Hello all,I just found a rare video of clip of Norman Brown.  Looks like he was in Japan promoting the “Stormin” album, his first major album, sometime in the 90s.  I bet you’ve never heard him playing a Michael Jackson song before. Check out Norman playing fingerstyle! Who knew?  Amazing! Enjoy,Leon

Hello all,I just wanted to let you know about a great album that I highly recommend! It’s George Benson’s latest album entitled “Guitar Man”.  I think it’s just awesome.  Of course, I’m a little biased because I’ve been a Benson fan for years.  But this one’s a little different.First, it’s a little more raw and [...]

This video is great. It’s one of the few videos where George is playing without a full band. The video is George and Earl Klugh being interviewed on the Today Show by Bryant Gumbel back in the late 80s. They also play a beautiful short version of the tune “Mimosa” which was on their album [...]

I always find it amusing when I hear people bashing smooth jazz artists about how they can’t play “real” jazz.  Most of these artists are masterful on their instruments plain and simple. They choose to play smooth jazz for a number of reasons.  The number one reason being that they like it.  Certainly make sense to [...]

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

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, [...]

Ok, I’m back — Helping you build your jazz vocabulary. Here’s a nice jazz guitar lick that can be played over a Dm7 chord.  Also, try it over G7 or other chords in the key of C.   To download the pdf chart for this lick just click below and sign up for my email [...]

The first video in this lesson demonstrates how to play a 2-5-1 phrase in the key of F. Gm7-C7-FMaj7. The concept that I used to create this phrase is the same as with the phrase that we learned last time. I’m basically using a Gm7 arpeggio and then transitioning to a diminished substitution to the [...]

In the following video, I show how to play a nice 2-5-1 phrase in the key of C. Dm7-G7-Cmaj7. The ii-V-I progression is the most popular chord progression in all of jazz. It’s critical that you learn how to play over this progression. Take you time with this lick. Rhythmically, it might be a little [...]