It is 11 pm on a Friday night. You have been working all day and are looking forward to hitting your pillow, but a good night’s sleep will have to wait. As you walk into the club, the smell of stale cigarette smoke and cheap bourbon acts as a smelling salt and you can feel your second wind coming on. The “stage”, as it is affectionately known, is a small clearing in the back corner of the club, right next to the restrooms and the club’s payphone. The drummer and bass player have already set up and are sitting at the bar talking and joking around while they enjoy some of the club’s “finest” refreshments.
You drop your amp in the corner and shake off the snow that had gathered on the grill during the walk from your apartment to the club. Making sure that the amp is positioned in a way that it acts as both a speaker for the audience and a monitor for the trio, you slowly and carefully take out your guitar. Your “other wife,” as it has become known, is a beautiful Gibson L-5 that you found at a pawn shop several years back, one of the happiest days of your life. After a quick tune up and a brief check of your tone on the amp, you motion for the rest of the band to join you—it’s time to go to work.
You take a brief look around the room and, as with most nights, the audience is made up of a wide variety of people. The college students are here because jazz is the hip thing to see right now, the middle aged couples stumbled upon the club after a night out for dinner, the regulars have been coming out for years now to hear you play and more than a few people aren’t sure if they belong in a jazz club. You look over at the band. “Au Privave in F,” you say and begin to count off the tune. The familiar feeling of excitement comes over you as you are about to head into the unknown. Not one person in the room knows what you are going to play tonight, not even yourself. It is a reminder that this is why you play—the sense that you are creating music on the spot and taking chances that may or may not work out as you intended. A smile begins to form and you launch into the first tune of the night.
The life of the jazz guitarist has never been an easy one. While some players throughout the years have been able to survive off of their playing and recordings alone, most have had to work at least one day job to make ends meet. Famous players such as Wes Montgomery and Johnny Smith, along with many others, had to teach and work day jobs to help support their musical careers. Nonetheless, guitarists have been some of the most influential performers in jazz history. The fact that many of these players could work during the day and then perform at a world class level every night makes their accomplishments even more awe-inspiring. Their recordings have brought joy to many listeners over the past century and have inspired thousands of young guitarists to learn their first major seventh chords and seven-note scales.
This jazz guitar primer explores eight of the most influential jazz guitarists of the past one hundred years and guides the reader to further study and listening.
George Van Eps (1913-1998)
Throughout a performing and teaching career that spanned more than six decades, George Van Eps was able to completely change the way guitarists of all genres viewed the instrument and its role in modern music. One of Eps’ biggest contributions to the world of jazz guitar was his use of the seven-string archtop guitar, as opposed to the more conventional six-string model being used at the time. The seven-string classical guitar had been around since the late 1700s, especially in Russia where it had been popular in 1798, but Van Eps is credited with bringing the instrument into the arena of popular music, and more specifically the jazz idiom. His seven-string guitar, built by Epiphone in 1938, had an added low A string that allowed Van Eps to have an expanded range and darker tonal colors than his six-string playing peers. While the seven-string guitar was not adopted by any of Van Eps’ peers, it was later used by such famous guitarists as Bucky Pizzarelli, Howard Alden, Lenny Breau (who used a high A string in place of the low A), Steve Vai and Korn guitarists Monkey and Head.
Having been one of the most recorded guitarists during the twentieth century, Van Eps’ unique approach to the guitar was to have a lasting influence on generations of young jazz guitarists. His use of the seven-string guitar not only expanded his tonal palette, it also allowed him to develop techniques that were not possible on a six-string guitar. Early in his career, Van Eps developed a method of playing bass lines, melodies and chords simultaneously, a feat that had not been accomplished previously and, with the exception of a few players such as Lenny Breau, Ted Greene and Charlie Hunter, has not been done since. His virtuosic playing and landmark solo albums, including the legendary recording Mellow Guitar, had a lasting influence on a wide range of guitarists including Chet Atkins, Merle Travis, Johnny Smith, Ben Monder and many others.
Aside from developing the seven-string guitar and greatly expanding the harmonic possibilities of the instrument, Van Eps also played an integral part in the early development of jazz guitar education. Apart from his long list of recordings as both a leader and sideman, Van Eps also wrote a series of three ground breaking method books called Mechanisms of Guitar: Volumes 1, 2 and 3. In these books Van Eps laid out his polyphonic approach to the guitar in a logical, though highly detailed, manner. These books are still considered to be some of the most comprehensive works written on the subject of jazz guitar and have had a major influence on many jazz guitar educators such as Johnny Smith, Howard Roberts and Jimmy Wyble.
While most of the leading jazz musicians of the ’40s and ’50s lived in New York, Van Eps continued to live in Los Angeles his entire life. As a result of his geographical displacement, Van Eps never adopted the fiery single line approach to improvisation in his playing that was made popular by the New York bebop players such as Charlie Christian. At a time when many swing-era musicians were being swept aside by the new generation of beboppers, Van Eps stuck to his roots and was able to carve out a niche for himself by playing laid back, enjoyable music that was more digestible by the general public than the fast and furious bebop coming from the East Coast. Though he is never directly credited with the rise of the “Cool” jazz movement in the 1940s, the harmonically sophisticated and musically expressive manner in which he played can be seen as a direct precursor to the cool school of playing that was made famous on Miles Davis’ recording The Birth of the Cool, and further developments by Stan Getz, Chet Baker and others.
Essential Listening
Legends: Solo Guitar Performances
Mellow Guitar
Seven and Seven
Essential Publications
Charles H. Chapman. George Van Eps: Guitar Solos.
George Van Eps. Harmonic Mechanisms for Guitar, Volumes 1, 2, and 3.
Charlie Christian (1916-1942)
If George Van Eps was the laid back father figure of early jazz guitar, than Charlie Christian was the rebellious teenage son. Christian lived a hard life, starting from his musical beginnings in Oklahoma where he was forced to become a professional musician when his father was stricken blind and the three children had to support the family, and leading through to his death at the age of twenty-five from tuberculosis in a New York sanitarium. In the short time between these two tragic events, Christian acted as not only the catalyst that would bring the guitar into the electric age, but also a major figure in the creation of the bebop movement.
Before Christian, most guitarists, including Van Eps, played large body acoustic or archtop guitars that did not have built in pickups. In most cases, such as Freddie Green of the Count Basie band, the guitar was unamplified and acted in more of a percussive role than as a melodic or harmonic instrument. Though there were some guitarists, usually in solo or small group settings, who would set a microphone in front of the sound hole to allow them to be heard over the louder instruments, most guitarists remained in the unamplified camp well into the 1940s and in some cases the 1950s. Christian was lucky enough to have come on the jazz scene at a time when people were beginning to experiment with early amplifiers and pickups for the jazz guitar. Because he was able to get ahold of an amp and a guitar with built-in pickups at an early age, Christian was able to develop a style of playing that incorporated single-line solos that could be heard clearly over the sound of the drums, bass and piano. This new technology allowed him to compete on a linear level with the clarinetists, saxophonists and trumpeters of the day, something that would immediately cause him to stand out amongst his peers.
The electric guitar could not have found a better spokesman than Charlie Christian, and he immediately made an impression on musicians and fans alike when he began to play with Benny Goodman in 1939. Their first meeting is now the stuff of legends and has gone down in history as one of the greatest jazz guitar performances of all time. After meeting Christian at an afternoon rehearsal, Goodman decided he liked the young guitarist but that he would not be a good fit for his band at that time. Not to be deterred, Christian went to the Victor Hugo restaurant that evening where the Goodman band was performing and waited quietly backstage. After the band had finished several songs, Goodman turned to the audience to announce the next tune. By the time Goodman had finished talking to the audience, Christian had snuck on stage, set up his equipment and was ready to play. Although Goodman was visibly angry at the young guitarist, he allowed him to stay onstage for the song, though he picked the song Rose Room, which he did not expect Christian to know. Instead of playing a short solo and bowing out like Goodman expected, Christian took chorus after chorus (twenty in all, so the legend goes) of improvised solo, with each chorus surpassing the last. By the end of the tune, Christian was now a full fledged member of the Goodman ensemble, a feat that was not only significant on a musical level, but on a political level as well. This incarnation of the Goodman sextet, which included Teddy Wilson and Lionel Hampton, was one of the earliest bands consisting of both white and black musicians, or a “mixed” band as it was became known. This was a new and scandalous concept amongst concert-goers at the time, especially in the South.
While Christian was making a name for himself playing swing style music with the Goodman band during the day and early evening, he also began making waves in the late night clubs in Harlem as a major figure in the development of the bebop movement. Whereas swing music was laid back and easily digested by the average listener, bebop was music that was played by the most accomplished jazz musicians of the time, players who enjoyed the challenge of navigating through complex chord changes at lightening tempos and was aimed at fellow musicians rather than the general public. The Beboppers, such as Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Thelonius Monk, were never as popular as figures like Benny Goodman and Duke Ellington, but they were legendary amongst their fellow musicians as being the cream of the crop when it came to speaking the new language of modern jazz. Christian fit right in with these types of players and his fiery single-note lines and long solos, in which he never repeated himself, instantly garnered him the respect and admiration of the bebop pioneers. While his work with Goodman would influence many younger players, his late night jams at clubs like Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem would have a lasting influence on the next generations of guitarists such as Oscar Moore, Jim Hall, Barney Kessel, Herb Ellis, Johnny Smith and Wes Montgomery. Guitarists were so infatuated with his playing that they would often sit in the front row at a bebop club and frantically try and write down their favorite Christian lines and melodies, something that a young Miles Davis had been known to do with Charlie Parker’s lines.
Christian’s hectic schedule of performances with the Goodman band, his presence at all night jam sessions and his recreational alcohol and drug use took its toll on the young guitarist. Having contracted tuberculosis in the late 1930s, Christian’s health declined in the coming years until he was admitted to a New York sanitarium in an attempt to rest and regain his health. Though Christian passed away soon thereafter, his contribution to the world of jazz guitar has not been forgotten. During his lifetime, he won many critics’ and readers’ polls as the top jazz guitarist of the day, and in 1966 he was inducted into the Downbeat Magazine Hall of Fame. In 1990, he was introduced into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland for his early influence on the first generation of rock guitarists and a pioneer of the electric guitar.
Essential Listening
Benny Goodman Sextet Featuring Charlie Christian
Original Guitar Hero
Solo Flight
The Genius of the Electric Guitar
Essential Publications
Joe Weidlich. The Guitar Chord Shapes of Charlie Christian
Stan Ayeroff. Mel Bay Swing to Bop: The Music of Charlie Christian
Wolf Marshall. The Best of Charlie Christian: A Step-by-Step Breakdown of the Styles and Techniques of the Father of Modern Jazz Guitar
Johnny Smith (1922- )
Johnny Smith is often considered to be the first all-around jazz guitar virtuoso. Whereas George Van Eps pushed the boundaries of chords and harmony on the guitar and Charlie Christian revolutionized single note soloing, Smith was able to master both of these approaches as well as becoming one of the most in demand composers and arrangers of the 1940s and ’50s. Having begun his musical studies on the banjo, the same instrument Van Eps learned to play on, Smith quickly moved to the guitar at age eleven, and by age sixteen, he was supporting his family financially by teaching guitar lessons and playing in local dance bands. Though he never pursued a formal musical education, Smith managed to master the cornet, guitar and banjo before the age of twenty. He spent his 20s and 30s as the head arranger-composer for the NBC studio orchestra in New York City. While at NBC, Smith would write and arrange over thirty TV and radio shows per week for a wide range of ensembles ranging from duos to full symphony orchestras. Smith was also a regular on the NYC jazz scene maintaining a busy performance schedule as a jazz artist in many of the city’s famous clubs.
One of the reasons that Smith became so successful at such an early age was his ability to read music at a very high level. As Smith tells it, there was a time during the 1940s and ’50s in New York City when if a band needed a guitar player who could read, they called Smith. If Smith was busy, they called Mundel Lowe, and if he was booked, they did the gig without a guitarist. Smith’s ability to read opened many doors throughout his career and allowed him to play with some of the most prestigious ensembles in the world, including the New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Symphony and the NBC studio orchestra under the direction of Arturo Toscanini. Far from being solely a reading musician, Smith became a first call jazz guitarist as well. His ability to improvise single note solos on any tune at any tempo coupled with his vast chordal vocabulary and ability to improvise chord melodies and chord solos made Smith very popular amongst the leading jazz musicians of the day. During the 1940s and ’50s, Smith performed over twenty weeks per year at the Birdland jazz club where he shared the stage with many of the era’s greatest musicians, including Stan Getz, Lionel Hampton and many others.
While many jazz musicians of the post war era were seeing their audiences dwindle and their record sales drop, Smith was able to maintain a high level of success in these areas throughout his career. While most people may remember the hit song Walk Don’t Run being performed by the surf band the Ventures, or even by Chet Atkins who released an earlier recording, the song was originally written and recorded by Smith. The success of Walk Don’t Run, as well as Moonlight in Vermont which remains one of the best selling instrumental singles of all time, garnered Smith the attention of the general music-buying public that few other jazz guitarists have been able to achieve. As well, Smith was a very close friend of saxophonist Stan Getz, and because of this close relationship Smith developed a love for the music of Brazil, especially the bossa nova rhythm that became very popular in the 1950s. Smith’s incorporation of the bossa nova rhythm into his music provided another avenue for his music to reach the main stream audiences.
While other jazz guitarists who reach this level of success within the popular music world have been chastised for their success, Smith has remained one of the most well respected and influential jazz guitarists of the past one hundred years. While his music was being enjoyed by millions of people throughout the world, Smith’s technical virtuosity on the guitar was becoming legendary. Smith’s right and left hand technique were impeccable, a feat rarely accomplished by guitarists of any genre. His approach to picking was so unique and so influential that it has become known simply as Johnny Smith picking. One of Smith’s early musical influences was the classical guitarist Andrés Segovia. Though Smith would never play with his right hand fingers, as did Segovia, he decided that he would be able to use a pick with the fluidity and technical virtuosity that classical players could achieve with their fingers. Smith proved to the world that he had achieved this goal when he released an album of difficult classical pieces using only a pick. The album had originally been recorded as a dare by a friend of Smith’s who didn’t believe he could convincingly interpret these pieces without using his fingers. Rising to the challenge, Smith recorded the pieces in his living room and sent it to his friend to prove his point. Smith’s friend was so impressed with these recordings that he sent them to the head of Concord Records who immediately contacted Smith about releasing them as an album. This recording, later to be released as Legends of Jazz Guitar, remains one of the most highly regarded and studied jazz guitar albums ever released.
Though Smith retired from a full-time performing career in 1958, his music has remained as a high point in the world of jazz guitar. While Smith continued to perform in the Colorado area for many years after leaving NYC, Smith became a highly sought after educator throughout the 1960s, ’70s’ and ’80s. Some of his students, including a young Bill Frisell and Gene Bertoncini, went on to become world class guitarists themselves. Smith is also credited in being one of the first, if not the first, person to write for and perform with a jazz guitar ensemble. Calling it his “all-star band,” Smith put together a group of five up and coming guitarists and wrote arrangements and original compositions for the group. Though this ensemble was unique and somewhat unorthodox at the time, the jazz guitar ensemble has now found its way into many university and college music programs and several famous players, including Kenny Burrell, have lead professional groups of this nature.
While Smith may have chosen to spend his later years living quietly in Colorado, his recordings are still cited by the world’s best guitarists as being highly influential in their careers. Guitarists such as Joe Pass, Lenny Breau, Pat Metheny, Mike Stern and others have all acknowledged Smith as being one of their early influences.
Essential Listening
Moonlight in Vermont
The Complete Roost Johnny Smith Small Group Sessions
The Sound of the Johnny Smith Guitar
Essential Publications
Johnny Smith. Johnny Smith Guitar Solos
Johnny Smith. The Complete Johnny Smith Approach to Guitar
Wes Montgomery (1925-1968)
When most people hear the words “jazz guitar,” an image of the legendary Wes Montgomery will most often pop into their heads. Though there were many great players before Wes, and many since, “The Thumb,” as he became known, has managed to remain the quintessential jazz guitarist in the public psyche. Wes never learned to read music, learning tunes and improvising completely by ear, but he possessed a level of musicianship that most conservatory-educated musicians would envy. His early training came by way of learning to play Charlie Christian solos that he would transcribe from Christian’s recordings. Wes was so infatuated with Christian’s playing that before he could improvise on his own, Wes would perform Christian’s solos note for note on stage in place of his own improvisations. Though early on in his career Wes was shy about improvising, Wes’ recordings are now considered essential listening for any up and coming jazz guitarist, and many of the world’s best players, including Pat Martino, George Benson and Pat Metheny, have cited him as their foremost influence.
One of the things that made Wes stand out against his peers, was the use of his right hand thumb instead of a pick. While this technique had been employed by blues and country players for years, it was new to the world of jazz guitar when Wes started using it on his early recordings. Wes began playing with a pick but after he was married and began having children (he was to have eight in total), he found it harder and harder to find time to practice. Since he was working at a factory during the day and playing in jazz clubs at night, the only time to practice was when his family was sleeping. Wes found that when he practiced with a pick, it was too loud and would wake up his wife and kids, so he tried using his thumb in hopes that it would allow him to practice at a softer volume. After practicing with his thumb for some time, he found that he liked the soft, warm tone it produced and decided to perform this way permanently.
Wes was not only credited with revolutionizing the way jazz guitarists view their right hands, but his use of octaves also changed the way players looked at their left hands as well. Early on in his career, Wes performed regularly at several jazz clubs in Indianapolis in groups that would have a pianist alongside the guitar. One of the techniques that Wes picked up from the pianists he gigged with was their use of octave doubling, which was used to beef up their single note lines. As was the case with his thumb, Wes was not the first guitarist to use octaves in his solos–Johnny Smith and others had experimented with octaves early on as well–but the level at which Wes was able to use octaves in his improvisations was unsurpassed. While Wes was known to use octaves to play an entire solo, or even a whole tune, he most often used them as the second tier in his three tiered approach to soloing. Wes’ multi-tiered approach started with several choruses of single line soloing followed by octaves and then finishing off with a section of chord soloing. This approach allowed Wes to build intensity simply by increasing the amount of notes he was improvising with, starting with one note and ending with four or five note chords.
One of the little known facts about Wes’ innovations was his role in the development of the electric bass guitar. Wes’ brother Monk Montgomery was the first bassist to tour with an electric bass when he was playing in Lionel Hampton’s band following World War II, a band that Wes toured with as well. Though Wes did not play the upright bass, he was drawn to the sound of the bass guitar and began experimenting with it as a lead instrument. One of the best examples of Wes’ use of the bass guitar can found on his 1960 album Movin’ Along. On this recording Wes treated the electric bass as a lead instrument, similar to how he played guitar on his trio recordings, by playing melodies and single note solos on the instrument. Though Wes rarely experimented with the electric bass after this recording, his use of the bass guitar as the featured instrument in a jazz ensemble was to prove highly inspirational to the next generation of bass players.
While Wes’ later albums tended to be filled with more pop music than jazz, especially the albums that featured classical string sections and songs taken from the pop charts of the day, Wes will always be remembered for his contributions to the world of hard bop jazz guitar. Though some critics have chided Wes for the direction he took in his later recordings, these records, though “smoother” than his earlier works, were quintessential in helping jazz guitar reach a wider, more mainstream audience. While some of his die hard fans may have shied away from his later albums, many new listeners were exposed to his early works by way of Wes’ commercial album. As a result many non-jazz listeners became indoctrinated into the world of jazz guitar through Wes’ late period recordings.
Essential Listening
Boss Guitar
Full House
Incredible Jazz Guitar
Movin’ Along
Essential Publications
Corey Christiansen. Mel Bay Essential Jazz Lines: The Style of Wes Montgomery for Guitar
Dan Bowden. Wes Montgomery the Early Years
Wolf Marshall. Best of Wes Montgomery
Joe Pass (1929-1994)
Joseph Passalaqua, better known as Joe Pass, is one of the most recognizable figures in the world of jazz guitar. Even today, fifteen years after his death in 1994, he is one of the most listened to and studied guitarists of any generation. His ability to meld blistering single-note lines, beautifully crafted chord solos and remarkable solo guitar arrangements has inspired countless guitarists to explore the realm of jazz guitar, especially that of solo jazz guitar. Pass’ ability to perform in any situation, from solo to full orchestra, made him one of the busiest guitarists of the twentieth century. Though he could not read music, as the stories go, his vast repertoire of tunes and his ability to perform them in any key made him a popular sideman for many singers including Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughn, Joe Williams and Ella Fitzgerald, who would normally have hired a pianist before a guitarist. By performing with such big name singers, and many other instrumentalists, Pass helped shine a new light on the possibilities of the guitar as both a single line and solo instrument.
Joe Pass was one of the most well rounded guitarists in the history of jazz guitar. Though he later became known for his solo and duo recordings and concerts, Pass spent his early career developing a highly sophisticated approach to single-note improvisation. Having a strong foundation in blues and swing, one of his early idols being Charlie Christian, Pass developed a way of seeing the guitar neck that was built around chord shapes and arpeggios, instead of the scale shapes that are often taught today. His approach centered on the idea that for every chord shape he knew, there was a corresponding arpeggio and scale shape that went along with it. This approach has been laid out in several of Pass’ instructional books and DVD’s as well as books written by other jazz guitar pedagogues. By adding chromatic notes and chord substitutions to this approach, Pass was able to develop a personalized sound while still playing inside the chord changes and within the bebop arena. Alongside his deep knowledge of chord-scale relationships, Pass also had a vast vocabulary of bebop lines and phrases. While some listeners may find that Pass uses a lot of clichéd lines and phrases in his playing, it is important to remember that before Pass came along these ideas were not clichés. It was only after, when other players came along and began using Pass’ ideas in their own soloing, that these licks and patterns took on the label of clichés.
Apart from being a first tier single-line improviser, Pass was also able to create chord solos that very few players could perform at the time. His chord solos were highly melodic, giving the listener the sense that he was harmonizing a single-note melody instead of simply playing a series of chord grips and patterns. Though Pass had a large number of chord voicings under his fingers, he preferred to use Drop 3, Drop 2 and closed position chords for his solos. By mixing these three chord types with two-note double stop ideas and three-note triad ideas, Pass was able to create long chord based improvisations where he rarely, if ever, repeated himself. While other guitarists such as Wes Montgomery and Johnny Smith had experimented with chord soloing before him, Pass took this technique to new heights. A great example of Pass’ chord soling is found in his book Joe Pass Chord Solos, which is a collection of Pass’ chord solos over a number of standard jazz tunes. As the story goes, the book’s author went over to Pass’ house one afternoon and turned on a tape recorder and asked Pass to improvise chord solos over the tunes. It is a testament to Pass’ ability that he improvised these masterful chord solos on the spot, as they have now become some of the most studied jazz guitar etudes ever written.
Though Pass was a highly accomplished ensemble performer, he is probably best known for his series of solo recordings, especially the Virtuoso series he did for the Pablo record label. While other guitarists had recorded solo versions of individual tunes and even entire solo records, none were able to match the level of success and influence that Pass achieved with his solo playing. What made Pass stand out amongst his peers was his ability to expand the range of possibilities that were available to the solo jazz guitarist. Pass was able to mix single lines, bass lines with and without chords underneath them, chord solos and double-stop phrases to produce arrangements that were not only breathtaking on a technical level, but were also highly musical at the same time. What made these recordings even more impressive was the fact that Pass had abandoned using a pick and was performing entirely with his right hand fingers. Though at first Pass’ single-note runs were not as impressive with his fingers as they were with a pick, he quickly developed his right hand to the point where one could not tell the difference between his fingers and a pick. Pass continued to perform solo concerts throughout his career and continued to develop his solo playing up until his death in 1994, leaving a legacy of solo recordings, both audio and video, that may never be surpassed.
While Joe Pass is known outside the jazz guitar community for his recording and performing career, within the jazz guitar community he is also one of the most highly respected educators of the past fifty years. Pass wrote many books and recorded several instructional videos that are still commonly used by jazz guitar students and teachers today. Apart from his books and videos, Pass was also an active clinician and teacher. He spent much of his down time giving clinics and teaching classes at the Guitar Institute in Los Angeles and travelling to colleges and universities around the world to work with up and coming players. Though most of today’s jazz guitarists teach to some degree or another, it was rare in Pass’ time for a jazz guitarist to teach as well as perform. Pass’ dedication to the younger generation of guitarists was to have a huge influence on many players, professionals and amateurs alike.
Essential Listening
Chops
Joy Spring
Virtuoso Volumes 1,2,3,4
Essential Publications
Joe Pass. Joe Pass Chord Solos
Joe Pass. Joe Pass Guitar Style
Joe Pass. Joe Pass Guitar Chords
Roland Leone. Joe Pass: Virtuoso Standards Songbook Collection
Pat Martino (1944- )
While there have been many great jazz guitarists over the years, Pat Azzara, or Pat Martino as he was later known, may be considered the jazz genre’s wunderkind. Martino began playing the guitar at a very early age, and with the encouragement of his father, an accomplished guitarist himself, pursued guitar lessons with a local teacher in Philadelphia. By the age of thirteen, Martino had made significant progress and began to study with local guitar legend Dennis Sandole, who was one of John Coltrane’s early teachers. After studying with Sandole for a few years, Martino and those around him, felt that he was ready to pursue a career as a professional guitarist. He was encouraged to move to New York to do so, all before he could legally drive a car. Though Martino had to pay his dues when he first arrived on the jazz scene, he was able to impress all the right people and quickly began to make a name for himself as the new guitarist on the block. He performed and recorded with many of the top players of the time, including Eric Kloss, Willis Jackson and Jack McDuff. At a time when most guitarists were striving to become the next Wes Montgomery, Martino was looking beyond what Wes had accomplished and was striving to push the boundaries of post-bop guitar. His ability to stream endless eighth note lines, and perform them at the fastest of tempos, set Martino apart from his peers. His hard driving eighth note feel has become the envy of many players since his arrival on the scene, and his inspiration can be heard in countless post-bop and modern guitarists.
Whereas most pre-1970s guitarists had learned their craft by listening to recordings and gaining valuable experience on the bandstand, Martino was to combine these time tested practices with an intellectual approach to improvising that would reinvent how guitarists approached learning their instruments. Instead of relying on scale patterns and licks to develop his linear concept, Martino decided that it would be better to relate all of his knowledge to the basic chord shapes that he already knew. Though this approach is similar in manner to how Joe Pass saw the guitar, Martino was to simplify things one step further by only working off of minor seventh chord shapes. By learning all of his lines, patterns, scales and arpeggios in four positions on the neck, one for each inversion of a sixth string minor seventh chord, Martino was able to quickly access all of this information in a concise manner. This allowed him to perform seemingly endless runs of eighth note lines, something that had rarely been done by guitarists before him, while still maintaining a high level of musicality. Martino called this approach the “minor conversion” method of improvising which he has described in great detail in his method books, entitled Linear Expressions and Creative Force.
Though some guitarists have found Martino’s minor conversion method to be formulaic, this system would help save Martino’s career during the 1980s. After having climbed to the highest echelon of success in the jazz guitar world during the 1970s, tragedy struck Martino when in 1980 he underwent surgery as the result of a brain aneurysm. Though the surgery was successful, one of the side effects was that Martino suffered from amnesia, leaving him with no memories of the guitar or his musical career. While this would have killed the careers of most musicians, Martino did not let this incident deter him from furthering his life as a professional musician. With the help of friends and family, Martino re-taught himself to play the guitar by listening to and transcribing his old recordings. Martino’s minor conversion approach to the guitar allowed him to quickly relearn the instrument as it gave him a clear and concise way in which to view the guitar. Instead of having to relearn all of the nuances that he had perfected during countless hours of practicing and performing before his surgery, Martino was able to quickly relate all of the lines and patterns he was hearing in his recordings to the four minor seventh chord shapes described in the minor conversion system. Not only has Martino used this approach to great success over the years, both before and after his aneurysm, but countless professional and amateur guitarists have benefited from learning this system. This is evident in the fact that Martino’s method books and DVD’s have become some of the best selling jazz guitar instructional materials over the past few decades.
While Martino may be better known as a performer, he has always been a well respected guitar teacher as well. Though he has only recently chosen to teach in a college setting–he is now on faculty at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia–Martino has always taken on private students, even in his younger days. He has also released a series of instructional books and DVD’s that are considered must have’s by many jazz guitar students and teachers alike. Many of his students tell stories about how generous Martino was with his time during their studies with him, and how encouraging he was to the younger and more inexperienced players, something that can be rare with a player as accomplished as Martino. After taking a six year break to recover from his aneurysm, and a seven year break while he took time to care for his sick parents, Martino has returned to the top of the jazz guitar world. He continues to perform regularly throughout the world as well as release new recordings and DVD’s of teaching material. Though his life’s path has taken several rocky turns, Martino shows no signs of slowing down. With a performing career that has spanned more than fifty years, Martino continues to wow audiences with his virtuosity, while inspiring many guitarists to explore the world of jazz guitar through his recordings and instructional materials.
Essential Listening
El Hombre
Footprints
Live!
Live at Yoshi’s
Strings!
Essential Publications
Pat Martino. Creative Force
Pat Martino and Tony Baruso. Linear Expressions
Steve Khan. Pat Martino the Early Years
John McLaughlin (1942- )
During the British Invasion of the mid 1960s, many young guitarists were influenced by the new sounds they heard emanating from their radios and TV screens. Guitars played by Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Keith Richards and Jeff Beck were taking American blues and rock music to new heights with their hard driving riffs and soaring guitar solos, while on this side of the Atlantic, a young Jimi Hendrix was turning heads with his highly unique approach to the guitar. Up until this point, jazz had remained rather close to its swing and blues roots, but that was all to change in the late 1960s; a young guitarist named John McLaughlin was asked to join Miles Davis’ band to record the landmark albums In a Silent Way and Bitches Brew. McLaughlin’s background was highly diverse and contained as much American blues and rock and roll as it did the avante garde side of jazz. By allowing himself to embrace these different genres in his playing, McLaughlin helped create a style of jazz that is now called “jazz fusion” or simply “fusion,” where traditional jazz elements are mixed with blues, rock and especially psychedelic rock elements.
When one listens to an early recording of a McLaughlin tune or solo, it is easy to hear how much of an influence guitarists such as Hendrix, Clapton and Page were having on his playing. Though most jazz guitarists up to that point had used the blues scale, and the accompanying pentatonic scale, in their playing, none had ever been able to use the scale as effectively or creatively as McLaughlin. Instead of playing his blues ideas in a manner similar to other guitarists such as Wes Montgomery or Pat Martino, who tended to play the blues scale relative to the key they were in at the time, McLaughlin was experimenting with using the scale in a similar fashion to the avant garde saxophonists of the time such as John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. He was constantly experimenting with side-stepping his blues licks, where he would play a lick through two or more keys in a single passage, as well as simply playing outside of the key during his solos. By being one of the first guitarists to experiment with these techniques, alongside his use of distortion and incredibly loud volumes, McLaughlin put himself on the edge of the experimental music scene of the 1960s and early ’70s. While he was being branded as the flag bearer guitarist of the jazz fusion movement in the late 1960s, the 1970s were to bring vast changes to McLaughlin’s musical direction.
In 1971, McLaughlin released an album entitled My Goals Beyond that brought two new influences to his music–the acoustic guitar and Indian classical music–and they have remained staples of his playing until today. The album was recorded unamplified and features some beautiful acoustic guitar work that is highly influenced by McLaughlin’s love of Indian classical music. Shortly after this album was released, McLaughlin returned to the electric guitar when he formed the band Mahavishnu Orchestra. Though he was playing with his familiar distorted tone and hard driving rock influenced solos, McLaughlin brought a heavy influence of Indian music into his playing and writing with the new band. His use of odd time signatures at this time, coming from his study of Indian ragas and other pieces, were to have a lasting effect on future generations of guitarists and composers. For those who are unfamiliar with this concept, an odd time signature is simply one that does not divide the bar into 2, 3, or 4 beats, as is common in traditional Western music. Most of McLaughlin’s pieces that have been written in this style use time signatures such as 5/4, 7/4, 9/8, 11/8, 15/8, 12/8 and other odd combinations of beats. Since the break up of the Mahavishnu Orchestra, McLaughlin has tended to use only acoustic instruments when writing and performing in this style, especially with his long running group Shakti.
At the same time that McLaughlin was experimenting with Indian classical music in his writing and playing, he was also developing a love for the acoustic guitar in a rock-blues-jazz setting. In the early 1980s, McLaughlin joined fellow acoustic guitarists Paco De lucia and Al Dimeola for a concert tour that culminated with a live recording titled Friday Night in San Francisco. The record would go on to sell more than a million copies and has become one of the most influential and highly respected guitar recordings of the past hundred years. During this time, McLaughlin also made several landmark recordings with electric groups including his work with the Trio of Doom. The trio consisted of McLaughlin on guitar, Jaco Pastorius on bass and Tony Williams on drums, and the music was a direct descendant of the Miles Davis fusion recordings of the late 1960’s. The vast contrast of these two groups, as well as the Indian-influenced ensembles, shows McLaughlin’s ability to transcend musical genres and perform music at the highest level in any style. This ability had not only made him one of the most sought after touring guitarists, but had also made him a first call studio musician as well.
Over the years, McLaughlin’s playing has had an influence on many guitarists including John Abercrombie, Larry Coryell and Al Dimeola. Even today, his newly released instructional DVD’s and newest recordings are exposing a whole new generation of guitarists to the possibilities of jazz fusion, odd time signatures and highly chromatic playing. While his musical directions and tastes have changed over the years, his passion and love of the guitar and of music have remained. With a new album out and a steady schedule of tour dates on the books, it looks like McLaughlin could be around to influence a few more generations before he’s done.
Essential Listening
Bitches Brew
Extrapolation
Remember Shakti: The Way of Beauty
The Inner Mounting Flame
Essential Publications
John McLaughlin. The Gateway to Rhythm
Paul Stump. Go Ahead John: The Music of John McLaughlin
Pat Metheny (1954 – )
As a high school student, Pat Metheny used to sneak out of his parent’s house in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, to play gigs in the Kansas City jazz clubs. Little did he know that he would become the lead voice of the jazz guitar world for the next forty years. At an early age it became apparent that Metheny was becoming a child prodigy when it came to the guitar, and to jazz music in particular. Besides sitting in with jazz bands in the Kansas City area, Metheny became the youngest faculty member at both the University of Miami and the Berklee College of Music, when he taught at both schools before the age of twenty. This early success would be indicative of a career that has spanned more than thirty years and that has produced over fifty albums that range from solo recordings to large jazz ensembles and orchestras. Metheny is not only one of the most productive jazz guitarists but is also one of the most decorated. Metheny has been nominated for thirty Grammy awards and has won seventeen of them, including a streak of ten consecutive wins with the Pat Metheny Group. Metheny has also been named guitarist of the year, in both the readers’ and critics’ polls, numerous times by Downbeat and Jazz Times magazines.
With a widely diverse set of influences, it is not surprising that Metheny has developed a distinctive playing style that has become widely recognizable as his own. Having been influenced by rock guitarists such as Jimi Hedrix and Eric Clapton, jazz guitarists Wes Montgomery and Joe Pass and a wide variety of world music, especially the traditional music of Brazil, Metheny has developed a playing style that goes beyond the boundaries of traditional categorization. One of the reasons Metheny has developed a highly recognizable sound is his unorthodox right and left hand technique. While most jazz guitarists work for years on developing a “correct” right and left hand technique, Metheny simply went with what felt comfortable when he first began learning the instrument. His unorthodox approach to picking and the way he grips the neck with his left hand, allowing his thumb to “hook” over the top of the neck, have allowed Metheny to develop a very personalized style of legato playing that has often been imitated but never duplicated. As well as being an influential single-line player, Metheny’s extensive use of slash chords and polychords has greatly expanded the harmonic possibilities of the instrument.
One of the things that makes Metheny stand out amongst his peers is that he is a prolific composer as well as a world class performer. Over his thirty years of recording and performing, Metheny has managed to write and co-write over four hundred pieces for a wide variety of ensembles that cover a wide variety of styles, including jazz, fusion, rock/pop, Latin and world music. While Metheny has written many pieces on his own, a large number of his works have been co-written with Lyle Mays, pianist for the Pat Metheny Group. The duo has been so successful on both a commercial and an artistic level that they have often been compared to the great pop music writing partners Simon and Garfunkel and John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Metheny has also been highly influential in the development and implementation of new guitars and guitar technologies. While John McLaughlin and Pat Martino had used the electric twelve-string guitar on jazz recordings in the last 1960s, Metheny was one of the first jazz guitarists to experiment with alternate tunings on the instrument. Alongside Ralph Towner, who was using alternate tunings on the acoustic twelve-string guitar, Metheny is credited with expanding the tonal capabilities of the instrument as well as developing a wider respect for a guitar that is sometimes seen as a novelty in the jazz world. Metheny has also gone beyond the twelve-string guitar with his use of the forty-two string “Pikasso” guitar built by Toronto luthier Linda Manzer. The instrument looks more like a cross between a harp and a lute than a guitar, and it is incredibly difficult to play. While guitarists in other genres have used similar instruments, including Michael Hedges with his harp guitar, Metheny has been one of the only jazz musicians to experiment with the instrument and has recorded and performed with it in both solo and ensemble settings.
While many jazz guitarists tend to lead towards a clean sound for their recordings and performances, Metheny has always favored an effect driven sound with his tone. Aside from being a pioneer with the use of reverb and delay in a jazz setting, Metheny was one of the earliest proponents of the guitar synthesizer. Metheny began using the Roland GR300 guitar synthesizer in the late 1970s at the same time as fellow guitarists John Abercrombie and Bill Frisell, though Metheny is the only one of these three sonic pioneers who is still using the instrument today. The guitar synthesizer is used to emulate the sounds of string, horn, woodwind and percussion instruments by feeding the sound of the guitar through a midi processor. Metheny’s ability to use the synthesizer as a musical instrument, and not just as a novelty item, has given him a second sonic palette with which to work from when writing and performing his music. The technique has such a unique sound that it has become synonymous with the Pat Metheny Group and Metheny’s playing in general.
Considering the success that Metheny has achieved as both a performer and composer, it is not surprising that he has had a huge influence on the next generations of guitarists. Guitarists such as Kurt Rosenwinkel, Adam Rogers and Jonathan Kreisberg have all drawn influences from Metheny’s performing and writing. His albums are considered required listening by many jazz guitar fans, and his solos are often required learning by many jazz programs in leading universities and colleges. Though Metheny has achieved much over the course of his career, he shows no signs of slowing down. He still maintains a steady output of recordings and maintains a schedule of almost two hundred live performances each year as both a leader and a sideman.
Essential Listening
80/81
Bright Size Life
Question and Answer
Shadows and Light
Trio Live
Essential Publications
Pat Metheny. One Quiet Night
Pat Metheny. Pat Metheny Songbook
Pat Metheny. Question and Answer
Further Information, Reading and Listening
Other Notable Jazz Guitarists
Barney Kessel
Herb Ellis
Jim Hall
Lenny Breau
Ted Greene
John Scofield
John Abercrombie
Mike Stern
Bill Frisell
Kurt Rosenwinkel
Adam Rogers
Ben Monder
Further Listening/Viewing
Legends of Jazz Guitar Volume 1, 2, 3
Progressions: 100 Years of Jazz Guitar
Further Reading
Jeff Schroedl. Hal Leonard Guitar Method: Jazz Guitar
Jody Fisher. Beginning Jazz Guitar
Joe Barth. Voices In Jazz Guitar
The Jazz Theory Book
