Jimmy Bruno has played guitar with some of the all time greats, including Frank Sinatra, Barbara Streisand and Elvis Presley. He makes even the most daunting techniques accessible to anyone who wants to learn. Jimmy covers II/V/I progressions, changing chord colors, training hands and ears to work together, natural picking techniques, adding bass lines to chords and much more. No nonsense-just great jazz guitar!
This reissue of Fusion and Thesis, the two albums the new Jimmy Giuffre 3 made in 1961, prior to their breakthrough and breakup in 1962, is nothing short of a revelation musically. Originally produced by Creed Taylor, who was still respectable back then, the two LPs have been complete remixed and remastered by ECM proprietor and chief producer Manfred Eicher and Jean Philippe Allard and contain complete material from both sessions resulting in one new track on Fusion and three more on Thesis.
Jazz guitar legend Jimmy Bruno has launched an online jazz guitar video instruction website. “After almost a year of planning and development, and many weeks of testing, the Jimmy Bruno Guitar Institute is now open for enrollments.” The lessons are geared towards guitarists of all levels: jazz guitar students, jazz guitar teachers, professional guitarists, rock guitarists and fusion guitarists, through a series of instructional videos featuring Jimmy Bruno.
The closely affiliated Black Saint and Soul Note labels were established in the 1970s by Italian jazz lover Giacomo Pellicciotti, and together they released some of the most forward-thinking jazz recordings on the market during their four decades of independent existence (both labels were acquired by another company in 2008). In 2011, the labels' new owner began releasing a series of budget-priced box sets documenting the complete output of particular artists, each individual disc housed in an LP-style cardboard sleeve. This one features four albums by reedman and noted avant-cool composer Jimmy Giuffre. The box offers three albums (Dragonfly, Quasar, and Liquid Dancers) by the Jimmy Giuffre 4, which included keyboardist Pete Levin, bassist Bob Nieske, and drummer Randy Kaye.
Jimmy Giuffre may not have gotten his due with American audiences outside very specific kinds of jazz circles, but he was loved and respected by other musicians and the audiences of Europe and Asia. His reputation among those groups of listeners and players is well deserved for the radical, if quiet and unassuming path he walked throughout his seven-decade career. These sides, recorded between 1956 and 1959 with guitarist Jim Hall, his most symbiotic collaborator and foil, are at the heart of his reputation as a pioneer – even more so than his killer early-'60s sides (à la Free Fall) with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow.
Features 24 bit digital remastering. Comes with a description. On this interesting LP, Four Brothers Sound refers to the four overdubbed tenor saxes Giuffre uses throughout the session. The effect is similar to that achieved by Bill Evans on his similar effort, Conversations With Myself. The chief differences between the two might be this: where Evans layered wholly different improvisational lines to the same changes, Giuffre generally sticks to ensemble work. Also, Evans was the only performer on his set, while pianist Bob Brookmeyer and guitarist Jim Hall join Giuffre on several cuts.
This unusual two-CD set not only reissues the original LP of the same name but three other rare Verve LP's from the 1950's. Altoist Lee Konitz (on "An Image") is showcased during a set of adventurous Bill Russo arrangements for an orchestra and strings in 1958, pops up on half of Ralph Burns' underrated 1951 classic Free Forms (the most enjoyable of the four sets) and meets up with baritonist Jimmy Giuffre, whose arrangements for five saxes (including the great tenor Warne Marsh) and a trio led by pianist Bill Evans are sometimes equally influenced by classical music and bop.