Jim Hall “Jazz Guitar”

[Cunamara]

Jim seems to have taken valuable lessons away from everyone he played with such as Chico Hamilton, Jimmy Giuffre, Art Farmer, Sonny Rollins, etc., in his sideman days. I think we may have seen the same interview where he particularly singled out Jimmy Giuffre as changing how he played- such as comping with lines rather than chord grips, legato playing and playing less guitaristically in general. A trio with clarinet/sax, guitar and valve trombone must've been practically unthinkable before that. Imagine trying to get gigs for it!

Jim seems to have kept the things he found most valuable in those musical experiences and brought them forward into subsequent playing. It is interesting to think of the great Jim Hall being told how to play music by a bandleader. I can relate to that but, unlike Jim, I have not managed to parlay those experiences into musical genius.

[CliffR]

The "eye roll" gremlin was for my lousy pun. A good idea, working on both comping and soloing on tunes.

Ah, I missed the pun. But yes, working on both comping and soloing. is something I need to do more of.

[supersoul]

It took me years to track down, but I finally found an interview where JH admitted that his time as a sideman with Jimmy Giuffre was the big turning point for him in his development. I forget where I read it, but I always thought that time he spent as a sideman with a genius arr./composer/improvisor like Giuffre was the whole key to the great things that he accomplished.

I love those Jimmy Giuffre 3 albums with Jim Hall. Also Giuffre's group with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow, from the early 60s.

[Cunamara]

Giuffre's own evolution as a musician is remarkable. From the boppish stuff (like Four Brothers) to the Jimmy Giuffre 3 basically playing what amounts to folk music in a jazz idiom, to his later stuff with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow, etc. I don't have a full overview of his trajectory, but dipping into different parts of his catalog a few years apart is pretty remarkable. Some of that may have rubbed off on Jim, too, who played straight ahead bop influenced jazz on his first record as a leader to the things he did in the last few years of his life (By Arrangement, Hemispheres, etc.) are pretty remarkably different.

[jameslovestal]

I love those Jimmy Giuffre 3 albums with Jim Hall. Also Giuffre's group with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow, from the early 60s.

Steve Swallow got a very early start, being only 22 when he joined up with those cats.

[sgcim]

Giuffre didn't play any free jazz like he did with Bley until after his association with Hall. After one official album, he changed to jazz-fusion on an album he released next. I liked everything he did except the free jazz stuff.

[pamosmusic]

Alright ... so some thoughts and things I'd like to dig into with this stuff. This is all––of course––in addition to actually learning the solos (re-learning in the case of Stella) and playing them along with the recording. That's the most important thing, etc etc.

But some things I've noticed in these transcriptions that are very "Jim" and that I like a lot and what to take for some more work.

1. Quadrads. I love working on this stuff, and I think they're a useful way of looking at things, but Jim's solos (in particular these early ones) are some of the most obvious examples of this kind of play. For example, in Stella, the Dm(2) in m7-8, the C(2) in m9, the G(2) in m11, and the G(4) in m33––also the Db(4) in m17 and the Bm(2) in m55-56 in Stompin' at the Savoy.

2. Enclosures. This isn't that unusual, but Jim has this way––particularly in his faster eighth-notey lines––of putting enclosures and ornaments in the middle of his lines. Most people favor putting ornaments at the beginning of lines, but putting them elsewhere isn't all that weird. Still, the way Jim does this gives his faster lines a really cool angular, bouncy thing that is very very "Jim." For example, m21 in Stella and m15 in Stompin'.

3. Triads with the octave. Again, not unusual at all, but something Jim (and a lot of his contemporaries) use a lot and which kind fell out of fashion a little later on. To my ear, those triads are what make Jim's playing vibe like Charlie Christian, who he obviously idolized like everyone else of his generation. These are all over, but m16 and m18 in Stella are good ones. Particularly the diminished triad in m16, which is cool.

4. Sweeps. Jim Hall loves a swept arpeggio. Grant Green uses these a lot too. I get the feeling it comes from listening to saxophone players, but I'm not sure. He has some monster sweeping sequences in Scrapple from the Apple on his Live! recording. But a very cool spot in Stella at m27-28 and m29-30.

5. Repeated notes. Jim is not a blazing fast player, and he likes to take his super swinging quarter-note lines and just play eighth notes, doubling each. Kind of a cool thing. There's a killer line in Tangerine where he does this, which I will post next. But he kind of does that in m1-2 of Stompin'.

6. Pedal notes. Jim also seems to use pedal notes a lot to get big intervallic things and cool rhythmic effects. There's an absolute monster line in m23-25 in Stella, where he bounces off the low B into some really beautiful upper extensions of the F7 chord. He also uses this device in m23-24 of Stompin' ... to somewhat bluesier effect.

7. Stacked intervals. No clue what to call this but Jim does this all. the. time. And it's so cool. He plays these arpeggiated shapes that are built from some unusual intervals and the way he works them so seamlessly into his lines makes them sound so freaking modern and hip. I haven't transcribed enough of these, but from what I have, he seems to use chord shapes––drop 2s and shells and other easy guitar shapes, that don't challenge the left hand, but that give him these really interesting interval jumps when he jumps around them with the pick. There's a great example of this in m25 of Stompin' where he picks through a little A7 shell voicing and it sounds like it's from outer space.

8. BEBOP. He's not known as a bebop king, but he was a huge Bird fan and has that vocab down. A classic minor ii-V Bird lick in m12 of Stella.

9. BLUES. Obviously blues. Obviously. He's got a reputation for being so melodic and loose, but the man always falls back on the blues, as anyone should. Stompin' is full of blues but m27-34 in particular is just wicked.

I'm going to try to get into some of this stuff a little at a time. I've been into some of this stuff for a long time, like the quadrads and the arpeggio ideas. Others are a refocus of things I've been into in other ways––like picking through the shell voicings and stuff. Others are pretty big projects––quadrads, blues. Others a little smaller––repeated notes, etc.

But I'll report back.

A fairly obvious one I forgot ...

10. MELODY

[Christian Miller]

Rhythm?

Jim Hall’s rhythms are interesting


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[pamosmusic]

Rhythm?

Jim Hall’s rhythms are interesting


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Yeah definitely.

i might not be smart enough for that though.

My gut is that Tangerine would be good for that. It’s a little brisk so he does lots of sparse lines with a lot of syncopation.

[pamosmusic]

And Tangerine. This solo is absolutely smoking. Love it.

Usual disclaimers

jim hall - tangerine.pdf - Google Drive

[Doctor Jeff]

Love Jim Hall. One of my main musical idols.

I recently did a deep dive into his album with Art Farmer, Big Blues. What a knockout record.

One of the charms of that record is the phenomenal rhythm work of bassist Michael Moore and drummer Steve Gadd. A very modern and solid backing for the music.

Jim and Art both play their butts off, but the real standout for me was Michael Mainieri. Of course he’s played with everyone, but I mainly am aware of him for his work with Steps Ahead. Here he is just superlative.

A phenomenal Creed Taylor production. Highly recommended.

[pamosmusic]

Love Jim Hall. One of my main musical idols.

I recently did a deep dive into his album with Art Farmer, Big Blues. What a knockout record.

One of the charms of that record is the phenomenal rhythm work of bassist Michael Moore and drummer Steve Gadd. A very modern and solid backing for the music.

Jim and Art both play their butts off, but the real standout for me was Michael Mainieri. Of course he’s played with everyone, but I mainly am aware of him for his work with Steps Ahead. Here he is just superlative.

A phenomenal Creed Taylor production. Highly recommended.

Honestly, I don’t think I know this one.

[mr. beaumont]

Big Blues is definitely worth checking out, if just for this!

[Cunamara]

Michael Moore's long-running duo with Gene Bertoncini was marvellous. There are a number of albums they recorded.

[pamosmusic]

So I’ve decided — because it’s a thing we always say is the most important, and is also the thing I forgot from an otherwise pretty comprehensive list — to start with rhythm.

The thing I find most remarkable about Jim’s playing at all tempos, but particularly up tempos, is the way he can avoid playing eighth notes. With most of these two-chorus solos there might be a total of three or four multi-measure eighth-note licks. In the single-chorus solos, maybe just two.

Anyway … going along with some of the stuff I’ve been into with comping rhythms, I’ve been going through and finding measures with four, three, and two attacks and separating the rhythms and melodies. Then looking at the rhythms as simpler rhythms with rhythmic displacement. For instance, lots of Jim’s four-note rhythms are spaced like quarter notes and feel like they have a sort of bouncing, walking sort of feel. So I’m just calling them all Jim Hall Quarter Notes, and assuming any of those short melodic fragments will work with any of the rhythmic displacements … so far its been working.

Ive worked on some killer Jim vocab in the past, but it’s always been his busier boppier sort of stuff—partly because we like the fancy stuff, but also because I think the harmonic density makes it easier to sort of theorize and extrapolate into other ideas.

So this time, I’ve been experimenting with mixing the those simpler rhythms and their melodies. I like the idea that I might be able to generate ideas like this from the simple step wise stuff and hip, spacious rhythms Jim is so good at.

[pamosmusic]

I am working on this for a group of three students I have in a sort of vocab/improvisation workshop.

Or maybe they’re going to be doing it because I want to work on it

But either way … I’ll have it organized in various ways and might post some.

[Christian Miller]

Hmmmm. I feel a video coming on.


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[pamosmusic]

Hmmmm. I feel a video coming on.


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Make sure you credit me.

….. or …. wait do you mean I need to make a video?

[Christian Miller]

Make sure you credit me.

….. or …. wait do you mean I need to make a video?

I’m looking for a good topic. Actually I was going to do a vid on ‘playing fast tempos without playing a squillion 8th notes’ for a long time. But the Jim Hall solos focus the whole discussion. I will give you a shout out of course.


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[pamosmusic]

I’m looking for a good topic. Actually I was going to do a vid on ‘playing fast tempos without playing a squillion 8th notes’ for a long time. But the Jim Hall solos focus the whole discussion. I will give you a shout out of course.


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Oh I don’t care. That was just my way into a “crap don’t make me make a video” joke.

But yes credit me or you might find your car vandalize or power tubes stolen or whatever they’re doing across the pond these days.

[Christian Miller]

Oh I don’t care. That was just my way into a “crap don’t make me make a video” joke.

But yes credit me or you might find your car vandalize or power tubes stolen or whatever they’re doing across the pond these days.

This is my concern


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[Christian Miller]

Righty then a quick bit of morning transcription. This is what I'll be using for the vid. Plenty here. Not too hard to play. I think the fingerings are playable.



Also note the (near) melodic sequence on the III-VI-II-V at the back end of this half chorus. You don't actually see that many of those in the wild despite it being in all the "babas first bebop" books. Bach et al did it all the time of course. Jim's classical training showing through?

[pamosmusic]

Righty then a quick bit of morning transcription. This is what I'll be using for the vid. Plenty here. Not too hard to play. I think the fingerings are playable.



Also note the (near) melodic sequence on the III-VI-II-V at the back end of this half chorus. You don't actually see that many of those in the wild despite it being in all the "babas first bebop" books. Bach et al did it all the time of course. Jim's classical training showing through?

Hmm listening again I’m still getting straight up beats in your m4-5 … my m37-38.

Also definitely hearing D# in the last beat of your m11 and my m44.

It’s too early for me to fool with all your C/Cb nonsense over the A chord and check it against my more civilized B naturals so that’ll have to wait. Heathen.

EDIT: I have a C natural over the A and you have a C#. I think my C natural is right? And the cool eighth note lick after, I have chromatic from both roots and you have diatonic. I THINK they’re chromatic but I had to slow that one down because the articulation is hip af. Not sure.

This is the one I transcribed (and absolutely butchered, apparently) in college, so I recently corrected it rather than transcribed it over again. So I might have some weird stuff stuck in my ear. Not sure.

[Christian Miller]

Cheers - thanks for checking it over for me… I noticed the upbeats. I hear the D# as well. I daresay you are right on the other points but I’ll need to have a check when I get in.

Consider yourself lucky I didn’t write Ax.

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[Christian Miller]

This is what I have now

The phrases here all fit very well with a 2-3 clave or Cascara rhythm.