OK, here it is in a nutshell. Recordings are just a snapshot in time. Hearing, seeing it live is what it is all about. Hendrix had so much energy live that it burned an imprint into my memory. That is where the bar was set and nobody has jumped over it yet. Jimi was a true artist. Right there, it sets him apart, period.
The gear that recorded Hendrix live shows and studio was prehistoric in comparison to what you could buy at a music store today, sit in your bedroom and create perfect little shredding recordings with Protools.
Jimi Live, is all you have to say. Who did Malmsteen, Vai and the next generations of guitar whackers listen to. Have these kids actually seen these guys live or are they basing their arguments on some "doctored/fixed up" hard drive studio recordings.
Only time will tell if the music is relevant. Four hundred years after Bach, it's still getting listened to. Thirty years after I completely burned out on Beatles, Stones, Etc. in heavy rotation on Top 40 radio, people still listen to, buy recordings and concert tickets. Let's see what these kids are listening to in thirty years.
Jimi didn't melt the frets off the guitar because he wanted to impress people, he did it because he could, because he had to. He was an archetype. Look that word up in the dictionary.
A more imortant discussion or lesson might be: How can you rate music or musicians? Is it a race or a competition? This a pointless endevor. Music and art, ain't a stick and ball game.
I can think of a pile of (I hate to use the word "Jazz", a geniric term that doesn't mean much) guitar players that were/are techinically better instumentalists, better musicians than Yngwie and Vai and Hendrix combined.
This whole topic is soo Jr. High School. Listen to the archetypical Louie Armstrong. Listen to some Coltrane from the Impulse years, any Charlie Parker, Miles Davis. Those were the guys that stretched the publics ears in a way that Hendrix never did.
In the end, it is going to be a tough sell to get kids to understand what was going on in the world at that time. Our society was so straight and conservitave. Jimi was outrageous in a world with out MTV, a corporate music machine or instant world wide media coverage.
Everybody today is trying to be outragoeus with their, tatoos, piercings, clothes and dress. It's all too common now and has no real impact. Jimi simply WAS outrageous.
Get the kids to search for interviews and see what the Beatles, Stones, Jimi Page, Pete Townsend, and Clapton said when they saw Hendrix live in a little club for the first time.
In the end... there are only twelve different notes. Bach invented the system, wrote the rules and broke them in his lifetime. ALL WESTERN MUSIC IS DERIVITAVE. Everybody including Jim, copied his stuff from somebody, somehow.
Good luck Mr. H