| Pedro, well -of course it depends. Most american professors have only to look back no more than two bererations before their respective european professors pop up.
For ex.
Roger scott- Anton torello( Cataluna)
Homer Mensch ( eduoard Nanny)
Gary K ( Zimmerman-reinshagen)
Paul Ellison( Rabbath)
And the list goes on....
What the european proffs do offer is a tradition. handed down and not too watered down either. Is this inflexible ? I would reather call it respect for ones background. THe good teacher is one to be copied but the great teacher is the one who sets the student free. This takes time and extreme maturity from the student.
Pedro my experience though in europe the past ten years is that the north american style is far too inflexible. I could play circles around people at auditions here but ask me to play something with musicality and I could'nt get passed INtonation-rhythym-dynamics-sound.... The european style tends to go away from this first and try to develop musicality. Of course it isn't perfect and has it's faults but it is just different.
I actually look at most europeans soloists as great individualist who really stand for what they do. Not just pumping out sound and perfection. I recently listened to a great bassist from the USA. He has a cd out. When I was here in the UA. I thought he was God. I now listened to him and thought, yeah what a great instrumentalist,,,but I thought it quite boring to listen to,
People change..
I'll be happy to explain more in private mails
Hope this was of help
G-force | 
