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What impresses me most about Jim Hall is how he was never afraid to move away from "that Jim Hall thing."
I adore "All Across The City." Here is Jim Hall playing in 1989 playing the music that Jim Hall would play in 1989 -- beautiful, musical synth pads from Gil Goldstein, a tasteful bit of chorus pedal when appropriate. Why would Jim Hall, of all people, refrain from exploring what the moment had to offer?
Then go to 14:38 and check out "R.E.M. State" for high-speed lock-step shredding followed by an interlude of modal free improvisation (and the chorus pedal over a swinging rhythm section):
As for gear, Mr. Hall knew the great stuff but never let the gear run the show. As he said, "It’s a piece of wood. I can get another guitar. It’s not my dog or my wife.”
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12-08-2018 12:08 PM
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Thanks, that was unusual for him. I recognize some of what he laid down there in later playing by Coryell. Interesting. But then Larry was the perpetual student and freely admitted to constantly listening and borrowing from older master players.
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Thank you very much for your numerous insights. I will continue my experimentation. One of the things I enjoy most about Mr. Hall's sound is the variety of articulation- he seems to use every possible technique for sounding notes, from glissandos to hammer-ons to pull offs to bends, and is so deliberate in his choices. Lots to learn.
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In some situations, Hall's sound just doesn't make it. I happen to be listening to the "Interplay' album by Bill Evans, with Freddie Hubbard, Philly Joe Jones, Hall and Percy Heath, and whenever Hall takes a solo, the energy level just drops down to nothing because of the overly bass sound he dialed in on his pickup. it's the same thing with his sound on the "Stitt Plays Bird" album. His chops aren't really up to handling the fast tempos on either record.
Other than "The Bridge", Hall always sounded better with his own groups, and more sensitive players like Desmond, Giuffre, Bill Smith, Art Farmer, etc...
Although he's one of my fave players, guys like Jimmy Bruno and Joe Pass disliked Hall's playing.
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Everyone's taste is different but I liked Jim Hall's group playing best with Art Farmer, Paul Desmond, Sonny Rollins and Jimmy Giuffre in particular. These are all very interactive and attentive musicians. My favorite stuff by Hall is the Canadian live recordings, both the original LP and later release of volumes 2-4. Stunning stuff. The Bill Evans duos are not my favorites, but mainly I think because Bill Evans doesn't grab me that much on those recordings. I've never listened to "Two Jims and a Zoot" and should.
I take sgcim's point too that Hall sometimes sounded like a fish out of water on uptempo tunes (but then listen to his first album as a leader- Jazz Guitar. He could be mistaken for Tal Farlow or Jimmy Raney at times, both of whom he was very good friends with. A not very "Jim Hall" record, funnily enough).
Hall usually seems musically and personally self-effacing but I suspect he could be very "alpha" when he felt it necessary. One can find a long, unedited interview with Jim and his daughter Devra on the Interwebs towards the end of his life. It's about 90+ pages long and he is less politic in his comments about other musicians and other people than usual. He was pungent about working with Pat Metheny on their duo record, complaining of Pat taking the tapes and fixing/rerecording things and "embalming" it. He said he didn't even own a copy of that recording for years and most of that time didn't care if he ever heard it again.
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jimmy bruno recently talked about jim hall in the seth greenberg interview part 2.
he liked jims playing but didn't think he was a tech heavy player...nevertheless he was thrilled that hall told him (after watching jimmy perform) "you play better than i could have imagined!"...
the later interview with hall by his daughter devra (who posted to the forum!) is at smithsonian archives..lengthy but great..they also have a long interview with chico hamilton..who was halls first band employer on the west coast...hall was great as part of the quintet
hall with giuffre trio (in all incarnations) was a beautiful thing..p90 es 175 thru a gibson ga-50 amp..the setup he used from the 50's to the 70's!!..he eventually switched out the pup for a big guild humbucker..what jimmy d'aquisto his luthier was using at the time
cheers
ps- hall and jimmy raney were good friends..they cut two jims and zoot and also the bob brookmeyer lead street swingers together
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From my classical guitar studies I learned about right hand placement for getting different tones from the instrument. I am pretty sure, from watching videos of Jim Hall, that he employed the same technique since he studied classical guitar along with composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music. I know he made good use of his tone knob, but you can also see him picking in the space between the pickup and the end of the fretboard for those really dark, warm tones he’s known for. The 175 better allows for this since there’s more space between the neck pickup and the end of the fretboard than most other archtops.
I’ve been chasing his tone for decades now and have never really achieved it. But I think that seeing the guitar as an acoustic instrument first is paramount, where, like with classical guitar, different tones are achieved through a combination of right hand placement, pick (or finger) attack, and left hand touch, all of which together yields a wide variety of timbres from the guitar. I also read long ago that he said he didn’t use an amp to play louder, but to play “quieter”. A good way to interpret that is to consider why Gypsy Jazz guitar technique was developed. It wasn’t simply for Django to play faster, but so he could be HEARD.Last edited by El Fundo; 12-08-2018 at 07:49 PM.
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Hall wasn't the only musician who complained about Metheny. In his autobiography, Gary Burton reams all of his guitarists, Coryell, Metheny and Sam Brown.
Originally Posted by Cunamara
He said the quartet would finish a recording, and then Metheny would sneak back into the studio and make "little fixes" on all his guitar solos.
He also talked about firing Metheny from the group, because Metheny would try to take over control of the group, and wouldn't listen to Burton.
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I say hands. It's always the hands.
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I am a Jim Hall fan, but he's not among my very favorites and I'd echo much of the above. He also recorded a bunch of albums with Hampton Hawes - the fiery bebop pianist who loved and excelled at fast tempos - under the "All Night Session" names and there is just too much of a mismatch IMO. Hampton has another album around the same time frame with Barney Kessel called "Four!" and that is a much better match (and contains some of BK's best playing if you ask me!). I feel that if Jim had a more 'edgy' tone that that would allowed him to hang better in those fast tempo situations. Originally Posted by sgcim
But on "The Bridge", good lord, that is amazing playing and tone by Jim.
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I think his sound is a combination of hands and the choice of guitars. He is a hugely favorite player of mine. I do consider him a very technical player in terms of sound and rhythm, just not fast. He did add a lot to the language of jazz guitar with his use of motives, melody and interplay. I got to see him live once around 2000, he sounded and played great.. He was one of the first jazz guitarists i got into, listening and transcribing.
Sure there are players like Farlow, Martino, Benson, etc, that can burn the fretboard, but i think cutting all these fast tempos without the speed chops is an art in itself, and the musical results can be great. Peter Bernstein is a lot like that too, Miles too..
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I think it's both.
Sure, Jim Hall would sound like himself on any guitar, but that's not necessarily because he'd get exactly the same tone. Rather, it's all the different aspects of his playing.
I have had the experience of getting closer to a favorite's tone by using the same equipment. And, I could sound a lot like the recording if I played the same line with the same articulation (or as close as I could get).
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I find myself listening less and less to jazz players whose main objective is to impress with technique. Yes, the jazz police have taken permanent residence in my head, but I’ve finally learned to ignore them, although sometimes they intrude on my consciousness when a musician I admire walks in the room and all of a sudden I start playing faster (or more harmonically complex, or “outside”). But a big part of the reason jazz is not popular with the masses is because of the very real fact that so many of today’s jazz players’ audience is jazz players, real or imaginary, instead of trying to move people’s hearts with Music. I find that “chops first” guitar players never seem to quite get Jim Hall. Too bad for them. I sure wish I had his technique and “chops”.
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Of course Jim is an iconic player, but over time I find his tone just too dull. I think just a bit more clarity - not much - would have helped me like him even more......
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Those who find Jim's tone too dull might try investigating the music from the last 30 years or so of his life.
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When you investigate his entire recorded output you will hear how much variety there is in the sounds he produced. The reason for the dark tones he used a lot is an attempt to emulate the sounds of his tenor sax heroes, Lester Young, Ben Webster, Lucky Thompson, etc. Yet on his first album as a leader, Jazz Guitar, his tone is much closer to Charlie Christian than the aforementioned sax players. And what about the first duo album with Bill Evans, Undercurrent? Pretty bright.
Check out this wonderful duet with himself. It’s one of my favorites of his originals and is from his It’s Nice to Be With You album. One track is darker and the other track brighter. It’s a conversation. The melody in the A section is dark and pensive. But then at the bridge the “other voice” responds with a brighter, more cheerful sound. This conversation continues throughout the tune, even during the solos. It was very deliberate. Jim Hall was a composer, and took the compositional approach to everything he played, standards included. He utilized all the timbres of his “orchestra”.
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The first interview I read with Hall was in Guitar Player 30+ years ago. I'd not actually heard anything by him at that point. He commented that he'd go to a recording studio and in about 5 minutes the engineer was out from the booth, walking in circles around the amp before finally asking "does that thing put out *any* highs?" To which Jim would reply "hey, man, that's my sound."
He plays some acoustic guitar with his D'Aquisto acoustic archtop on "By Arrangement." He sounds like Jim Hall. You could give him a Strat with a Marshall stack and he'd still sound like Jim Hall. As Jerry Garcia said, you can't escape your nervous system.
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Jim Hall was blessed with the good fortune of having grown up in an era where jazz musicians had there own unique voices, were story tellers, and you heard the actual person behind the notes. I can hear two notes of a Lester Young solo and know it’s him. And that has nothing to do with me, but, rather, his extremely personalized sound, style, and musical identity that he forged. Now I could listen to just about any contemporary, Trane chasing tenor player’s entire solo and would be hard pressed to identify him, since most of them pretty much sound the same. This goes for many of today’s jazz guitarists (and other instrumentalists) as well, although there are always exceptions (Joe Lovano and Peter Bernstein come to mind. Bobby Broom too).
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I had a copy of Glad to Be Unhappy (Desmond/Hall) when I was first starting to play.
As good as any comping I've ever heard. Tone is, IMO, perfect.
That was a 175 with a P90 and, apparently a G50 (anybody know for sure?).
Usually I hear the 175 with HB pickups, a sound I find sterile. Not Jim. Not sure if it's the P90 or just Jim Hall.
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I bought the Mosaic vinyl set of the complete Desmond/Hall Quartets right when it came out in the late 80s and still have it (except my son managed to lose the first disc somehow a couple of years ago). Some of my favorite recorded music of all time. Talk about two highly personalized stylists. They really dug each other, but oddly never played a live gig together. Thank God for those recordings!
Last edited by El Fundo; 12-09-2018 at 09:40 PM.
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Actually, according to a sax player friend of mine, Hall and Desmond did play gigs together in NYC back when those great albums were released. He didn't care for the group years ago when he told me about it. He said it sounded like a morgue. I guess he's into more high energy stuff. Originally Posted by El Fundo
Different strokes for different folks. I loved those records.
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I have one of those often told "Famous Guitarist" stories: I'm playing an unplugged duo session with Jim, his D'Aquisto sounds WAY better than my L-5..... Until we switch guitars, then it's the L-5 that sounds great and th D'Aquisto is struggling to keep up. His advice was "Don't think about volume, think about projection"
He was big on 'projection', if you knew him and went to a gig, first thing he's ask was "where are you sitting?" and you'd really feel he was playing right to you.
PK
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Something to consider: many jazz players love hating on Paul Desmond. I know many great alto and tenor players, hardly any of whom will acknowledge Desmond’s greatness. But like Stan Getz and others, Desmond was just doing the Lester Young thing, only on alto. Softer and prettier is often interpreted to be feminine (perhaps even “gay”), and that’s an offense to a lot of men’s sense of masculinity. Pretty interesting psychology that will prevent “macho” players (loud, fast, and hard) to even give Paul Desmond a chance to show that he was one of the greatest improvisers of all time. And, as has already been discussed in this thread, “softer and prettier” is partly why many don’t get Jim Hall.
Both Desmond and Hall were burners. They just burned with a lower flame. And a lower flame is still fire.
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Any "jazz" player who'd hate on Desmond wouldn't know jazz if it bit them in the ass.
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It’s like the average Joe (or Jane) who complains when a jazz band plays a ballad or bossa, or whatever: “OMG! It’s so...MELLOW!!! It’s like “mellow” is so extremely offensive to them. A few times I’ve asked for them to present a logical argument as to exactly why mellow is so “bad”. The response is usually the deer-in-the-headlights stare. Maybe it’s because Guns and Roses is their only benchmark for good music.
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