Hi, my name is Dirk Laukens and I teach jazz guitar.
I grew up with the music of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, but soon after my first guitar teacher (Jo Cassiers) introduced me to the jazz standards So What and All of Me, I got hooked on jazz.
This led me to start studying jazz guitar full-time, first at the Jazz Studio (Antwerp, Belgium) and then at the Royal Conservatory of Music, also in Antwerp.
My guitar teachers at that time were Hendrik Braeckman and Martijn van Iterson. I also followed guest lessons and workshops by John Abercrombie, Jesse van Ruller, Kenny Wheeler, Barry Harris, Maria Schneider, and many more.
In 2003, I started Jazz Guitar Online as a means to document my lessons at the Conservatory. This grew out to the biggest and most popular jazz guitar website it is today, and a thriving forum with over 65,000 members.
Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have feedback or questions about all things guitar-related, I’m here to help!
After years of playing Ibanez, Heritage, and Epiphone, I found my workhorse guitar in this 1973 Gibson ES-175.
I use this Fender Telecaster for more pop orientated stuf. A versatile guitar at a great price.
Delivers everything from jazz cleans to more textured sounds, with amp/effect models that feel natural and responsive.
A full-range, flat-response speaker designed for modelers like the Tone Master Pro.
I have been using these flat wound strings since forever because of their great sound and low tension.
They ain't cheap, but I have yet to find a pick with the same sound and control as these BlueChips.
Take 5 is probably one of the most recognized jazz standards of all time.
As the title of the song suggests, Take 5 is in the 5/4 time signature. You will learn how to play Take 5 chords on guitar with both the original groove and a more advanced, syncopated chord study.
Whisper Not, written by Benny Golson in 1956, is one of those tunes where the melody immediately feels good under your fingers. It’s logical, sits well on the guitar, and flows naturally, which makes it fun to play. Benny Golson played tenor saxophone and was a key composer during the hard bop era. He wrote
Jazz guitar chords can look and sound complicated, but you only need a small set of easy jazz chords to get started. This lesson shows you how to play jazz chords and gives you a handy chord chart with 17 must-know chords, along with guitar tabs and exercises to help you practice and learn quickly.
In this lesson, you will work on a comping study for a jazz blues in Bb. This 12-bar chord progression built on dominant chords appears in many jazz standards. You’ll get familiar with essential jazz blues chords that you can reuse in other songs. The goal is to help you develop strong rhythm skills and
Moment’s Notice is a hard bop jazz standard composed by John Coltrane. It was recorded for the album Blue Train (1957) in Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in Hackensack. The song is played uptempo (225 BPM) and built on fast-moving ii-V-I progressions that cycle through multiple key centers. Blue Train was Coltrane’s only session as a
Autumn Leaves is another classic jazz standard that every jazz guitarist should have under his belt.
Learn the fun and cool-sounding Autumn Leaves jazz guitar chords based on intervallic ideas and rootless chords.
It Could Happen to You is a popular jazz standard from the Great American Songbook. Written in 1943 by Jimmy Van Heusen, the song was featured in the film And the Angels Sing and quickly became a favorite with jazz musicians. In this lesson, you’ll learn Herb Ellis’s chord melody arrangement of It Could Happen
Cool Blues is a jazz blues composed by Charlie Parker in 1947. It’s a blues in C and one of Parker’s well-known heads built on a simple, catchy idea. In this lesson, you’ll learn the theme of Cool Blues, a solo chorus based on Grant Green’s recording, and one chorus of my own. Recommended listening:
Four is a 1954 jazz standard first recorded and arranged by Miles Davis and released on his album Miles Davis Quartet. In this lesson, you’ll learn the melody of Four. Although the composition is officially credited to Miles Davis, saxophonist Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson claimed that he wrote the tune and that it was later purchased
Joe Pass had a remarkable ability to set the mood of a tune within just a few bars. His intros are never flashy or complicated for the sake of it, instead they establish the key, imply the harmony, and lead naturally into the song. In this lesson, we’ll look at five Joe Pass intros, drawn
Barney Kessel was the master of the jazz guitar intro. Known for his sophisticated harmonic vocabulary, fluent technique, and impeccable timing, Kessel had a gift for setting the mood of a tune. In this lesson, you’ll learn five jazz guitar intros played by Barney Kessel, taken from both classic recordings and lesser-known performances. Each example
In this lesson, you’ll learn how to play Four on Six, a jazz standard written by Wes Montgomery. The tune was first recorded in 1960 on Wes’s album The Incredible Jazz Guitar of Wes Montgomery, which also introduced another classic Wes composition, West Coast Blues. In this lesson, I’ll walk you through the iconic intro
Charlie Christian is often referred to as the father of jazz guitar, and for good reason. In the late 1930s, he fundamentally changed the role of the guitar in jazz. Before Christian, the guitar was primarily a rhythm instrument, fighting for volume in big bands. By being one of the first to use amplification, Charlie
In the late ’50s and early ’60s, Paul Desmond recorded six classic piano-less albums with jazz guitarist Jim Hall. This quartet featured Paul Desmond on alto saxophone, Jim Hall on guitar, Connie Kay on drums, and Eugene Wright on bass. In this lesson, you will learn 5 Jim Hall intros taken from these recordings. Here
This Barney Kessel blues comes from a 1974 BBC TV program called The Five Faces of the Guitar, later released on the album Live & Rare. The track is simply titled “Blues“. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to play the theme of this blues and part of the intro. The theme employs half-diminished (m7b5)
Nardis is a jazz standard written by Miles Davis for Cannonball Adderley’s album Portrait of Cannonball, which also featured a young Bill Evans. Strangely enough, Miles never recorded it himself, but the song became a signature piece for Bill Evans, who played it regularly with his trio. There’s a bit of controversy about who actually
Arthur Hamilton composed Cry Me a River in 1953. The tune gained wide attention when Julie London recorded it two years later, with Barney Kessel on guitar. It has since become a jazz standard, recorded by Joe Pass, Diana Krall, and many others. In this lesson, you will learn a chord-melody version played over a
Baby I’m a Fool is a song by Melody Gardot, released in 2009 on her second album My One and Only Thrill. In this mini-lesson, we look at the chord progression played by Melody. The chords (except one), rhythm, and tempo are relatively easy, so this one is suitable for beginners. The song is in
Straight, No Chaser is one of Thelonious Monk’s most famous blues heads. The original 1951 recording is in B♭, but Miles Davis’s Milestones version popularized it in F, which is the key we’ll use in this lesson. In this lesson, you’ll learn the melody of Straight, No Chaser in two octaves. The chord progression of
In this mini lesson, you’ll learn the intro to Moon and Sand as played by Kenny Burrell on his 1980 album Moon and Sand. Moon and Sand is a jazz standard composed by Alec Wilder in 1941 and first performed by Xavier Cugat and His Waldorf-Astoria Orchestra. Kenny Burrell’s opening uses some nice chord voicings,
In this mini lesson, you’ll see an example of chord voicings for the A-section of a rhythm changes in Bb. I combine drop-3 and rootless chords to create clear, practical voicings that work well for comping, chord solos, and expanding your jazz guitar vocabulary. The diminished chord voicing in measure 1 and 2 often raises
Blues Connotation (aka P.S. Unless One Has) is the opening track of Ornette Coleman’s fifth studio album This Is Our Music (1960). In this lesson, you will learn how to play the melody on guitar. It’s a fun tune to play and sits easily under the fingers, making it very approachable on guitar. Blues Connotation
In this lesson, you’ll learn to play the melody of After Hours by Ronny Jordan, from his 1992 debut album The Antidote. This tune became one of his signature pieces and is an excellent starting point for guitarists who want to explore jazz phrasing and timing. Ronny Jordan’s approach to melody, which you can also hear
In this study, you will learn how to play a melodic solo over the chord changes of Bluesette (Toots Thielemans) using simple triad shapes. Rather than relying on full scales or 7th arpeggios, this approach zooms in on compact three-note structures that outline chord tones or extensions. Triads are a powerful melodic tool because they:
Matador is the title track of a legendary session Grant Green recorded in 1964, though it wasn’t released until 1979 on the Japanese Blue Note label. It’s one of those albums that flew under the radar for a long time but holds some of Green’s strongest playing. The lineup on the record is great as
Kenny Burrell’s Midnight Blue is one of the most iconic soul-jazz guitar standards ever recorded. Released in 1963 on Blue Note Records, it’s the title track of Burrell’s album Midnight Blue, with Stanley Turrentine on tenor saxophone, Major Holley on bass, Billy Gene English on drums, and Ray Barretto on congas. If you’re into smooth
Charlie Chaplin wrote “Smile” for the 1936 film Modern Times, with David Raksin contributing to the orchestration. The song has a beautiful and bittersweet melody that lends itself perfectly to solo guitar. In this lesson, you will learn an easy-to-play chord melody arrangement of the tune. Chaplin, best known as a filmmaker and actor, was
Alone Together is one of the great minor-key jazz standards, written by Arthur Schwartz in 1932 for the Broadway show Flying Colors. Over the years, it has become a favorite for jazz musicians, with notable recordings by Miles Davis, Chet Baker, Jim Hall, and Pat Martino. The song was first recorded in 1932 by Leo
Duke Ellington wrote and recorded In a Sentimental Mood in 1935. Over the years, it has become one of the most recorded jazz ballads and a favorite among musicians for its rich harmony, lyrical melody, and flexible phrasing. In this lesson, you will learn to play the melody of In a Sentimental Mood and a
Make You Feel My Love was written by Bob Dylan for his album Time Out of Mind (1997). The song became a bit of a modern standard and was covered by more than 450 artists including Billy Joel, Garth Brooks, and Adele. Creating guitar instrumentals of pop songs is a good exercise in reharmonization, phrasing,
