Vintage

On the Challenges of Learning Jazz Guitar

On the piano, middle C is always the same white key near the middle of the keyboard. There's only one place to play that note on the piano. On the guitar, there are three or four different places to play any given note in the same octave. With only a split second to find that note during your solo, which middle-C do you choose?

This month at Trees we featured two orginal compositions by Blue Morris, "Blues for Carly" and "The Blonde On My Tail."

I spent months trying to persuade Carly to sing "Blues for Carly," which I wrote for her. You just have to hear it to understand her reluctance. It was well worth it! She sings it so well, now she's just going to have to sing it again! You can download it below. It's hilarious!

• Blues for Carly (MP3; 6.5MB) Written by Blue Morris
• The Blonde on My Tail (MP3; 4.2MB) Written by Blue Morris
• Give Me a Kiss to Build a Dream On (MP3; 5.4MB)
• Why Don't You Do Right? (MP3; 3.9MB)
• 'Deed I Do (MP3; 6.7MB) Blue talks about jazz & committment
• I Could Write a Book (MP3; 3.4MB)
• Willow Weep for Me (MP3; 4.7MB)
• Blue's Finale (MP3; 6.9MB) Blue leaves the stage for part of this jam to dance with some sweetie in the crowd.
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What a fantastic night! Jim of the Pacific Blues Cooperative asked us to "play with ass." Nick and Greg played like they haven't had sex in 10 years. Boy did they sound hungry! Carly was perfect that night. She has such a great voice for the blues. And Alex Kelley is great to work with. He feeds me so many ideas I can incorporate into my rhythm playing.

Below are the free MP3 samples, as promised.

Blue Morris

I have to say, everyone who came out that night was just fantastic. I've never played for such an enthusiastic audience before and it really made a difference in how we played. An audience's attitude really affects a musician's performance, especially when playing improvised music like jazz. An improvisation is a direct expression of what's going on in the musician's mind at that very moment. The music then feeds off the energy in the room.