The Art of Jazz Guitar [From the Archives]

 © -Steven Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

There’s a reason why the name for the long part of a guitar is “the neck.”

For there are times when one becomes so frustrated trying to play such an unforgiving instrument that one is tempted to strangle it by grabbing it by – you guessed it - “the neck.”

Those who play Jazz guitar seem destined to play it for how else would you explain the choice of an instrument whose sound is difficult to sustain and whose volume can rarely be heard above other instruments unless it is electrically amplified?

It’s also an instrument that can easily get in the way by clashing with the piano as both serve the function of feeding chords and “comping” [accompanying] in most Jazz groups. Unless it is lightly “feathered” to the point of being more felt than audible, many drummers dislike its intrusion as part of the rhythm section because it makes the time sound chunky and/or feel stiff.

As a lead instrument, it doesn’t phrase easily with other instruments such as the trumpet, trombone or one of the saxes.

When it does find a natural category for expression, for example, in combination with a Hammond B-3 organ and drums, it risks disapproval due to the dislike that many have for the organ in Jazz [“sounds comical;” “belongs at an ice show or a circus;” “overbearing or domineering;” “Why doesn’t someone just pull the plug?”]

So what’s a self-respecting Jazz guitarist to do in order to have a place in the music?

One avenue of expression is to quietly and unobtrusively add a “light touch” to the rhythm section as guitarist Eddie Condon did for many years in Chicago-style and Dixieland Jazz groups or guitarist Freddie Green did as part of the Count Basie Big Band.

Another is to match up with other string instruments as did Eddie Lang with violinist Joe Venuti or the legendary Django Reinhardt with violinist Stephane Grappelli and the Hot Club of Paris.

In his essay The Electric Guitar and Vibraphone in Jazz: Batteries Not Included [Bill Kirchner, ed., The Oxford Companion to Jazz [London/New York, OUP, 2000], Neil Tesser observed of Django:

“Acoustic Jazz guitar reached an apotheosis with Django Reinhardt [whose French guitar had an extra internal sound chamber, which helped boost the volume]. Reinhardt founded his vibrant melodies upon fervid folk rhythms and unexpected chord voicings, the latter being inventions of necessity: a fire that damaged two fingers on his left (chord-making) hand forced him to reimagine his approach to har­mony. Reinhardt belied the then prevalent opinion that "Europeans can't play jazz"; tapping his experiences as a minority "outsider" (he was a Gypsy), he achieved an emotional power commensurate with that of jazz's African-American inventors, and his finger-picking tech­nique continued to stun jazz and even rock guitarists into the 1960s. Souvenirs (London) remains the best single-disc collection of his work with the Quintette du Hot Club de France, costarring Reinhardt's brilliant alter ego, violinist Stephane Grappelli.”

Elsewhere in his essay, Neil points out that “Before amplification, the guitar had little impact on Jazz, with a dozen or so important objections. … not until the mid-1930’s – when Gibson and others began fitting Spanish-style guitars with electromagnetic pickups, to amplify the strings themselves did Jazz guitarists have what they needed [to sustain sound and to increase volume on the instrument]. …

Pound for pound, no instrument has been more profoundly affected by twentieth-century technology than the guitar ….”

The Jazz electric guitar was pioneered by Charlie Christian who performed in Benny Goodman’s Swing era small groups as well as with the early beboppers at Minton’s Playhouse in Harlem before his death at a tragically early age.

Oscar Moore with Nat King Cole’s trio helped make the piano-bass-guitar trio a viable Jazz unit - a tradition that was continued first by Barney Kessel and then by Herb Ellis with pianist Oscar Peterson’s trio which included bassist Ray Brown. Pianist Ahmad Jamal’s earliest trio also included a guitarist, Ray Crawford.

Pianist George Shearing unique sound in the 1950s was made possible by the way in which the now-amplified electric guitar was voiced in unison, but octaves apart, with the piano and the vibraphone.

Tal Farlow with Red Norvo’s trio, Jimmy Raney with valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer’s quartet, Johnny Smith with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz’s quartet and Jim Hall with clarinetist Jimmy Giuffre’s trio used “a softer tone and a less pronounced attack to mold the guitar into a cool Jazz voice….” [Tesser]

Hall could also heat it up a bit as he demonstrated with Sonny Rollins’ quartet in the 1960’s and Kenny Burrell used his “exceptionally mellow tone” [Tesser] to raise the temperature in a variety of hard bop settings, including Hammond B-3 organist Jimmy Smith’s trio. Kenny’s work may also have influenced that of guitarist Grant  Green “… whose soulful tone and ringing lyricism distilled the bluesy essence of 1960’s hard bop.” [Tesser]

Wes Montgomery also came along in the 1960’s and blew everybody away with his propulsive melodies and his startlingly effective technique based on improvising in octaves.

As Wes explained in a 1961 Downbeat interview with Ralph J. Gleason:

”I’m so limited. I have a lot of ideas - well, a lot of thoughts—that I'd like to see done with the guitar. With the octaves, that was just a coincidence, going into octaves. It's such a challenge yet, you know, and there's a lot that can be done with it and with chord versions like block chords on piano. But each of these things has a feeling of its own, and it takes so much time to develop all your technique.

"I don't use a pick at all, and that's one of the downfalls, too. In order to get a certain amount of speed, you should use a pick, I think. You don't have to play fast, but being able to play fast can cause you to phrase better. If you had the technique you could phrase better, even if you don't play fast. I think you'd have more control of the instrument.

"I didn't like the sound of a pick. I tried it for, I guess, about two months. I didn't even use my thumb at all. But after two months time, I still couldn't use the pick. So I said, 'Well, which are you going to do?' I liked the tone better with thumb, but I liked the technique with the pick. I couldn't have them both, so I just have to cool.

"I think every instrument should have a certain amount of tone quality within the instrument, but I can't seem to get the right amplifiers and things to get this thing out. I like to hear good phrasing. I'd like to hear a guitar play parts like instead of playing melodic lines, leave that and play chord versions of lines. Now, that's an awful hard thing to do, but it would be different. But I think in those terms, or if a cat could use octaves for a line instead of one note. Give you a double sound with a good tone to it. Should sound pretty good if you got anoth­er blending instrument with it.”

Following its pronounced appearance in organ trios and on ‘funky Jazz’ records in the 1960s,  Jazz guitar seemed to veer off into an area of music that came into existence with the rising popularity of Rock ‘n Roll during the same period.

As Neil Tesser goes on to explain in his essay: “It’s no surprise that the spread of Jazz guitar paralleled the rise of rock. Funk Jazz had dipped into the blues, a guitar-driven music and the primary precursor of Rock-and-Roll. As Rock ascended in the 1960’s, the guitar came to dominate American music; as Rock and Jazz converged, the guitar symbolized the evolving musical fusion.”

The Jazz guitar also fused with other styles of music as well including Indian ragas, country and western music and folk music. These myriad, hybrid styles can he heard in the guitar playing of George Benson, Larry Coryell, John McLaughlin, Lenny Breau, John Abercrombie, John Scofield, Bill Frisell, and Pat Metheny.

Of course, there continue to be those Jazz guitarists who play in a more straight-ahead manner such as Joe Pass, Pat Martino, Ed Bickert and Lorne Lofsky, Peter Bernstein, Jake Langley and two, young Dutch guitarists based in Holland – Jesse van Ruller and Martin van Iterson.

Fortunately, when these plectarists grab the instrument by “the neck,” the result is one of the loveliest and liveliest sounds in all of Jazz and one that’s easy for most of us to identify with.

The guitar is rivaled by only the human voice in its universality.

The following YouTube is our way of paying tribute to all of the great Jazz guitarists. The tune is a smokin’ version Freddie Hubbard’s Gibraltar as performed by Jake Langley on guitar, Joey DeFrancesco on Hammond B-3 organ and drummer Terry Clarke.

On A Misty Night with Peter Leitch - A JazzProfiles Snapshort

© -  Steven A. Cerra, copyright protected; all rights reserved.

“Drawing on every available aspect of the guitar tradition, Leitch is a smooth and accomplished performer whose very facility sometimes disguises the sophistication of what he is doing. Easy in the studio, he has created a substantial body of recorded work.

Listening to the evolution of the music and the musicians on Leitch's records in a recording career stretching back to the mid-'8os shows how much Leitch has evolved from an essentially horn-based style to a much more guitaristic (his own word) approach.

When he came to Criss Cross, Gerry Teekens gave him the breadth and leeway he wanted to make swinging but intelligent records which refused to sit neatly in any currently agreed niche.

In all his Criss Cross recordings, there's the same sageness of utterance and fertility of invention that make them equally hard to resist. For the interplay of guitar and percussion, underlining Leitch's strong rhythmic instincts, they are a highly recommended showcase for a quiet and understated talent.”

- Richard Cook, Brian Morton, The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Ed.

I thought it would be fun to work-up a series of brief features - what I have been referring to as JazzProfiles “snapshots” - on three musicians from what I call the Soft School of Jazz guitar playing.

The Soft School of Jazz Guitar members are made up of those guitar players who caress the instrument and who seem to gently coach a sound from it rather than the percussively pluck it and pick it alternative, which is fine, too, when I’m in the mood for that approach to guitar Jazz.

Mundell Lowe, Johnny Smith and Jim Hall generally fall into the former category while Pat Martino, Tal Farlow and Joe Pass are typically grouped into the latter category [Although to be fair Pat, Tal and Joe also fit the first category. So much for generalizations but you get the idea.]

Wes Montgomery and Barney Kessel seem to straddle both categories, but after a while one begins to understand why Duke Ellington used the phrase “beyond category” when he was pressed to answer questions of groupings regarding certain musicians.

The three guitarists that I had in mind for Soft School Snapshots [doncha just love alliterations?] are Peter Leitch, Jimmy Raney and Kenny Burrell. Let’s start with guitarist Peter Leitch who I first heard on a Criss Cross CD [1026] entitled On A Misty Night with bassist Neil Swainson and drummer Mickey Roker.

What initially attracted me to the CD was its superb track selection Jazz Standards including the Tadd Dameron’s title track, Tom McIntosh’s The Cup Bearers, Wayne Shorter’s Witch Hunt, Monk’s Crepescule with Nellie and Sonny Rollins’ Airegin, beautiful treatments of two Great American Songbook tunes, Serenata and Spring is Here and two originals by Peter - Duet and Fifty Up.   

I also learned a great deal about Peter and his approach to music from these informative insert notes by Mark Gardner which include references to other Soft School of Jazz Guitar candidates.

"A superficial study of the history of modern jazz guitar will show that this instrument has had many important and creative non-American exponents. Starting with Django Reinhardt, Europe developed a special guitar tradition which found its greatest modern exponent in the late Rene Thomas, a Belgian like Django. Ireland produced John McLaughlin and Louis Stewart. From France came Sacha Distel, and more recently Dave Cliff emerged in England.

So much for Europe, but closer to the USA Peter Leitch has now emerged from comparative obscurity in Canada to take his place with the front rank guitarists. Peter was born 41 years ago in Ottawa, but was brought up and began playing jazz in Montreal. It was on an album he made there in the early 1970s that I first heard him. He made impressive contributions to a Sadik Hakim album entitled The London Suite.

By 1977 Peter had moved to Toronto, but after five years in that city he was drawn to New York, the recognized centre of jazz. His five years in the Apple are proof enough of his talent and ability. He has worked with an astonishing range of leaders including Milt Jackson, Pepper Adams, Jaki Byard , Red Norvo, Al Grey, Jimmy Forrest and Woody Shaw. Fellow Canadian Oscar Peterson employed him for two Pablo albums.

This is the fourth released album by Peter Leitch but the first in which he has chosen to use the conventional trio instrumentation throughout. His U.S. debut record for Uptown was a quintet set with the late Pepper Adams.

It was deservedly well received. The present set was taped two years later and marks the growing maturity and expressive depth of a fluent improviser at the peak of his powers.

It's interesting that Peter names Kenny Burrell and Rene Thomas as two of his main musical influences, because, like those two, he is a guitarist who always swings. Thomas, of course, worked extensively in Canada before his untimely death, and it was Sonny Rollins who proclaimed him the greatest guitarist since Charlie Christian. Burrell has been among the most consistent creators in the art. So Peter took good models, though his playing betrays no stifling influences but rather displays a welcome freshness. His other influences were saxophonists John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Charlie Parker, and pianists McCoy Tyner, Bud Powell and Bill Evans. That's a good listening list!

Peter Leitch ("My name is actually pronounced leech, as in the familiar aquatic blood-feeding worm") receives exceptional support in this well cooked session from bassist Neil Swainson and drum master Mickey Roker. Swainson will be a new name to many. Says Peter, "Neil is not yet widely known, perhaps because he lives in Canada. But as good as he plays, everyone's going to know about him. He's right up there with today's great bassists - just ask Woody Shaw or George Shearing, with whom Neil has been heard both in Europe and the U.S."

Mickey Roker, from Miami, Florida, has been playing drums professionally for more than 30 years during which his employers have included Milt Jackson, Clifford Jordan, Sonny Rollins and Dizzy Gillespie. Now that Philly Joe Jones has gone, Mickey keeps alive that crisp, hard-driving style which Jones propagated among his disciples, of whom Roker is one of the best.

The programme for this set incorporates four works by some of the great jazz composers - Tadd Dameron, Tom Mclntosh, Wayne Shorter and Thelonious Monk. Peter, more so than any other jazz guitarist I can think of, has a particular feel for Thelonious’ compositions. On a previous album he presented three Monk tunes. There's only one this time around but it's worth waiting for.

Peter wrote his own commentary on the music and here it is: On A Misty Night is Tadd Dameron's portrait of a damp evening sometime after Labor Day (harmonic structure September In The Rain). This version uses the interlude, out chorus and coda from Dameron's 1961 large band arrangement (on Riverside). Great drumming by Mickey Roker on the out chorus.

No More/Detour Ahead: A medley of two bittersweet ballads which were sung by Billie Holiday. They are not as well known as they should be.

Fifty Up is a simple but tricky blues line. Fifty Up is a brand of Canadian ale. This piece was written for a drummer friend who quite enjoys this particular product. This is also dedicated to the late Pepper Adams who enjoyed this blues as well as the ale.

The Cup Bearers: A harmonically and structurally interesting composition by Tom Mclntosh, a somewhat underrated composer and trombonist who has written for Dizzy Gillespie, Blue Mitchell, James Moody and Art Farmer among others.

Witch Hunt is a Wayne Shorter composition whose modal harmony lends itself well to stretching out in trio format.

Crepescule With Nellie: I have an affinity for Monk's music, perhaps unlike any other guitarist. On this, I use the steel string acoustic guitar to bring out the inherent back-country blues feel that is in much of Monk's music - particularly his solo piano works.

Spring Is Here is a somewhat reharmonized, quasi-bossa version of the Richard Rodgers standard. I have been playing this arrangement for several years, but it was new to me at the time.

Duet: This piece was originally written as a duet for guitar and piano. As you will hear, it works well for bass and guitar. It has a great bass solo by Neil Swainson.

Serenata: A piece of music I remember hearing on the radio on Sunday afternoons from my childhood, although certainly at a slower tempo than we did it here."

Sonny Rollins's Airegin has long been one of my favorites. I really am glad this is being issued on the CD; there just wasn't room for it on the LP.

The above lucid descriptions contain no references to the cogent, controlled and coursing playing of Peter Leitch. Neither does he mention his unswerving commitment to the jazz guitar tradition which comes through strongly in his improvisations. At times, as on Detour Ahead, he achieves the purity of sound and clarity of line that we associate with Jimmy Raney (whose essential works of the 1980s are all to find on Criss Cross Jazz). And if its funky, dug-in bluesology you crave, cop Peter's groovy choruses on Fifty Up.

There are many other savouries in this collection, Peter's acute chordal sense being most apparent on the theme by Mclntosh. But Crepescule With Nellie is really something special - a strikingly different solo treatment of Thelonious’ amble with his lady, but it is foursquare in the Monk mood. The modality of Which Hunt never becomes a bore as Peter's diligent digits fly. I too heard Serenata on radio as a kid, but never imagined that this piece of grist for lightweight dance bands could sound so good as to make the proverbial silk purse.

This album will surely provide many listeners with a greater awareness of the substantial and singular talent of Peter Leitch. You'll find it rewarding to string along with him.”

Mark Gardner (Author: Jam Session) Faversham, February 1987.