Learn Jazz Guitar

When you’re starting out as a jazz guitarist, it can be overwhelming to think of all of the chords that you have to learn. Most rock and blues guitarists are familiar with open string chords, barre chords and other “plain” chord types. Well, jazz guitarists like to spice it up and we [...]

I recently came across an excellent interview recorded by KJZZ with George Benson. It’s about an hour long and he pretty much talks about everything - how he got started, what it was like playing with many of the greats (Wes Montgomery, Tal Farlow, etc…), and his newest record, a collaboration with Al Jareau. He’s [...]

I generally divide jazz guitarists into three basic camps when it comes to improvising styles: Motif style, Cliche-based, and Stream of Consciousness. Obviously all players don’t fall completely into any of these camps but it helps me to organize things.
Motif-Based
A player in the Motif camp generally will take maybe 3 or 4 ideas throughout the [...]

I noticed two different videos on Youtube recently of George Benson playing the song “Wekend in L.A.” - a great R&B tune that he recorded in the 80’s. What really struck me about the videos was not necessarily the simlarity of the arrangements. Many times a jazz artist will play the same arrangements of tunes [...]