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Jim uses a fairly light gauge of string and a variety of picks for different ones and approaches. He did have his old Gibson amp redone, moving the "guts" into a new cabinet, but it was just too fragile, and he stopped traveling with it in the 70s. While on the road, Polytones were Ok ( he used a couple of mine at various times in Boston), but he eventually got a Walter Woods head and just rented speakers.
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12-13-2012 05:44 PM
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I wonder how much of his sound came from his technique? I've read/stories of people like Charlie Parker or Joe Pass playing the most atrocious axes & still essentially sounding like themselves - obviously some of this comes from note, rhythm & dynamic choices plus the listener projecting expectation (ie i know what Pass should sound like therefore.....) but I think technique does play a large part as well. Given that most jazz guitarists have traditionally gone for a clean sound they can't hide behind distortion which will cover up some degree of poor technique - you are pretty much out there & exposed so ipso facto have to develop good technique (BTW I'm not suggest that anyone who uses distortion has bad technique - just think it can be more foregiving of clams, mis-hit strings etc)
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I know one guy around here that doesn't like Jim Hall.... but he is wrong!!! Right P??? Just kidding with my friend!!!
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Good
Originally Posted by mambosun
I join the Jim Hall fan club
My point was not that Jim has no fans, which he has tons, was more people don't give him enough credit... don't see him as pioneer (this is my biased personal perspective of course)
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I bet not even Jim remembers! Originally Posted by ooglybong
Hey, people simply took their amps along back in the old days. Solid state wasn't anywhere nearly as nice as it is now, and what, with a four-night engagement just several hours north of NYC, well, why not bring the Gibson along for the ride?
Heck, maybe he had, per rider, a rented Fender something-or-other on the bandstand, for that matter.
But you're right, who knows? I just wish that the info had been included in the (GREAT) new release's book cuz, let's face it, I'm betting that most of its buyers are guitarists!
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Yeah light strings and different picks do play a role there... And he did stopped using the Gibson, converted first to Polytones, then to Walter Woods, then to Henriksen but he did got back to Polytones... it's what he asks for these days. Not sure why did he quit the Henriksens but they even removed his comments from the website. Originally Posted by ronjazz
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Let me explain: Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
Good My point was not that Jim has no fans, which he has tons, was more people don't give him enough credit... don't see him as pioneer (this is my biased personal perspective of course)
Jim Hall has always been my jazz guitar playing reference (for 40 years), not in terms of virtuosity, but in terms of music, which is far more important to me.
Beside this, I don't think Jim Hall is such underrated amongst jazz musicians; I think (but could be wrong) he pioneered the so-called Cool jazz style guitar which influenced younger guitarists such as Metheny, Scofield, etc..) ; "you don't need to play fast to say a lot" type of guitar playing.
Music first, Jazz second, Guitar third, as he would say ...
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Jim has an awesome guitar tone on the 1971 album "Where Would I Be"
So round and creamy and so much sustain.
Especially the title track.
I'd like to know what he was using then.
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Hi mambo, I think this discussion is a little beyond this forum's scope... I actually don't see him as a creator of the cool jazz style at all. He does not play a lot of notes but I don't relate that to cool jazz... He was as Jeff said the father of modern jazz guitar for a whole number of reasons that are just too long for me to expose here. Listening to the Farmer, Rollins, Desmond and Evans records I mentioned should clarify my points to anyone with sensible ears Originally Posted by mambosun
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Right John! I don't like Jim's playing. It goes even further than that . . . I dislike Jim's playing. In fact, that album shown by the OP is the very CD that I told the story of removing from my CD player in my Ford Expedition and flinging out the passenger side window into the woods, while driving at 75 MPH or so, on the Garden State Parkway. Originally Posted by Kuz
Also, I'm not at all wrong about that . . . . I'm right about that.
I do appreciate Jim's playing as a side man. Great comp'ing and accompaniment. Other than that . . . I'd rather get root canal than to listen to him as a band leader.
I'm aware you were just kidding . . . but, unfortunately it has brought me into a fray I was doing a pretty go job staying out of.
Pat Martino's tribut to Wes album is probably going to be the next one to be turned into a frisbee while driving one day!!
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I really was just kidding and thought we could just keep it an inside joke between us, thus the reason I only used your first initial. Originally Posted by Patrick2
But honestly, this is what MAKES music so meaningful to me. You & I and others can disagree on music, tone, gear, ect., and NO ONE should take any offense because all of this is purely subjective.
I do value your opinion, as other here, so no problem JH is not for you but I really dig him.
FWIW, we are on the same page with Pat Martino.
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John . . No offense was taken and I really did understand that it was intended as an inside joke. But, your reference to "P" . . . along with my previously well stated dislike for Jim Hall made it pretty clear to some that the inside joke was aimed at me. That's why I responded. Originally Posted by Kuz
Regarding Pat Martino, I can listen to, enjoy and appreciate much of Pat's playing . . . . for the most part. He's certainly not my favorite player. But, I do appreciate the melodic musicality in his improvs. Just not a big fan of the staccato-ish rapid fire 1/8th and 1/16th note delivery of most of his lines. No . . . it's not Pat Martino or his playing on the Wes tribute album that pisses me off. It's the recording itself. His guitar sounds horrible and distracts me from his playing. Sounds like he had his amp settings with the bass and mids at 10 and the treble at 0 . . . with the treble rolled half way off on his guitar. UUGH!!!!
With JH, it's different. His playing just pisses me off . . . it actually angers me. HA!! I can feel myself getting angered just writing about it. I'm quite sure the problem is more mine than it is Jim's playing . . . but, it is what it is.
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I can follow you to a certain point, though I have never thrown Jim Hall records out of the window. On his own recordings Jim Hall has always seemed a bit too cerebral to me (even boring?). And on two of the records where both he and Jimmy Raney participates ("Streetswingers" with Bob Brookmeyer and "Two Jims and a Zoot" with Zoot Sims) I much prefer Jimmy Raney - both for the phrasing and the tone. However, I do like Jim Halls playing on Rollins' album "The Bridge". Originally Posted by Patrick2
BTW, I don't like Jim Halls sound on that acoustic D'Aquisto.
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which records feature this guitar? Originally Posted by oldane
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I always believed it was that D'Aquisto I was hearing on "Commitment" (great record...)
I assume some of Jim's 80's work where he plays what sounds to be an unplugged archtop is his electric D'Aquisto not plugged in...for example, on "Dedications and Inspirations" (another record I love)
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It is. It's heard on the tune "Down the Line". In the liner notes, Jin Hall explains that he had taken delivery of the guitar from Jimmy D'Aquisto a year earlier (that must have been in 1975 because "Commitment" was recorded in 1976), and he said that it was an acoustic guitar "like the one Freddie Green is playing, with an F-hole but no pickup". He may have used it on other records too, but I don't know about that. Later he had D'Aquisto make him the laminated guitar with the one pickup which he used for many years. Originally Posted by mr. beaumont
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I was there for the gigs in Toronto. As I remember, he was playing a 175. I don't remember the amp. Also, the first album is made up of selections from all three nights, not just the first set, first night.
Bill
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How anyone can dislike Jim Hall's playing is beyond me.
I got to play a real D'Aquisto today from 1992, an 18' acoustic archtop with a cutaway. It sells for around 100K.
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There's a couple of different ways to listen to any music - at one level you may listen for the player's technique - their ability to meet the physical challenge of purposefully creating sound with in a musical framework - and then to listen to their ability to work their way through the particular problem the musical form poses. Evan Parker in 2006 talking about Coltrane's career spoke about the organic approach JC took to developing improvising - playing over standards/pre-determined changes - is problem solving which reached for Coltrane a high point with Giant Steps - then he moves into testing the structures of the of tunes - ultimately to their destruction. And then you can listen with your heart - does the music speak to you? Can you connect with it at an emotional level? & if at that level some music doesn't touch you - that's fine. There is a lot of jazz with players who have great technique & are on top of their playing which leaves me cold - not because I have no regard for their musicianship but because I can't feel what they are doing. Such is life!
"You have to come to the music yourself, gradually. Not everything
must be received with open arms"
Coltrane quoted in Kahn 2002
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Well, neither can I, but I have to totally repect "P's" right to feel as he does here, and also about Martino. Originally Posted by Soco
But hey, what can I say? Given my main influences, I suppose that "P" would mostly likely hate MY playing!
Cool! Wherever does one get to TRY one of those?! Originally Posted by Soco
A favorite memory: I was fortunate enough to study at a week-long seminar with Jim back in the late '80s, and I actually got to (sort of) become friends with him for that short moment in time, I suppose. Jim is just a wonderful, humble, friendly and wise man, funny too, in his totally understated way of putting things. Anyway, at the very end, as he was packing up after the last class, he let me give his ("the") D'Aquisto a try for a few minutes (plugged into the provided Twin Reverb). No, I didn't sound like Jim Hall, but I will say it was an excellent guitar, one that was actually very, very close in feel and tonality to my own Fender D'Aquito Elite sitting there but a few feet away. (Jim told me that he "had a few" of the Fenders himself, and they were "fine guitars"; I dunno, maybe they were more his 'apartment' guitars, or his backups, because I've never seen photos of him playing one in public.) The similarity of my Elite to the "real thing" was both very surprising and exciting, all rolled into one. (Maybe not so surprising given the Elite's design parentage, as well as allegedly receiving individual approval by Mr. D'Aquisto himself as the guitars got back to the Fender warehouse from Japan. Hey, they're supposed to be D'Aquistos, right?!) Of course, all of this brief bit of playing was coming out of my hands, so I'm sure that made the two guitars feel and sound more alike than actually must have been. Yeah, that's it...
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