Jim Hall

Jim Hall, born in Buffalo, and educated at the Cleveland Institute of Music, moved to Los Angeles where he began to attract national, and then international, attention in the late 1950s. By 1960 Jim had arrived in New York to work with Sonny Rollins and Art Farmer, among others. His live and recorded collaborations with Bill Evans, Paul Desmond, and Ron Carter, are legendary.

Not only is Jim Hall one of the jazz world's favorite guitarists, but he has also earned critical acclaim for his skills as a composer and arranger. The first formal recognition came in 1997, when Jim won the New York Jazz Critics Circle Award for Best Jazz Composer/Arranger. His pieces for string, brass, and vocal ensembles can be heard on his "Textures" and "By Arrangement" recordings. His original composition, "Quartet Plus Four," a piece for jazz quartet augmented by the Zapolski string quartet, was debuted in Denmark during the concert and ceremony where he was awarded the coveted Jazzpar Prize, and later released on CD.

His most recent large-scale composition was a concerto for guitar and orchestra, commissioned by Towson University in Maryland for The First World Guitar Congress®, which was debuted in June 2004 with the Baltimore Symphony. The title of the work, “Peace Movement,” is indicative of Jim’s desire to contribute to world peace through his music. He views music as a way of bonding people together and crossing barriers, be they barriers of geography, ideology, religion, or other discriminations. In accepting the NEA Jazz Masters Fellowship award in January 2004, he said, “The women and men who have received this award in the past have spread peace and love throughout the world, something that governments might emulate. I am pleased to be one of the peacemakers.”

In addition to the recent focus on orchestral and choral composition, Jim remains active as a player, working and recording with a variety of ensembles all around the world. In addition to working with his trio, Jim likes to spice up the mix with various guests. From time to time you might hear Joe Lovano, Greg Osby, the New York Voices, Kenny Barron, Pat Metheny, Slide Hampton, and others, working for a night or two with Jim's groups. In fact, several of these guests can be heard on a live recording titled "Panorama.” On occasion, these alliances lead to more intensive collaborative projects such as the “Jim Hall & Basses” recording featuring Scott Colley, Charlie Haden, Dave Holland, George Mraz, and Christian McBride, and the "duets" project with Pat Metheny.

Bill Evans: Duos With Jim Hall & Trios '64 & '65 Revisited

by Chris May
November 12, 2023

Although the evidence is circumstantial, it is more than possible that Bill Evans' collaborations with Jim Hall came about through proximity to George Russell. Even Alan Douglas, the producer of the duo's first album, did not claim credit for the liaison; and Douglas, who the same year brought together Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus and Max Roach, was not shy about coming forward with similar (questionable) claims. Evans was the first to meet Russell when, in late 1955, ...

Reassessing

The Easy Way

by Richard J Salvucci
February 21, 2023

It is fair to wonder how Jimmy Giuffre would be remembered had he not gone off on to the wilder shores of atonality, collective improvisation, and free jazz with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow in the early 1960s. It is easy to forget that Giuffre was regarded as a rising star, both as a multi-instrumentalist (he played tenor and baritone sax; clarinet was apparently a double for him) and a composer, in the 1950s. Yes, mentioned in the same breath ...

Building a Jazz Library

Joe Henderson, Bill Evans, Jim Hall: Buried Treasure from Germany's MPS Label

by Chris May
February 9, 2022

Between its founding in 1968 and sale in 1983, the original incarnation of the recently revived German label MPS—the initials stand for Musik Produktion Schwarzwald (Music Production Black Forest)—notched up around five hundred releases. Some were recorded in the US by American musicians, many more were recorded in Europe and featured bands made up of European musicians and touring or temporarily resident Americans. In the late 1960s and 1970s, the label was an important part of continental Europe's jazz scene. ...

Multiple Reviews

CTI on BGO

by Jakob Baekgaard
October 17, 2018

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." The echo of Charles Dickens' famous novel A Tale of Two Cities is suitable to describe the climate of jazz when Creed Taylor launched CTI. It was 1970 and acoustic jazz was in crisis. Following the invasion of rock, it had survived by becoming electric, but the question was if jazz didn't get lost in translation? To Taylor the mission was simple. He wanted to bring jazz into ...

Interview

Jim Hall: Live, Now and Then

by Bob Kenselaar
December 16, 2013

[ This interview was originally published on July 16, 2013. ] Widely acknowledged as one of the most influential guitarists in modern jazz, Jim Hall has had an extraordinary musical career that spans more than half a century. His style is marked not by soaring speed or virtuoso technique but by his explorative artistry in improvisation, his solos' beautiful melodic and harmonic construction and his warm and rich tone. His discography includes more than three dozen ...

Jazz Poetry

The Answer is Jim

by William DeLancey Adamson
December 11, 2013

The freshening breeze slides off the shadowed slope past the warming land the sand the sapphire bay then smacks the spinnaker with its surging power and suddenly we're flying! through the spray and fiery sun down to Aruba with you Jim on your music Oh I can't get started any more it's no use when I heard your name on the radio today my ...

Extended Analysis

The Jim Hall Quartet: Live at Birdland

by Victor Verney
January 9, 2013

Guitarist Jim Hall, now in his eighth decade, continues to be a vigorous performer, fresh-minded arranger and creative composer. He's been around so long, and done so much, that it's humbling to try writing something fresh about him: there is little to say that hasn't already been said, and in many cases quite eloquently. A Google search turns up a lengthy list of well-chosen adjectives: subtle, fluid, daring, poetic, empathetic, graceful, economical, experimental, intuitive, inquisitive. Many reviewers ...

Video / DVD

A Tribute to Paul Desmond and Jim Hall

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
January 20, 2023

Between 1959 and 1965, alto saxophonist Paul Desmond and guitarist Jim Hall (both above) recorded six quartet albums together that are still among jazz's most elegant small-group recordings. These albums are First Place Again (recorded in 1959), Easy Living (1963-'65), Take Ten (1963), Glad to Be Unhappy (1964), Bossa Antigua (1964) and Desmond Blue (1962), which featured Desmond and Hall framed by a larger group. Their first album was on Warner Bros., produced by Bob Prince, and the rest were ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jim Hall

Source: Michael Ricci
December 4, 2022

All About Jazz is celebrating Jim Hall's birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jim Hall

Source: Michael Ricci
December 4, 2021

All About Jazz is celebrating Jim Hall's birthday today!

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jim Hall

Source: Michael Ricci
December 4, 2020

All About Jazz is celebrating Jim Hall's birthday today!

TV / Film

Documentary: Jim Hall

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
December 11, 2019

Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jim Hall

Source: Michael Ricci
December 4, 2019

All About Jazz is celebrating Jim Hall's birthday today!

Place our Musician of the ...
read more

Video / DVD

Six Videos of Jim Hall

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
August 9, 2019

As with Bill Evans, I often crave Jim Hall in the middle of my work day. I love his song introductions that start with a riff or hook that flowers into the song itself. And I love Jim's accompaniment and jagged solos, bending notes and making chords ring. Here are six Jim Hall videos I watched yesterday: Here's My Kinda Love with Art Farmer on flugelhorn, Steve Swallow on bass and and Walter Perkins on drums, on Ralph J. Gleason's ...
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Video / DVD

Playing Like Jim Hall

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
May 17, 2019

Guitarist Jim Hall had a way with notes. His improvisational style often involved taking a song apart and reassembling it in jagged pieces. He enjoyed the dissonances as much as the resolutions, and below it all was the most swinging, seductive rhythm. Jim was a huge inspiration for many guitarists and still is. Here are seven guitarists playing Jim Hall transcriptions: Here's Michael Shepherd playing Jim's intro to I've Got You Under My Skin on his Intermodulation album with with ...
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Interview

Jane Hall: Song in My Heart

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers
February 6, 2019

Jane Hall's first and only album, With a Song in My Heart, was released in 2017. The album was recorded in the 1980s as a gift to her husband, the great jazz guitarist Jim Hall. I first heard about the recording a couple of weeks ago, when Devra Hall Levy, Jim and Jane's daughter, told me about it. It's gorgeous—with Jane's breathy, child-like Blossom Dearie phrasing and Ed Bickert's sublime framing and chord voicings. The album is wonderful on several ...
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Birthday

Jazz Musician of the Day: Jim Hall

Source: Michael Ricci
December 4, 2018

All About Jazz is celebrating Jim Hall's birthday today!

Place our Musician of the ...
read more

Mr. Hall has a technique equivalent to that of any classical guitar soloist and an electronics kit that could out-tech any rock 'n' roller, but his music is strictly jazz. — Will Friedwald, The New York Sun

...Hall and his colleagues - bassist Scott Colley and drummer Lewis Nash - have developed a level of rapport second to none...The superb interplay made it hard to believe this music was being created on the spot, without the benefit of a written score... the three openly exchanged ideas in one poetic dialogue after another... — Chuck Obuchowski, The Hartford Courant

"His intensely intimate music gets under your skin rather than grabbing you by the lapels....Mr. Hall has a sound as recognizable as the voice of a friend. His floating, fine-grained tone is smooth and edgeless, his wide-spaced harmonies subtly oblique." — Terry Teachout, Wall Street Journal

"Jim Hall is the reigning master of the jazz guitar. This poetic player says more with fewer notes than any living improviser." — The New Yorker

"A master of understatement, Hall is one of jazz's most respected improvisers, an artist who wields his guitar like a paintbrush, shaping and shading each note to achieve just the right hue and texture. Modest and soft-spoken, he has inspired two generations of jazz musicians with his vast harmonic knowledge and restless musical curiosity." — Andrew Gilbert, San Jose Mercury News

"His work speaks as much to the human condiction as any artist past or present, and if one looks and listens attentively, there are great rewards to be found there." — Victor Magnani, All About Jazz

"Mr. Hall's dry-toned guitar playing with its discrete, deliberate notes and sliding chords works like a bluesy telegraph signal." — Ben Ratliff, The New York Times

"Since 1955, Hall, jazz' most lyrical and harmonically fertile guitarist, has jousted with top jazz stars like Ella Fitzgerald and Sonny Rollins. And his approach has shaped a younger generation of guitar heroes, from Metheny to Bill Frisell." — Gene Santoro, New York Daily News

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Jim Hall

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