“Vignola Plays Gershwin“, the latest CD from guitarist Frank Vignola, reached #2 on the JazzWeek Jazz Album Chart for May 21, 2007 (the JazzWeek charts measure radio airplay in North America). Vignola’s quartet includes Joe Ascione on drums, bassist Tom Kennedy and Corey Christiansen on guitar. With twelve released albums as a leader, he is a versatile guitarist capable of playing everything from gypsy jazz and commercial pop-jazz to hard bop, post-bop and swing. On “Vignola Plays Gershwin” he leans towards a gypsy jazz direction, bringing a Django mood to the Gershwin melodies. He states he has been influenced by guitarists Django Reinhardt, Joe Pass, Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix and Charlie Christian. For an extra treat, check out the Joey DeFrancesco Trio featuring Vignola on YouTube.

Track listing:
• I Got Rhythm
• Summertime
• S’Wonderful
• Our Love Is Here To Stay
• They Can’t Take That Away From Me
• The Man I Love
• Somebody Loves Me
• Strike Up The Band
• Nice Work If You Can Get It
• Fascinating Rhythm
• Embraceable You
• Lady Be Good
• How Long Has This Been Going On
• But Not For Me

A collaboration between jazz guitarist Ben Monder and vocalist Theo Bleckmann called “At Night“, was released in SACD format this past May by Songlines. The album contains original songs, pop covers as well as freeform compositions. Monder and Bleckmann have made several duo recordings in the past, usually with accompanying players. Percussionist Satoshi Takeishi plays on a few tracks here. Their last duo collaboration was “No Boat”, from 1997. Monder has been a member of The Maria Schneider’s Orchestra, Guillermo Klein’s Los Gauchos, and Paul Motian’s Electric Bebop Band, and has played as a sideman with Lee Konitz, Prism Quartet as well as with several other artists. He has also recorded several albums as a leader including: “Oceana” (2005), “Excavation” (2000), “Dust” (1997) and “Flux” (1995).

Track listing:
• Late, by Myself (sample)
• Sunny Sunday (sample)
• Carbon
• Hymenium
• Animal Planet
• Swarm
• Orchard
• Norwegian Wood
• At Night
• Apocryphon

Wounded Bird, a record label that specializes in the reissue of albums from the 60’s, 70’s and early 80’s (on cd only), has begun to reissue Mike Stern’s cd’s that were no longer available on Atlantic Records. These releases are: “Standards (and other songs) from 1993, and “Give And Take” from 1997. “Jigsaw” from 1989 and “Is What It Is” from 1993 will be out in June 2007.
Four remaining titles are expected for the summer. In the US these records can be purchased from amazon.com and Wounded Bird, and outside the US at artist-shop.com or cduniverse.com.

Jazz guitar legend Jimmy Bruno has launched an online jazz guitar video instruction website. “After almost a year of planning and development, and many weeks of testing, the Jimmy Bruno Guitar Institute is now open for enrollments.” The lessons are geared towards guitarists of all levels: jazz guitar students, jazz guitar teachers, professional guitarists, rock guitarists and fusion guitarists, through a series of instructional videos featuring Jimmy Bruno. And, how much does it cost? “Introductory pricing for charter members in the Jimmy Bruno Guitar Institute is $45.00 per three-month period.” And on why you should consider the Jimmy Bruno Guitar Institute, Jimmy Bruno states: “I teach because I want to hear better music, and see better guitarists in the world. In the past, you had two choices if you wanted to study guitar with me: You could come to Philadelphia and take private lessons in my studio (sorry, I have no openings until well into 2010) , or you could find one of my older guitar instructional videos and try to learn on your own. Sadly, I’ve found that students need feedback from their teacher, and other students, to make fast and steady progress. Otherwise bad habits get locked in.”

Preview two sample lessons here:
Sample Lesson #1: How to Practice the Five Shapes
Sample Lesson #2: Jimmy Shows the Possibilites with Only One “Shape”

Artistshare has announced an upcoming collaboration between jazz guitarists Jim Hall and Bill Frisell. “I am very excited about my upcoming collaboration with fellow guitarist Bill Frisell”, states Jim Hall on his website. The project will consist of a duo recording planned for Summer 2007. Artistshare is a place where fans fund the projects of their favorite artists in exchange for the privilege of “participating” in the creative process. According to Artistshare, The Jim Hall-Bill Frisell project is still being formulated, and will be open for participation in the next following weeks. If you have any suggestions for the project you can email them at hallfrisellproject@artistshare.com. You can check for updates on this recording project either through ArtistShare or Jim Hall’s website.

Time and the Infinite is Adam Roger’s latest recording. This time he departs from the quartet and quintet formats he had favored for his previous albums, and is joined by double bassist Scott Colley and drummer Bill Stewart for a trio session. Roger’s plays both electric and acoustic guitars in this album, which mainly consists of workouts of jazz standards including: “Night And Day”, “Cheryl”, “Without A Song”, “I Loves You, Porgy”, “Young And Foolish”; and four new original compositions: “Elegy”, “Time And The Infinite”, “Esteban” and “Ides Of March”. This is his fourth album for Criss Cross records. Past albums include: Apparitions (2005), Allegory (2002) and Art Of The Invisible (2001).

I had the pleasure of seeing Jim Hall live in Hartford, Connecticut two nights ago (being a fan myself, I was very excited to see him play for the first time). The trio consisted of Scott Colley on double bass and Lewis Nash on drums; a great complement to Jim Hall’s gentle and expressive guitar playing. He had his Sadowsky signature guitar with him, along with a Polytone Mini Brute amp, a chorus pedal (looked like a Boss, but I’m not sure), and a harmonizer pedal. I was impressed to hear how soft he can play sometimes and how clear the band’s sound was. I was really impressed when Lewis Nash shook his brushes in the air and I was able to hear them (that’s the level of softness I’m talking about). The music was all about creating moods and landscapes. No pyrotechnics, no poses. I really enjoyed it.

Jim Hall is known to be a gentle and sophisticated guitar player, but he can get pretty wild sometimes, and can still sound as modern as anybody today (maybe because guitar players today actually sound like him). On the program notes, Jim Hall was quoted as saying that he hopes he has grown musically all these years, that he thinks a musician should grow. I think he definitely has. Jim Hall, now 76 years old, has always been an innovator, a musician always stretching to embrace new influences, something that is very hard to do for many musicians after some point.

This same trio released a CD recorded live at the Village Vanguard in 2005, called “Magic Meeting”. They played some of the tunes from this record: “Bent Blue”, “Blackwell’s Message”, “Skylark” and “Body and Soul”. They also played a really nice version of “All The Things You Are”, “Careful”, “Hide and Seek”, “Flat Furnace” and a short improvisation they named “Peace” (I know I’m missing some names). Jim Hall mentioned that he only gets to play with Colley and Nash about once a year now, so I was really lucky to catch this show.

John Abercrombie’s newest album on ECM was released this past April 3, 2007 (The Third Quartet). This is the third album from his current band with Mark Feldman, Marc Johnson and Joey Baron (hence the tittle). The quartet has been playing together for the last seven years. The album contains 10 tunes, 8 of which are Abercrombie originals, plus Bill Evans’s “Epilogue” and Ornette Coleman’s “Round Trip.” This is Abercrombie’s 25th recording as a leader for ECM. According to his website, the quartet will be touring Europe in March 2007 and follow with an East Coast Tour in April.

Scofield’s signature guitar, the Ibanez JSM100, is based on his longtime stage and recording guitar (he has been using this axe for more than 20 years), a beautiful 1981 Ibanez Artist AS200 (see a pic here). According to him, these Artist models are some of the best semi-acoustics ever built. The AS200 is also the longest running guitar model in the Ibanez history. These Japanese built guitars have gone pretty much unnoticed for some time, especially other Artist models (the AS200 is pretty well known because of John Scofield), but are starting to be sought after by a growing group of players and collectors (late 70’s and 80’s models seem to be the most popular ones). They are great sounding guitars, and if you are lucky you can still get one for a reasonable price (search on eBay for Ibanez Artist).

Scofield’s standard distortion is a Pro Co RAT stomp box, a black metal box built like a tank, that although not very fancy looking, is a great distortion pedal. An Ibanez CS9 Analog Chorus pedal is also key to his characteristic sound (you can also get these on eBay, both original and reissue). Other effects Scofield uses include: a Line 6 FM4 Filter Modeler (as well as the Delay Modeler) and a Boss EQ pedal. For amp, he uses either a Vox AC-30 or a Mesa Boogie Mark I reissue.