first doesnt necessarily mean you are the best. Very early men painted on the walls of caves as one of the earliest forms of art, were they better artists than Van Gogh, Picasso, Salvador Dali, Da Vinci or any of the other great artists who have come and gone just because they did it first? Perhaps some people do think so because they prefer the art cavemen created over any of those well known artists. But the reason is highly unlikely to be just because they did it first, and in the end, most people will regard those artists as "better" so to speak. Furthermore, all of those artists were very influential in their own way, and i wouldnt necessarily say that one was more so than another. But just because they may have all revolutionized art, doesnt mean you can objectively state that they are better than anyone else. If you think that Dali's work was the best, and Da Vinci was complete crap, there is no way to prove you wrong, but there would also be no way to prove yourself right because when it comes to ranking artists of any kind, the process is 100% subjective, and you just cant say unequivocally that one artists is THE greatest objectively, which is what you did in the post i originally quoted. I think i'm drifting away from my original point a little though.
And as for you saying that no other musician was as much of a virtuoso as Hendrix, Ill assume you mean in that exact time period, which i can live with (although that could also be debatable), but if you mean ever, it would be extremely debatable.
Lastly, saying that Hendrix's virtuosity automatically makes him better, is the exact fallacy that i was addressing in my post with Batio, in that while you might weight virtuosity more heavily than technicality, others may think the opposite, again, making it impossible to state that as an objective reason for calling him the best.
As a side note, dont interpret anything i say as hating or flaming or anything like that, everything i post is in the vein of friendly conversation, and there is absolutely no hostility behind what i post, and i also dont mean to come across as condescending or anything like that. I find conversations like this to be intriguing, as well as educational. I like to hear different rationals people give for certain modes of thinking, because it expands my perspective on an issue.
