Jim Hall “Jazz Guitar”

[pamosmusic]

I usually say that Jim Hall is my favorite jazz guitarist (with Grant Green and Ed Bickert neck and neck for second) but in reality I don’t listen to that many Jim Hall albums. I love Intermodulation and Undercurrents, but I listen to Jazz Guitar and Live! about as much as my next ten favorite jazz guitar albums put together.

Anyway … I transcribed Stompin’ at the Savoy from the Jazz Guitar album this week and realized I also had Stella from the same album that I learned a few months back, and Tangerine that I transcribed in college.

I’ve thought about it for a while, and I might try and transcribe the rest. I’ve also been thinking about some cool things Jim does in his improvising on those albums and others. I’ll start posting some of that stuff up here as I get into it.

Should have Stompin up soon.

[mr. beaumont]

That record is the birth of modern jazz guitar.

[Arnesto]

great record, one of my favs

[Christian Miller]

Listening again to Interplay (Bill Evans) thanks to an Open Studio podcast. That’s a bit of a sleeper. Plenty of Jim on that. Bill even lets him comp a fair bit. Imagine!

Doesn’t count in any case, Jim was a sideman par excellence and in some ways that was his revolutionary contribution.

I do like Jazz Guitar a lot.

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[Christian Miller]

The album that is. Not sure about the other thing.


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[pamosmusic]

That record is the birth of modern jazz guitar.

It really is. It sounds simultaneously like Charlie Christian and … I don’t know … Vic Juris. It’s kind of wild.

[pamosmusic]

Listening again to Interplay (Bill Evans) thanks to an Open Studio podcast. That’s a bit of a sleeper. Plenty of Jim on that. Bill even lets him comp a fair bit. Imagine!

Doesn’t count in any case, Jim was a sideman par excellence and in some ways that was his revolutionary contribution.

I do like Jazz Guitar a lot.

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Yeah the Paul Desmond stuff obviously being his most famous stuff, probably by a lot. The king of making everyone else sound good.

[CliffR]

I transcribed the head from his version of Stella a while ago. Very tasteful! And yeah, his work with Paul Desmond is lovely.

[pamosmusic]

I transcribed the head from his version of Stella a while ago. Very tasteful! And yeah, his work with Paul Desmond is lovely.

Oh yeah. His phrasing is so free on so many of the heads. Very clearly the tune, of course, but kind of solos in their own right. Listening to that tune earlier, it occurred to me that the first sixteen of his head out are totally improvised too and I need to transcribe that.

[pamosmusic]

But with that said, here's my Stella transcription. I don't usually put the chord symbols above, but I figured that would be useful so I put them in there. It's just the real book changes transposed up. They're definitely mostly right, but I didn't take the time to transcribe the changes from the recording so there might be some discrepancies there.

jim hall - stella.pdf - Google Drive

[CliffR]

But with that said, here's my Stella transcription. I don't usually put the chord symbols above, but I figured that would be useful so I put them in there. It's just the real book changes transposed up. They're definitely mostly right, but I didn't take the time to transcribe the changes from the recording so there might be some discrepancies there.

Stella Jim Hall.pdf - Google Drive

Nice! Transcribing the solo was above my pay grade, but here's my go at the head:

[GuyBoden]

Have you watched the Jim Hall video 'A life in Progress'

A good watch.

I have it somewhere on my shelf.


Edit: 20 years ago, I learned the Stella Melody from the Jim Hall recording too.

[enalnitram]

I've listened to Jim Hall intensely over the years.

Some of my faves not yet mentioned are:

These Rooms
Sonny Rollins - The Bridge
Jimmy Raney - Two Jims and Zoot
Bob Brookmeyer - Street Swingers
Alone Together
Telephone
...and others, but those are the big ones. It's all desert island material.

The thing that strikes me the most about Jim is just how easy to listen to he is. I'm reminded that he put a sign inside his case as a reminder to himself, "make musical sense". You can sing his lines, unlike a lot of players that have generated excitement, and are known by musicians but not so much by non-musicians. As excited as I am about players that play a lot of notes, there is a lot to be said about economy, groove, earthiness, swing, and Musikalität.

[Onesimus]

Have you watched the Jim Hall video 'A life in Progress'

A good watch.

I have it somewhere on my shelf.


Edit: 20 years ago, I learned the Stella Melody from the Jim Hall recording too.

I agree 100% This is a great film documentary. Well worth the time. Here is the full documentary on YouTube.

[Onesimus]

I have always thought that Mr. Hall did some of his best playing with Art Farmer.

This clip of Jim Hall is a quick study of keeping cool under fire.

And one of my favorite jazz guitar concert films, Jim Hall and Atilla Zoller. 1973.

[Onesimus]

Nice! Transcribing the solo was above my pay grade, but here's my go at the head:

As a long ago metal head, I gotta say I love that you are using that “shredder” guitar with a “butter” tone for your jazz. Up the irons! my friend.

[CliffR]

As a long ago metal head, I gotta say I love that you are using that “shredder” guitar with a “butter” tone for your jazz. Up the irons my friend! ?

Ha ha! Thanks! The tone is surprisingly usable for jazz, I think. And this is the easiest-playing guitar I own. Love my Jackson!

[pamosmusic]

Ha ha! Thanks! The tone is surprisingly usable for jazz, I think. And this is the easiest-playing guitar I own. Love my Jackson!

Hey … if it’s good enough for Cecil Alexander …

[CliffR]

Hey … if it’s good enough for Cecil Alexander …

Right!?

[CliffR]

What is the backing track you're using? Sounds like it came from The Summer of Rhythm Guitar thread.

I just double-checked, and it seems it was me on guitar and Drum Genius on drums. But why the eye roll?

[pamosmusic]

Here's Stompin' at the Savoy. Same disclaimer with the chords.

I also haven't gone through and learned this all at tempo, so I might repost later with some corrections. The last little bit with those blues double-stops jumps to mind, but it's close as-is.

jim hall - stompin.pdf - Google Drive

[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.

[Mick-7]

I just double-checked, and it seems it was me on guitar and Drum Genius on drums. But why the eye roll?

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

[pamosmusic]

Here’s a quick run through on Stella. A little messy, but fine.

(also it would only upload as a short .. which I hate, but whatever)

Stella by Starlight, Jim Hall - YouTube

[sgcim]

Listening again to Interplay (Bill Evans) thanks to an Open Studio podcast. That’s a bit of a sleeper. Plenty of Jim on that. Bill even lets him comp a fair bit. Imagine!

Doesn’t count in any case, Jim was a sideman par excellence and in some ways that was his revolutionary contribution.

I do like Jazz Guitar a lot.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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.