hypersongs

Jim Hall

A jazz guitarist from Buffalo and Cleveland who played with Chico Hamilton, the Jimmy Giuffre 3 and Sonny Rollins, and made the duo album Undercurrent (1962) with Bill Evans, ending with Skating in Central Park.

Cleveland, Chico Hamilton and Giuffre

James Stanley Hall was born in Buffalo on December 4, 1930 and grew up mostly in Cleveland. He started guitar at ten, a Christmas gift from his mother, a pianist, and at thirteen heard Charlie Christian with Benny Goodman, which he called his spiritual awakening. Tenor saxophonists, among them Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Paul Gonsalves and Lucky Thompson, were major influences; he told the Times in 1990 that tenor saxophonists really influenced the way he played. He studied composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music, graduating in 1955, and classical guitar in Los Angeles with Vicente Gomez.

In 1955 and 1956 he was an original member of the Chico Hamilton Quintet, a cool-jazz group without piano, and in 1956 moved to Los Angeles, playing with the Jimmy Giuffre 3, a group without drums or piano, from 1956 to 1959 or 1957 to 1960 depending on source. His first album as leader was Jazz Guitar (Pacific Jazz, 1957). He taught at the Lenox School of Jazz in Massachusetts in 1959, where John Lewis was director and where he met Bill Evans, and made the first of six albums with Paul Desmond that year. In July 1959 he played on John Lewis's score for Odds Against Tomorrow.

Rollins, Evans and the duos

In 1960 and 1961 he toured and recorded with Ella Fitzgerald in Europe, and from 1961 to 1962 played in Sonny Rollins's quartet, appearing on The Bridge (1962); from 1962 to 1964 he co-led a quartet with Art Farmer. Undercurrent, with Bill Evans, was made in April and May 1962; their reunion Intermodulation was recorded on April 7 and May 10, 1966 at Van Gelder Studio, produced by Creed Taylor, 32:22. He led a trio with Tommy Flanagan and Ron Carter from 1962, with Red Mitchell replacing Carter in 1965, and played in the Merv Griffin Show studio band from 1963 before leaving to lead his own groups.

His later records include It's Nice to Be with You (1969, MPS), Alone Together with Ron Carter (Milestone, 1972 or 1973), Concierto (CTI, 1975, with Paul Desmond and Chet Baker), Power of Three (1986, Blue Note, with Michel Petrucciani and Wayne Shorter), the Telarc albums of the 1990s including Jim Hall and Pat Metheny (1999), Magic Meeting (ArtistShare, 2004 or 2005), Hemispheres (2008) and Conversations with Joey Baron (2010). He won the Jazzpar Prize in 1998, was the first modern jazz guitarist named an NEA Jazz Master, in 2004, and was made a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2006. He played Newport in 2013 with Julian Lage and at Jazz at Lincoln Center on November 23, 2013, and died on December 10, 2013, aged 83, in Manhattan. Pat Metheny said Jim was one of the most important improvising guitarists in jazz history, and he influenced Bill Frisell, who studied with him, John Scofield, Mick Goodrick and John Abercrombie. Posthumous releases include Charlie Haden and Jim Hall (Impulse!, 2014, recorded in 1990) and Live in London at Ronnie Scott's 1966 (2016).

Albums

  • Undercurrent 1962 · United Artists

    A duo album with Bill Evans: six pieces, no Evans originals, recorded in two sessions in 1962.

Songs

  • Skating in Central Park Undercurrent · 1962

    John Lewis's tune from the film Odds Against Tomorrow, played here as a duo by Bill Evans and Jim Hall.

Sources

  1. Jim Hall (musician), Wikipedia
  2. Jim Hall, guitarist who touched years of jazz, Boston Globe (2013-12-13)
  3. Jim Hall, Blue Note Records
  4. Intermodulation (album), Wikipedia