Evolution of Jazz Guitar 19

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Jim Hall (b. 1930) started his guitar tenure at the age of ten. Although he was too young, he began playing in dance bands by the age of thirteen. After studying at the Cleveland Institute of Music, Jim went to Los Angeles where he began working with Chico Hamilton. The success of that gig landed him a job with the Jimmy Guiffre Trio in 1959. He went on to work with jazz giants Ella Fitzgerald, Lee Konitz, Ben Webster, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Paul Desmond and Ornette Coleman.

Today's lick is a great workout for your fretting hand. It basically descends along a natural minor scale using a two-note sequence spaced a fourth apart. If you have ever tried playing a scale in thirds, you have practiced the same idea, except the interval in this example is wider. Fourths make some interesting fingering dilemmas, which you can resolve by rolling your fingers. You'll notice that there are consecutive notes that use the same finger. Since you are descending, you can play the first note normally, on the tip of your finger. For the second note, roll that same finger downward so that the inside of the finger (not the tip, but the part where your fingerprint lives) frets the next note in the line. It's as if you are building mini-barre chords spanning across two strings as you play.

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