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Thank you, Scot, for this book mention. This is a must have and read! And there's the second part which people also rave about.
@Willie are you referring to the chord melody pieces I play in the guitar demos? Most of those are from the Unaccompanied Django book:
No, I have never studied Tal Farlow’s style.
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@MichaelHorowitz Yes, I meant the chord melodies. Funny, I was quite sure. But maybe Tal Farlow studied Django Reinhardt's style.
Just read in the german wikipedia article about Tal Farlow, that his improvisations were not based on scales but on chords, an approach similar to gypsy jazz.
I read that a lot of jazz greats used chordal approach to soloing, including Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery, addressing chord tones rather than scales and modes. I'm not a historian here but if anything it all came from New Orleans, Lois Armstrong his contemporaries. Which was also what Django was influenced by in the very beginning of his jazz playing.
Not much to say about technique, but I recall seeing Tal Farlow (a concert with Charlie Byrd and Herb Ellis, preserved on a Vastapol video "Great Guitars of Jazz"), and what I recall (aside from his playing, which was lovely) was how big his hands looked. I know that he favored short-scale guitars, but even so it looked like he could cover half the fingerboard without shifting position. Big lanky guy.
Does anyone have some info about why Tal dropped from the scene and just stopped playing guitar? He certainly is a giant of jazz guitar.
I did some digging myself. I recall reading a Wiki page some years ago and my memory was it said he pretty much completely disappeared at the height of his game. Currently, his Wiki page makes it sound like he never left the jazz scene. Neither is quite the case. He did leave the scene but he didn't stop playing either. He would still play a local gig occasionally and teach at the local music store. Apparently he simply preferred a slow pace of life and wanted piece and quiet. After the release of the documentary about him in '81, he actually returned to touring for a while but got tired of again. But then he played that show which Russell mentioned in '97, a year before he died. The doc is supposed to be free to watch on Amazon prime.
"His large, quick hands earned him the nickname 'The Octopus' ". (Wikipedia)
his improvisations were not based on scales but on chords, an approach similar to gypsy jazz.
I remember an interview in Guitarplayer where Tal said he thought mainly in shapes on the guitar neck. He gave an example of a diminished phrase he played over dominant chords and moved down one fret or up two over a cycle of 5ths (as in the B section of rhythm changes).
I guess the approach of associating sounds and shapes on the neck is indeed similar to what many gj greats do.
Does anyone have some info about why Tal dropped from the scene and just stopped playing guitar?
Tal said in an interview that he went back to his old profession for a while when he chose to live by the sea after moving east from California:
"Sea Bright was close to New York and, during the '60's, when interest in jazz had waned, I was able to go back to sign painting,''
Reminiscent of Django painting in Samois.