10 Jazz Guitar Albums I Recommend
If you had to create a list of your favorite jazz guitar albums but narrow it down to only 10 choices, which ones would you pick? Obviously I have no clue, but if like myself you’ve been listening to jazz guitar recordings for many years, I’m sure you would find this a challenging task. I know I did! Nonetheless, whether you are a newbie or an avid listener, I think you will find my consolidated list amusing and above all, very educational.
In this week’s video I share a list of 10 jazz guitar albums which had an impact on my playing and I tell you why. Not only do I tell you about the importance of each player but I also share several anecdotes of my personal encounters with several of these giants in my journey to learn the art of jazz guitar. Yes…this is an unusually long video (20min), and you might have to watch it in two parts…but please don’t let that deter you from watching it. I have made it as dynamic and entertaining as possible so you can easily digest its educational content.
In the video I forgot to add something very important, so I’m doing it here: PLEASE SHARE WITH ME YOUR LIST OF FAVORITE JAZZ GUITAR ALBUMS! Leave me a comment below so we can all share info about other recordings worth checking out!
Suggested:
4 Comments
Submit a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.
So I downloaded your “Introduction to Jazz Guitar” and saw that it was so well written, that I thought, “This should be available in paperback from Amazon”. Then I checked and found that several of your albums as well as a lot of instructional material is available from the big behemoth of the literary world. I bought a download of “Cafe con Leche” and like it very much. I hope you don’t mind if I say that it reminds me of the Jazz Fusion of the 70s, especially Al Di Meola. Very nice.
I also noted from the book that you spent some time teaching in South Florida. Did you ever run into Jaco Pastorius? I don’t know that Jaco was ever attached to a University, but I know that he did teach bass guitar in the Ft. Lauderdale area (probably in the late 60s and then again in the late 70s) and sometimes complained about the calibre of his students. I did get the impression that most of his students were probably teenagers with not much interest in serious study.
Glad you liked Cafe Con Leche. I never met Jaco but heard a lot of stories from the 2 drummers that played with me on Cafe Con Leche. Bob Moses played with Jaco on Metheny’s first CD and Alex Acuna played with him in Weather Report. Actually Alex used to room with Jaco when they were on tour. Lots of crazy, first hand interesting stories!
You mentioned Chet Atkins as a country guitar player in your comments about Gretsch guitars. Chet is actually a favorite of mine. I especially liked the work that he did in the 80s and 90s in a genre that is sometimes called “Soft Jazz” or even “New Age”. I have a lot of Chet’s records going back to the 50s and especially enjoy his albums with other guitar players. His “Chester and Lester” album with Lester Polfus is another favorite of mine. Les is another favorite and I enjoy hearing his hits with Mary Ford (e.g. “How High the Moon”). One of the things that Chester and Lester had in common is that they both wanted to be known as Jazz Guitarists, but got sidelined into live hillbilly radio. Lester was on WLS as “Rhubarb Red” and Chet came to Nashville as a guitar player for the Carter sisters around the time that Maybelle’s daughters joined the group and backed them for many years on the Grand Ole Opry.
Thanks for sharing! I honestly haven’t listened that much to Chet Atkins as my influences are more from the mainstream side of jazz. A great player no doubt! I confess that I’ve never listened to Lester Polfus but I will try and see what I can dig up online. I might do a country meets jazz video down the road.