Fats Waller’s great tune is the second tune on my Solo Jazz Guitar Standards, Vol. 1 disc.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/schlegel8

Thomas “Fats” Waller and Art Tatum were great friends.  Waller is the author of the famous (infamous?) quote referring to Tatum as “God”.  One night while gigging in a nightclub Waller was informed Tatum had just showed up.  Said Waller to the audience, “I only play piano, but tonight God is in the house.”  Legend has it that Tatum was the only pianist to which Waller would surrender the keys!

And Waller could easily stand on his own as one of the giants of jazz piano.  This is one of his most well-known pieces.  It has a really beautiful chromatic climb in the harmonic structure of the melody, which is also echoed by the smaller melodic chord tone climb in the bridge.  It has one of those melancholy but satisfied melodies that perfectly matches the lyric.

I hope to do other Waller tunes in future collections (“Honeysuckle Rose” & “Jitterbug Waltz” come to mind).  But I thought it was a fine idea to start with one of his best known for this first volume. 

Finally, here is a vid of me playing the tune at that outdoor arts fest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frH1kfz1nr0

Enjoy!

The first tune on my Solo Jazz Guitar Standards, Vol. 1 disc is Gershwin’s “I Got Rhythm”. Who could ask for anything more? :)

http://cdbaby.com/cd/schlegel8

I did a lesson for Gibson using part of this tune to explain jazz guitar:

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Lessons/InstrumentLessons/Jazz-Guitar-Chord-Style-621/

In that video you can see the mental process that goes into my arrangement of the tune. In these videos you can see me trying out a couple more ideas in a live setting. I played the tune two times at this gig, once at the end of each set.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ4yWVWtojA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxA2xW8FE30

Gershwin’s tune is the quintessential tune for a jazz cat to learn the craft, to woodshed. charlie Parker and all the other jazz shredders honed their chops by soloing over Gershwin’s legendary tune. In fact, the chord changes in the bridge of “I Got Rhythm” are so fundamental to jazz and jazz improvisation that they are known as “Rhythm changes”. And every jazz player is expected to know and be able to competently solo over “Rhythm Changes”. It’s just a simple circle of fifths motion back to the home key (III – VI – II – V – I). But Gershwin’s song is the gold standard by which jazz musicians “measure” it! Enjoy!

I am going to post about my latest CD track by track. But first I want to provide a general overview of the project.

http://cdbaby.com/cd/schlegel8

Ever since I was a little kid I’ve loved these songs. I remember hearing them in my parent’s and grandparent’s homes. I remember hearing them in movie musicals. I remember loving the scene in “An American In Paris” in which Gene Kelly dances for the kids while singing Gerswhin’s “I Got Rhythm”. I remember loving the way Ella Fitzgerald’s voice sounds when I heard her on Duke’s “Mood Indigo”. I remember loving Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” everytime it came on TV or the radio announcing the beginning of a hockey broadcast!

After becoming obsessed with the idea of a totally solo performance career, I soon discovered there are really only two genres that fully support this approach: classical and jazz.

I’ve done classical and will continue to do it in the future. I’ve play jazz since I was a teenager. I’ve played in big band ensembles, small groups, in orchestra pits for Broadway musicals. But I’ve never done a jazz CD.

For the last decade I’ve been listening to Joe Pass and Art Tatum. I’ve come to regard these giants as the epitome of what the solo instrumentalist can accomplish in jazz. I’ve also enjoyed George Van Eps and Johnny Smith. And, even though it is not jazz, the constant presence of Beethoven’s piano sonatas in my life has added to the wealth of ideas in which I’ve been immersed as I built my skills and repertoire as a solo artist.

For the last decade I’ve been writing and arranging pieces for solo guitar. In 2007 Gibson-Epiphone gave me the Joe Pass model Emperor guitar. Since then I’ve been recording demos of myself playing tunes from the Great American Songbook. I’ve got over 140 of them on my studio computer!

This year I finally arrived at ten tunes that had a good arrangement and I was pleased with the performance I captured. And the result is Solo Jazz Guitar Standards, Vol. 1.

What about the other 130? You’ll see ten more of them on volume 2.

This is the biggest update of the year so far.  Maybe the biggest one to happen all year!

Gibson.com posted my latest in depth jazz lesson:

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Lessons/InstrumentLessons/Jazz-Guitar-Chord-Style-621/

It’s an 11 minute-plus mini course on chord melody!

Next week is the Summer NAMM show.  I am looking forward to it!  I’ll be trying to catch up with current contacts, make new ones and pass out CDs.  This one:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/schlegel8

My CD release this year!  As promised a long time ago, volume one of my solo jazz guitar standards collection.  I will get more into the specifics of this disc in future updates.  For now I am just excited to say it is officially released!

Happy viewing & listening!

Christopher Schlegel

In 1993 I purchased my first PC with a music MIDI sequencing program; an Atari 1040STE and Cubase.  I used it primarily to write my original orchestral music.  I also used it to make backing tacks for various studios; small home project studios, singer-songwriters, and even medium-sized professional studios.

But I also immediately used it to make backing tracks for guitar students.  Using a metronome is an absolutely essential tool in developing music skill.  But many students found it very boring.  A great solution was to provide a consistent, objective time keeping reference in the form of backing tracks.

It was and remains a great tool that encouraged, rather than discouraged music students to practice.

With that in mind I recently put another product up on my CDBaby CD page.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/schlegel7

The idea was to take the most popular of my hundreds of backing tracks and make them available for purchase. 

From the CD description page:

“This CD has 24 professional studio backing tracks of bass guitar and drums playing a sequence of 12 bar blues in all 12 musical keys at two different tempos; slow at 80 BPM and fast at 120 BPM.  Perfect for instrumental practicing rhythm, lead soloing, playing along with and over I-IV-V chord changes in all 12 keys.  Perfect for music student lessons, rehearsal, and project studio use.”

If you are a guitar student or teacher, check it out!

My latest guitar vid is up on my You Tube channel.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLjNwcZDbRM

And also picked up by Gibson here.

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Lessons/InstrumentLessons/Joe-Pass-Style-Blues-512/

Notice that on their Lesson homepage they’ve also given me a Full Course link (goes to my “St. Louis Blues” lesson).

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Lessons/

I have another, more in depth, jazz lesson I am working on for them right now.  Stay tuned!  I am also trying to get them to issue me an Artist pass for the Summer NAMM show.  I will be going anyway, thanks to GuitarTricks, but I’d love to have a full Gibson access pass also.  Obviously.

In other news, GuitarTricks has built up quite a few vids and views on the new web channel.

http://www.guitartricks.com/channel/

Happy viewing!

The Gibson Guitar company website picked up my “St. Louis Blues” video lesson and embedded it on their lesson pages.  It has been in rotation as a featured Lesson Of The Day.

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Lessons/InstrumentLessons/Learn-St-Louis-Blues-320/

Gibson originally gave me the guitar to do a series of video lessons on an “Introduction To Jazz Style Guitar”.

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/Lessons/InstrumentLessons/Introduction%20To%20Jazz%20Style%20Gui/

This is one in series of 9 lessons I did for them back in 2008.

It was good to hear from their of online content manager that he thought highly of my jazz performance vids and wanted to use more of my jazz lessons in the future!  Toward that goal I’ve made my next YouTube vid
another bit of extracted lesson footage.  This time up is the old Turner Layton standard “After You’ve Gone”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTme6JzlLwU

Enjoy!

I recently did a series of video lessons on the various types of guitar necks and fretboard.

I used four of my Strat-style electric guitars for the project.  While I had them all sitting out close together I took a couple of pictures.  They are typically scattered throughout the house.  Or several are in various rooms and several others are in cases.  Or without strings.  Or partly disassembled for repairs, etc.

From left to right:

1.  Black Strat with 1972 extremely scalloped neck.  The body is from another unknown Fender Strat.

2.  Series 10 Strat-style copy with a fretless neck.  I got this from Nick at Troll Music (www.trollmusic.com) years ago and ripped the frets out.

3.  Cheap Strat-style copy I’ve had since 1983.  This guitar has been through the proverbial mill.  Several times.  It started off yellow-cream colored with cheap-o pickups.  I put Dimarzio HS-3s in it and slightly scalloped the neck.  A few years later I replaced the pot metal bridge and vibrato block with a nice heavy Fender gold-plated steel one I got from a used guitar parts store.  It sounds and plays astonishingly well for a cheap copy Strat.  I painted it gold about 10 years ago.

4.  The red 1979 Strat.  My main guitar now for the last 20-plus years.  HS-3s, jumbo frets, stock Fender A neck (slim profile and extra curved radius!).  It’s beautiful machine!

Pictues of some of my other tools (guitars, etc.) are located here:

www.truthagainsttheworld.com/files/Tools/

Enjoy!

Christopher Schlegel Update 11-21-2008

Guitar Tricks has officially launched it’s new design! It’s looks great. The admin is still working out a few bugs, which is typical of a new launch. All of the instructors (me included) are working on redoing all our video lessons in HD (High Definition) video standard. Check out the new design. If you sign up for a free account you can even see some of my newly HD rendered vids for free!

http://www.guitartricks.com

I’ve uploaded more footage from the Arts Festival this past Sept. This time it’s Richard Rodgers’ “Have You Met Miss Jones?”, in which it is quite apparent how much I admire Joe Pass. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3aRbG9DpnM

Next is my decidedly non-real-jazz-musician version of Thelonious Monk’s “Blue Monk”. Geez, I even play it in A major. Instead of B-flat like a “real jazz cat” ought to. I had fun with it anyway. And no one was hurt.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYjOZw1ff5g

Happy viewing and listening!

I had a great time at the Arts Around the Square Fest in Paris, TN. It was a beautiful day and I traded 30 minute sets on the main stage with a singer-guitarist and his keyboardist. We took turns playing for 3 hours, so I played for about an hour and a half total.

I have lots of video footage thanks to my friend Logan Grathwell who sat out in the crowd at the picnic benches and pointed the camera at me. Thanks, Logan!

I will be editing and rendering the raw footage a little at a time. First up is Duke’s luscious “Satin Doll”:

Next is Irving Berlin’s lovely “Blue Skies”:

I have decent footage from 16 tunes that I will edit, render and upload to my YouTube page over time:

http://www.youtube.com/user/ChristopherSchlegel

Happy viewing and listening!