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Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar: World of
Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar: World of
Fingerstyle
Jazz Guitar
featuring
Martin Taylor, Jim Nichols,
Tommy Crook, Duck Baker & Woody Mann
The World of
Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar
3
Martin Taylor
Tommy Crook
During an appearance Chet Atkins made on “The
Tonight Show” in the early 1980s, Johnny Carson asked
Mr. Guitar if he knew of anyone who played as well or better
than he did. As guitarists around the country who were
watching held their breath, Atkins uttered the following
endorsement: “Yes Johnny. Tommy Crook in Tulsa,
Oklahoma.”
Watching Tommy Crook play the four classic jazz
standards included here, it’s easy to see why Atkins was
impressed by his mastery of the instrument. Playing a 1957
Gibson Switchmaster modified with two heavy gauge
strings tuned an octave below regular pitch, Crook often
sounds like a bass and guitar duo. His creative, fully
harmonized arrangements make full use of the fingerboard,
with pyrotechnic flourishes such as artificial harmonics that
push the range of the electric guitar further than Charlie
Christian ever dreamed of.
Music seems to come naturally to Crook, whose father
played guitar in a weekend square dance band. Around
1950 Crook began learning chords from his dad, who
eventually taught him his entire repertoire of old songs
from the 1930s and 40s. By the early 60s Crook was in
high school and had a band of his own with three other
budding musicians – David Gates, J.J. Cale, and Leon
Russell.
“We played a lot of supper clubs,” Crook says. He also
recalls the group playing as an opener for national acts at
the local roller skating rink.
Growing up in Tulsa, Crook heard plenty of Western
Swing music and undoubtedly learned a lick or two from
Eldon Shamblin, who spent many years with Bob Wills and
the Texas Playboys. Crook says he got serious about the
guitar when he heard Chet Atkins play “Countr y
Gentleman.”
“I probably wouldn’t be playing the guitar today if I
hadn’t heard Chet,” he says. “I knew then what I wanted to
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do with my life. Chet was my biggest influence.”
After a brief stint in college, Crook started playing
guitar regularly with older jazz musicians at local
nightclubs.
“All through the mid–1960s and 1970s I worked in
bands that had a rhythm section and a good piano player
who could read,” he says. “We played six nights a week,
ten to two.”
To supplement his income, Crook gave lessons and
worked at a music store before he landed a job as a factory
sales rep for Ampeg in 1968. Eventually he became
dissatisfied with music-related jobs and decided to dedicate
all his time and effort to the guitar. After performing in
several USO tours of Southeast Asia, Crook returned to
the local club scene only to find they could no longer afford
five- and six- piece groups. Fewer dollars meant finding
ways to get a bigger sound with fewer personnel.
“At that time there were no foot pedals for playing
bass,” Crook says. “I got the idea of putting heavier bass
strings on the guitar from Bob Wylie, who’s an inventor in
Wichita.”
With the bass notes covered, Crook worked as a duo
with a drummer before deciding he could make it as a solo
instrumentalist. In 1989 Crook released a self-titled album
recorded and produced by drummer David Teegarden. That
album, and the performances on this video, are the only
available recordings of Crook to date.
These days Crook teaches 20 guitar students a week,
he plays at a popular Tulsa nightspot four nights a week,
and he occasionally performs concerts if they’re not too
far from home. Over the years his repertoire has grown to
include many tunes outside the standard jazz songbook.
“I’m not just a jazz player – I love to play tunes,” Crook
says. “I like guitar music. I’ve never been much of a fan of
other instrumental music.”
Naturally, Crook enjoys listening to the great guitarists
who have inspired him and many others to dedicate
themselves to the instrument.
“I tr y to listen to just about everybody – Howard
Roberts, Johnny Smith, Tal Farlow, George Van Eps,” Crook
says. “I bought all their records. I’ve listened to everyone
from Bach to Bob Wills, and I’ve went to school on
everybody I could learn a lick from. “
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Jim Nichols
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Like most kids his age, he was interested in playing
electric rock and roll before his fancy turned to the acoustic
guitar and fingerpicking.
“I think playing in rock bands is the best way for a kid
to learn to play guitar,” Baker says. “You have all these
high-brow academic jazz courses for young people, but
you’ve gotta crawl before you can walk. If you can’t
effectively improvise a blues in E, how in the hell are you
going to play ‘Giant Steps’? I learned to play all the dopey
stuff 15 year-olds liked to play back then, like ‘Louie Louie.’
Buck Evans kicked my ass and said ‘this is shit you’re
listening to.’ He got me listening to Eddie Lang and Lonnie
Johnson. It was actually a logical step to go from playing
rock, to playing blues, to improvising on ‘Sweet Georgia
Brown.’ As I developed my solo thing, it was also logical
for me to arrange old tunes by Jelly Roll, with improvised
sections. I started doing that around age 17. Fortunately,
there are no recordings of me from that period.”
Baker’s version of “Back Home In Indiana” is a perfect
example of his approach to fingerpicking a jazz standard.
He plays the melody with a subtle swing feel against the
solid downbeat of an alternating bass. Once the melody is
established, Baker begins spinning variations of the melody
based on different chord forms while keeping the steady
bass in motion, much like a pianist or a horn player
improvising over a rhythm section.
“I’ve never understood why more guitar players don’t
do that,” Baker says. “When I met Pat Donohue, he had
exactly the same approach – play the melody and improvise
off the chords like a stride piano players does. Get the left
hand, or bass, locked in, and make up melodies and
variations with the right – it’s so much fun to do. I use
more of a folk approach to fingerpicking, which I think is
more appropriate for playing fingerstyle jazz guitar,
although it hasn’t been largely accepted by players in the
jazz world.”
In addition to saxophonist Benny Golson’s “Out Of The
Past,” Baker also performs “Forty Ton Parachute” by
Scottish fingerpicker Davey Graham. Baker met Graham
in 1978 during a gig at a London club called The
Roundhouse. Baker and Graham were among the five guitar
players on the bill.
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“Davey played that tune and I fell in love with it, and I
got him to show it to me,” Baker says. ”I like it because
it’s not an obvious melody line for guitar. The writing on
that tune was very much influenced by pianists like Bobby
Timmons and Horace Silver. Davey just played it through,
he didn’t improvise, but I don’t see why not. I asked him
why he named it ‘Forty Ton Parachute,’ and he said that
the title came to him while he and a friend were watching
the end of the lunar mission on TV and he was so impressed
with the parachute that brought the forty ton space capsule
down into the ocean. It’s also interesting that it’s written
by a Scotsman. Chet Atkins and Merle Travis fans love it
because they think it sounds like Jerry Reed.”
Bakers’ many solo guitar records and videos, including
two recent projects on the music of Thelonious Monk and
Herby Nichols, allude to his vast knowledge and insatiable
appetite for popular music and culture.
“My interest was always in all kinds of American
music,” Baker says. “Even when I was listening to Jelly
Roll Morton and Scott Joplin in the mid–sixties, along with
all the rock and blues music of the period, I also heard
Monk, and then I got into free jazz. I still like listening to all
of it. I don’t go along with the notion that jazz is in an ivory
tower, that it’s ‘America’s classical music.’ That kind of
connotation smacks of cultural insecurity.”
Good answer.
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Woody Mann
Tommy Crook
(Recorded in Tulsa, OK 1997.Directed by Gary Don Rhodes)
Lullaby Of Birdland 3:35
by G. Shearing
All The Things You Are 3:20
by Oscar Hammerstein & Jerome Kern
It Had To Be You 4:30
by Isham Jones & Gus Kahn
Wave 4:40
by Antonio Carlos Jobim
Jim Nichols
(Recorded in Lexington, KY 1997. Directed by Pat Kirtley)
They Can't Take That Away From Me 4:20
by George Gershwin
East Of The Sun 3:48
by Brooks Bowman
A Taste Of Honey 5:32
by Rick Marlow & Bobby Scott
Here's That Rainy Day 3:34
by James Van Hensen & Johnny Burke
Duck Baker
(Recorded at the Freight & Salvage, Berkeley, CA 1997. Directed by Jesse Block)
Back Home In Indiana 3:30
by Sam Levine
Forty Ton Parachute 2:53
by Davey Graham
Out Of The Past 3:30
by Benny Golson
Seven Point one 2:25
by Duck Baker
Woody Mann
(Recorded in Lexington, KY 1997. Directed by Pat Kirtley)
Mr. Guitar 2:04
by Woody Mann
Uptown Tales 3:00
by Woody Mann
Gypsy Girl 3:00
by Woody Mann
Cat Burglar 3:40
by Woody Mann
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Martin Taylor Records by Charlie Byrd, Lenny Breau, George
Shining Stockings Van Eps, Laurindo Almieda, and Joe Pass have
set a very high standard for solo fingerstyle jazz
My Funny Valentine guitar, and it is from this vantage point that
Just Squeeze Me the solo flights of Taylor, Crook, Nichols, Baker,
Tommy Crook and Mann take wing. Each player has
developed a distinctly different approach to
Melody Of Birdland interpreting and writing jazz for solo guitar by
All The Things You Are listening intently to numerous other musicians
It Had To Be You and composers – pianists, horn players,
bassists, and singers as well as many guitarists
Wave in jazz, blues and other styles. What
Jim Nichols distinguishes them from more traditional jazz
Can't Take That Away From Me guitarists (who more or less function as a linear
voice in an ensemble) is their ability to play
East Of The Sun (or imply) all aspects of the music – rhythm,
Taste Of Honey chords, bass, and melody – without
Here's That Rainy Day accompaniment. Their performances not only
demonstrate their technical brilliance and
Duck Baker imagination, they are a testament to the
Back Home In Indiana enduring power and beauty of jazz guitar in its
Forty Ton Parachute current evolution as a major instrumental force
in American music.
Out Of The Past
Seven Point one
Woody Mann
Mr. Guitar
Uptown Tales
Gypsy Girl
Cat Burglar
Vestapol 13064
Running time: 77 minutes • Color ISBN: 1-57940-972-5
Cover photos by Anna Grossman
Nationally distributed by Rounder Records,
One Camp Street, Cambridge, MA 02140
Representation to Music Stores by
Mel Bay Publications
© 2003 Vestapol Productions
A division of
Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop, Inc. 0 1 1 6 7 1 30649 0