Masters of Jazz Guitar

by Charles Alexander

(Book). Written by some of the world's leading jazz authorities, this stunning book honors the brilliant artistry and music of selected virtuoso jazz guitarists past and present, reveals how they have redefined jazz over the years, and explores key developments for the guitar in the world of jazz since the early 1900s. It also includes two hundred compelling color photographs that bring the players and their instruments to life. Hardcover.

Genres: Music

192 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1999

Reviews

[Randall Wallace]

Any jazz guitar book that includes brilliant but lesser known players like Rune Gustafsson, Dean Brown and Attila Zoller is worth owning for being all-inclusive. Whereas the book “the New Face of Jazz” is mostly about B list jazz players who support the A players (and it’s photographs are few and badly done on bad paper), this Masters book has great rare photographs printed on great paper with great info on the entire A list of Jazz Guitar Players. Great thing this book taught me: Tal Farlow learned how to play so fast because he was hired by Red Norvo, who was known for his blisteringly fast tempos. Tal immediately had to woodshed intensely to keep his job, to become fast enough for Norvo, and in so doing became the fastest gun. John McLaughlin adored Tal in his formative years and didn’t know that Tal’s motivation had been survival; John only knew that thanks to Tal, such speed was possible. Once John hears enough Trane and Rollins, continuing to copy another guitarist seemed a waste of time because the tenor players owned the speed game, and the technique behind the resultant cascades of sound. From then on John was competing against himself, and that takes pure work. Too many people have gone to sleep while John is practicing and then woken up hours later to John still practicing.

This book tells you a lot about the records made and stories behind each guitar player and explains why you might want to check each one out. This book even mentions what few do – the need to get your modes built off of the melodic minor scale down cold as well as the major scale. It even includes a Paul Bley quote about Jimi Hendrix – you can’t get much cooler (or “outer”) than that. And it even mentions the elitism of Wynton Marsalis – wow. Five stars…