User:WarrenBrickfield/sandbox

Geoffrey Halal (September 14, 1950 - December 1, 2003) was a jazz fusion guitarist and singer-songwriter prominent in the 1970s and 1980s. Known by the stage name 'Salty McJefferson', he inspired generations of young jazz musicians to follow in his wake.

Rolling Stone magazine confirmed him as ranking 101st on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. According to Arnos de la Ceinture, a Portuguese jazz flute player, "Salty pioneered an innovative style of playing that tested the boundaries of what the guitar was capable of, and combined this level of technical ability with a shimmering tone of mellifluous reverie." Halal has been recommended by many to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame; but these efforts, as of now, have proved to be in vain.

Early life

Halal was born in the slums of Calcutta. His father, Phrot, worked at a Birdseye factory, manufacturing fish-fingers; like his son would go on to do, Phrot took much pride in his work, compacting the small portions of moist cod into a perfect rectangle then to be engulfed by golden breadcrumbs. Phrot's colleagues admired his passion for frozen goods. Unfortunately for the Halal family, it was this passion that lead to his somewhat abrupt demise; while Phrot was treating an injured fish-finger that had sustained multiple fractures from the factory floor, his beard got entangled in the machinery as he leant over the conveyor-belt that carried the fish-fingers. Phrot couldn't move, tied down next to other fish-fingers, and was incinerated in the oven. Brickain, Salty's mother, together with her son, cast Phrot's ashes into the Bay of Bengal. In an attempt to put this behind them, Brickain and Salty moved to Niger, and it was here that Salty, only seven years old, found his passion for the guitar.

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  Vishwa Mohan Bhatt; one who inspired Halal

Career

Halal received a Fender Stratocaster, called Giles Turtle Frittercrumb, for his twelfth birthday from the mayor of Chad, who thought him to be descended from a local tribal deity. As a young adolescent, Halal did not enjoy access to a professional teacher, textbooks or records, but took inspiration from the natural world around him. They say that upon reaching the ripe age of sixteen, Halal performed for every blind man in Cameroon a five minute composition based upon the mating rituals of a coniferous forest. When Halal was nineteen, he found work in a jazz club in the Niger capital, Niamey, performing every Tuesday night. Every Thursday night Halal would receive a cheese taco from the club owner, Bartholomew Basin-Jones, a retired property developer. One day, a jazz producer who was visiting the club heard Salty and admired his technical prowess. He spoke to Salty after the show and offered him a record deal and a condo in San Francisco. Salty accepted the deal seeing it as an opportunity to pursue his dreams and widen one of his sphincters. There he recorded five albums; 5 tracks from which made it into the music charts, including the critically acclaimed 'Beans by the River' and 'Groyne Loathin'. After years of headlining the American jazz-rock scene, Halal decided to go on tour to Russia, planning to perform at venues from St. Petersburg to Tyda. While enjoying a night on the town after his first show, Halal disappeared, never to be seen again.

Ambiguity about his disappearance

Some people, including Lumen Ovary, claim to have seen him working at a strip club in Turkmenistan. Others believe him to have been sold into a sex trafficking racket around the outskirts of Moscow.