Here’s an excellent video that i’ve been listening to a lot lately. George Benson playing with Lage Lund, winner of the 2005 Thelonius Monk Jazz Competition for jazz guitar. Notice the contrasting styles. Lage is playing in more of a traditional straight ahead jazz style and George is just playing….well….like himself.  Funny…Lage just shakes his [...]

As jazz guitarists, it’s often a good practice to remember your roots and to stay grounded in the fundamentals.  The most important fundamental in jazz is it’s rhythm and the concept of swing.  If the way you’re playing doesn’t swing, then that’s a major problem.  This applies to every type of jazz player regardless of the [...]

Take a look at this performance by Joe Pass. Not only is it a great performance way back when he was young but he’s also playing on Fender Jaguar solid body guitar! First time I’ve ever seen him playing a solid body. Enjoy.    Leon

Here’s a few videos of the great bebop guitarist Jimmy Raney. He played with many of the great jazz players including Barry Harris and Stan Getz.  I really enjoy his playing because he had an excellent lyrical and melodic flow. Check it out. Here he’s playing Billie’s Bounce: I love this one of he and [...]

A while back I posted an article entitled “8 Essential Jazz Chord Forms for the Beginning Jazz Guitarist“. This article focused on the importance of developing your knowledge of seventh chords with their roots located on the 5th and 6th strings.  To take this concept further, let’s take a look at the same jazz chords [...]

I remember when I first started playing jazz guitar. I was simply overwhelmed by everything that I had to learn. So many tunes, chords, scales, arpeggios, licks…. It was crazy. How was I supposed to learn all this stuff in a reasonable time. But I was really passionate about the music and the instrument and [...]

I thought I’d share this excellent video of jazz guitarist George Benson playing the tune, “Take 5″ on the Tom Snyder show sometime in the 80s.  This is only the second video I’ve seen of him playing this song.  There are some great shots of his right hand technique and some amazing lines. His timing, [...]

Anyone who’s followed my site for awhile knows that I emphasize building your jazz vocabulary by listening to the players you like and working with good transcriptions of solos.   The idea being that the more you work those licks and phrases into your own playing, you’ll eventually create your own voice when improvising.  This is [...]

I thought I’d share this video with everyone.  I was pretty shocked when I came across it. It’s an old performance by Norman Brown at GIT(the Musician’s Institute in Los Angeles).  Norman studied there in 1983-84. According to Musiciansguide.com, “In 1984, Brown joined the Musician’s Institute of Hollywood as a staff instructor, having completed the [...]

I recently came across the free electronic version of Jody Fisher’s Rhythm Guitar Encyclopedia.  Just click the picture below to view the book and print any pages. Rhythm is the most important element of successful jazz guitar playing. So, the more you can incorporate a wide variety of rhythms in your playing, the better you [...]