Jimmy Wyble's 100th birthday today

[David B]

Today would have been Jimmy Wyble's 100th birthday.

There's a great group on Facebook with students and friends of Jimmy Wyble sharing some of his teaching materials, memories and stores and their takes on his etudes and arrangements today.

LINK: Log into Facebook

[David B]

[David B]

[David B]

[jameslovestal]

The guy that got me into jazz and jazz guitar was taking lessons from Jimmy Wyble. I was so young and inexperienced that I didn't really learn anything from him in the 2 years or so we were roommates.

[sgosnell]

Jimmy Wyble was, IMO, the best guitar player that Bob Wills ever had. Eldon Shamblin was a great rhythm player, but not a great soloist or improvisor. Wyble could play great rhythm, and was a great improvisor. Both were better than Junior Barnard, who gets a lot of praise.

[Cunamara]

Guild Johnny Smith/Artist Award and Ampeg Fountain of Sound.

[jameslovestal]

Guild Johnny Smith/Artist Award and Ampeg Fountain of Sound.

Frank Sinatra did an album with a small jazz band that featured Red Norvo and Jimmy Wyble. Not sure if this photo is from that session.

[Mick-7]

Has anyone here gone through one or more of his books, and if so, what is your opinion of them?

https://tinyurl.com/y3tkwmub

I found this one the other day in an old box of music books, don't recall ever studying it:
https://tinyurl.com/2evtaypb

[Liarspoker]

Has anyone here gone through one or more of his books, and if so, what is your opinion of them?

https://tinyurl.com/y3tkwmub

I found this one the other day in an old box of music books, don't recall ever studying it:
https://tinyurl.com/2evtaypb

I haven't study the books but perhaps I should since I'm knee deep in two part harmony improv atm (both jazz and classical).

Thanks for the post.

Edit. Just reading the blurb on the back of The Art of Two Line Improvisation book and it seems like that's exactly what I'm doing.

Just checked out the PDF (available from the coffee place) and while it's an interesting book it seems like that you have to learn each etude in order to extract information from it which you can then use in your own playing.

I'm revisiting my old grade 7 and 8 classical pieces so have enough to be learning vebatim.
I'll stick to my own approach of two line improv for the moment but my buy the book in the future.

[jameslovestal]

I'm glad someone brough this thread back to life since I just saw the film Screaming Mimi - 1958, and it features Red Norvo. There was a guitarist and I thought it was Wyble but wasn't sure until I saw the above photos.

Some great musical sequences reflective of the era and west-coast jazz, in this film. This viedo only has the band doing for a few moments but Wyble does do some cool things with his right hand like tapping the strings etc...

[dasein]

So the Jimmy Wyble books can get a little confusing.

The book that most people encounter is "Art of Two Line Improvisation" which Mel Bay has kept in print for quite a while. However, a lot of people get confused that the book has what are seemingly only a few examples of two line improvisation, and then immediately jumps into a collection of etudes. More confusingly, it starts with Etude #7. Which might lead the player to believe that they're a series of "examples" and not much else.

The reason for the confusion is that Etudes #1 - 6 appeared in an earlier book, "Classical Country" which has been out of print for years.

But David Oakes, who has done more to preserve Wyble's music and teaching than anyone, has posted the full PDFs for Etudes #1-6 on his website:

Jimmy Wyble | David Oakes Guitar

That site is a treasure trove of info, and includes many handouts from Wyble's workshops and GIT classes that elucidate his ideas much more clearly than his books.

The etudes themselves are etudes in the true sense of the word: teaching pieces that also work on their own as music. Between the audio files on Oakes' site and the CD included in "Two Line Improvisation" I made a playlist that I listen to quite frequently. They range from fairly simple to quite difficult. Absolutely terrific practice for the left hand, you will encounter fingerings you've never seen elsewhere.