World of

Fingerstyle
Jazz Guitar
featuring
Martin Taylor, Jim Nichols,
Tommy Crook, Duck Baker & Woody Mann
 The World of
Fingerstyle Jazz Guitar

From the beginning, the guitar has played a central

role in the development and expression of jazz.Its evolution
as one of the music’s most ar ticulate and power ful
instruments could not have taken place without the taste
and precision of Eddie Lang, whose plectrum guitar work
with Joe Venuti and Bing Crosby in the 1920s and 30s
drafted the original musical blueprint for jazz guitar playing.
The simultaneous proliferation of phonograph records also
w a s c r u c i a l t o t h e p r o c e s s . L a n g ’s e a r l y r e c o r d s
undoubtedly provided the basic direction and vital
inspiration for guitarists such as Django Reinhardt, Oscar
2
Aleman and Charlie Christian, who in turn advanced the
evolution of jazz guitar by a quantum leap.
Records by Reinhardt (with the Quintet of the Hot Club
of France) and Christian (with the Benny Goodman Sextet)
beckoned to an entire generation of new American
guitarists such as Herb Ellis, Joe Pass, Barney Kessel, Tal
Farlow, Les Paul, Wes Montgomery and so many others
who contributed their remarkable creativity and expertise
to the instrument. Jazz guitar soon became a highly
sophisticated genre with a host of genial exponents.
The “vinyl tradition” of learning to play was now well-
established. Aspiring guitarists bought records by the artists
they admired, learned to play better by repeated listening
and practice, which helped them find their own voice on
the instrument and ultimately to perpetuate the evolution
of jazz guitar with their own new ideas, innovations and, of
course, new records.
The evolution continues today with Martin Taylor,
Tommy Crook, Jim Nichols, Duck Baker and Woody Mann.
Each player has developed a distinctly different approach
to interpreting and writing jazz for solo guitar by listening
intently to numerous other musicians and composers –
pianists, horn players, bassists, and singers as well as many
guitarists in jazz, blues and other styles. What distinguishes
them from more traditional jazz guitarists (who more or
less function as a linear voice in an ensemble) is their ability
to play (or imply) all aspects of the music – rhythm, chords,
bass, and melody – without accompaniment.
Records by Charlie Byrd, Lenny Breau, George Van
Eps, Laurindo Almieda, and Joe Pass have set a very high
standard for solo fingerstyle jazz guitar, and it is from this
vantage point that the solo flights of Taylor, Crook, Nichols,
Baker, and Mann take wing. Their performances not only
demonstrate their technical brilliance and imagination, they
are a testament to the enduring power and beauty of jazz
guitar in its current evolution as a major instrumental force
in American music.

3
 Martin Taylor

When Martin Taylor picks up a guitar, his intent is not

merely to play music. He wants to entertain, if not dazzle,
you. He doesn’t joke or prance on stage, but instead
channels all his wit and agility to the fingerboard, where
his fingers fly through dizzying passages and caress elegant
chords in ways that command the attention of anyone with
a pulse.
In addition to a series of outstanding solo albums and
videos beginning in 1984, Taylor has also made records
with jazz luminaries such as Buddy DeFranco and Stephane
Grappelli. In 1995 Taylor teamed up with mandolinist David
Grisman for a superb, all-acoustic recording of vintage jazz
tunes called “Tone Poems II,” and his latest outing features
Taylor in a trio with Ron Carter on bass and Max Roach on
drums (“The Three Bosses” on Tristan Records).
Taylor grew up in the English countryside of Essex,
about 30 miles outside of London. His father, William
4
“Buck” Taylor, was a jazz bassist who worked in a band on
weekends. Mr. Taylor also played the guitar, and he and
his musician friends would gather at the house and listen
to records by Django Reinhardt and the Quintet of the Hot
Club of France, and also Eddie Lang and Joe Venuti.
“That was the kind of guitar playing he really liked,”
Taylor says. “Those were the first things I ever heard.”
At age 4 his father gave him a red ukulele with a palm
tree painted on it, on which he learned to play chords. A
while later, his father presented him with his first guitar – a
battered relic with terrible action purchased at a local fair.
“It should have put me off for life,” Taylor says. “But I
loved it and loved playing it.”
By age 10, Taylor often accompanied his father to
wedding gigs and village dances, where he would play tunes
such as “Sweet Georgia Brown” as a novelty with the band.
At age 13, Taylor was the band’s regular guitarist.
Taylor says living close to the city was fortunate
because his father often took him to see jazz concerts, and
that he and his brother would often take the train into
London and hang around the music stores. Later his brother
turned him on to Jimi Hendrix and took him to see Hendrix
perform at the Albert Hall. Shortly thereafter, he also saw
Segovia give a solo concert. Taylor said that while both
concerts were night and day musically, they were oddly
s i m i l a r i n t h a t b o t h w e re u n f o r g e t t a b l e v i r t u o s o
performances that forever broadened his own musical
horizons.
“I’ve never restricted my appreciation of music to what
would fall into the category of jazz,” Taylor said. “I always
see myself first and foremost as a guitar player. It just
happens that I’ve always been in this sort of jazz tradition,
so I guess it’s accurate to call me a jazz musician. But I
see myself as a guitar player who plays jazz, as opposed
to a jazz musician who’s chosen the guitar as his
instrument.”
A major opportunity in Taylor’s professional career
beckoned in 1975, when he met Stephane Grappelli, the
brilliant French violinist who played on all the Django
records Taylor listened to as a youth. Ike Issacs was playing
guitar with Grappelli at the time, and he introduced Taylor
to Grappelli at a concert in London. Four years later,
Grappelli, who by this time was familiar with Taylor’s
5
6
reputation as a bright young talent, invited him to play a
series of concerts with him in France and Belgium.
Grappelli liked Taylor’s playing enough to ask him along
on the next tour. Their rapport was such that Taylor ended
up playing with Grappelli for 11 years.
“I was always very conscious of what a very special
thing it was to work with Stephane,” Taylor says. “Stephane
and Django were, really, the first European jazz musicians
who gave jazz a European voice and European sound. So
I really felt honored and fortunate to be with someone who
was such a big part of that.”
For those who find the notion of playing bass, chords
and melody at once mind boggling, the video opens with
Taylor’s demonstration of how he puts together the basic
elements of “I Got Rhythm” as a guitar solo. Many of
Taylor’s arrangements, including his version of “Shiny
Stockings” and Ellington’s “Squeeze Me,” seem to draw
more inspiration from pianists such as Art Tatum and Bill
Evans than from other jazz guitarists. However, transferring
piano concepts to the guitar isn’t exactly a verbatim
procedure.
“You can’t play on the guitar everything Art Tatum
played,” Taylor says. “What you can do on the guitar is
suggest a lot. That’s actually the whole idea of the guitar –
I suggest more than I really play, which has a lot to do with
how I voice things, and rhythmic things that I do that give
the impression of playing a whole lot more.”
Taylor’s Brazilian-flavored take on “My Funny
Valentine” is a good example of how a well-known standard
can be practically re-invented by arranging it in a different
groove. He says that although he rarely plays a tune exactly
the same way twice, each arrangement has a basic
structure that’s flexible.
“I’ve always enjoyed the arranging side of it, and so
just about every tune I play solo has some kind of an
arrangement as a framework,” Taylor says. “It’s not a strict
arrangement – I always like to have some kind of
introduction, and an ending, and a key change or a twist
in the middle. Of course, that doesn’t necessary mean that
I’ll play all that – it’s really like a bit of a safety net. I’ll
always remember what Stephane told me. We spent so
much time together, travelling together, we’d sit and talk
about everything from the weather to politics. Once we
7
were on a plane and he said ‘I’ll give you a bit of advice
about playing. It’s a piece of advice that Maurice Chevalier
gave me. He said ‘Start well, and end well, and the middle
will take care of itself.’ ”

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
8
9
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. “
10
 Jim Nichols

Jim Nichols is living proof that you don’t have to be a

child of the big city to become an outstanding jazz musician.
Born into a musical family, Nichols’ youth in rural Virginia
was filled with music practically from day one. Nichols’
father, a trombonist, toured with big bands led by Jimmy
Dorsey and Charlie Spivak, while his mother made a living
as a professional pianist.
His parents bought him a guitar at age 10, and it wasn’t
long before Nichols was woodshedding.
“I heard a Duane Eddy version of ‘Trambone’ by Chet
Atkins, and I thought it was the greatest,” Nichols says. “I
slowly figured out the thumb part and finger part. From
that day on I was a thumbpicking fool. “
Nichols began studying every old Chet Atkins records
he could get his hands on, and learned as many of Atkins’
fingerstyle solos by ear as best he could.
“Along the way I got a pretty good course in guitar
from those records,” Nichols says. “Chet has such a great
way of playing things like ‘Liza’ and ‘Heartaches.’ In my
middle teens I was also listening to the Ventures and Chuck
Berry, and my parents had some jazz records as well. As
they saw my interest grow, they started turning me on to
Django, Joe Pass, Charlie Christian, Oscar Peterson, and
Wes Montgomery. So I was exposed to pretty broad range
of music. Howard Roberts was one of the first jazz guitarists
I heard on the radio, those old quartet records of his. In
11
this little farm town where I lived, you could listen to Howard
Roberts playing ‘The Shadow of Your Smile.’ I thought it
was great.”
In high school, Nichols led a rock band called the
Silvertones. By the time he was 18, he was giging with
other area bands as well as with his father and brother,
John.
“Dad had his own group and played in a big band, so I
got a lot of valuable experience, doing some reading,
playing standards, and learning to play electric bass guitar,
too,” Nichols says. He continued working in and around
his hometown until 1972, when he and John Nichols
decided it was time to try make it as professional musicians
in California.
“The two choices were New York and Los Angeles,”
Nichols says. “We figured you could find a place to park in
L.A., and it didn’t snow there. We’d make the big jump
when we were young and strong, and if we bombed, we’d
come back home. We drove out there with all our stuff in
two cars. We were in Amarillo, in the parking lot of a hotel,
because we were too broke to stay in the hotel. There was
one little, pitiful piece of fried chicken left, and I looked at
my brother and said “What have we done?’ When we finally
got to L.A., we went to the musicians’ union and got a gig
right away. That lasted about 3 days, and it was really
horrible. We went to see our uncle in San Francisco, and
at that point we actually started to make a living playing
music.”
Nichols had made the right move. Not long afterward
he met Kenny Rankin, who was so impressed with Nichols’
playing that he featured him on his “Silver Morning” album.
Once word of Nichols’ talent began to spread, he found
himself working with accomplished jazz musicians such
a s A r t P e p p e r, B u d S h a n k , R e d H o l l o w a y, B u d d y
Montgomer y and Huber t Laws, making television
appearances on “The Tonight Show” and “Don Kirschner’s
Rock Concert,” and doing session work. In 1982 Nichols
married a talented vocalist who was teaching guitar at a
music store where he used to hang out. Jim and Morning
Nichols have since made three albums for Kamei
Recordings, and Nichols has recorded several solo albums,
including “Jazz & Country,” which was chosen as an
Editor’s Pick for 1996 in Guitar Player magazine.
12
 Nichols’ playing on “A Taste Of Honey” is an obvious
nod to Chet Atkins (who recorded a similar version many
years ago), where the rest of his program are time-honored
standards every jazz musician knows. His eloquent and
tasteful renderings of Gershwin’s “You Can’t Take That
Away From Me” and Jimmy Van Heusen’s “Here’s That
Rainy Day” show a thorough knowledge of harmony and
melodic structure, not to mention an impeccable technique.
“I play the melody and then I’m usually able to
accompany myself with a chord melody in any key,”
Nichols says. “But in the case of solo guitar, I pick a key
that’s sort of in the middle, so you have room to go down
the neck in the bass line, and go up the neck in the melody.
I tend to play the melody the same way, but there’s always
chord substitutes that you can play, depending on what
strikes you at that second – what grabs you. When you’re
playing alone, you’re free to do that. Solo guitar is like a
high wire act. You’re all alone and you have to make it
flow and be in the groove, and never sound like the bottom
fell out.”
13
 Duck Baker

A good question usually deserves a good answer. Ask

Duck Baker about “Seven Point One,” an original
composition included in this compilation, and he’ll probably
dismiss it as just another blues in E. But that’s just the
beginning of his reply.
“I think that most people don’t realize how amazingly
profound the twelve-bar structure is,” Baker says. “It’s the
great American form. Classical music is made up of long
and often unpredictable structures, where the twelve-bar
is the American equivalent of a haiku. I’ll listen to various
twelve-bar melody lines and I’m amazed at how that
structure works. Even Charlie Parker will have a feel like
Blind Lemon Jefferson. That’s deep.”
Baker’s musical education began in his teenage years
in Richmond, Virginia, where he befriended a ragtime piano
player named Buck Evans.
“Every year that goes by I’m more grateful that I met
this guy when I did,” Baker says. “He taught me so much
about American music and culture. He gave me the idea
that when you’re looking at music you’re looking at culture,
and that all things are related, not just country over here,
rockabilly over there, writers like Thomas Wolfe somewhere
else. He loaned me records by Louis Armstrong and Jelly
Roll Morton, and he basically let me know I was a middle
class fool who didn’t know a damn thing about music.”

14
 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.

15
 “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.

16
 Woody Mann

In a very real sense, the four original compositions

performed by Woody Mann mark the turning of a full
musical circle. A native of Long Island, New York, Mann
was 12 years-old when he met the Reverend Gary Davis, a
blind guitarist and preacher who set folk music enthusiasts
on their ear with his amazing fingerpicking and eclectic
repertoire in the early 1960s. Mann, who had studied the
clarinet, began taking guitar lessons from Davis, and the
two continued a close association until Davis’s death in
1972.
“I still have about 50 hours of my lessons with him on
tape,” Mann says. “I’d spend the whole day at his house. I
think because I was a kid, he was very patient with me. He
spent hours and hours teaching me to play. Yet one of the
things he always emphasized was to eventually play my
own music.”
Mann became intensely interested in early blues, and
had the good fortune to meet meet Nick Perls, the founder
of Yazoo Records, a small independent label that reissued
well-informed compilations of country blues recordings
from Perls own record collection. Mann listened, learned,
and wrote liner notes for some of the Yazoo albums. In
time he became a proficient acoustic bluesman, but his
musical journey was far from over.
“After Gary Davis died I basically lost interest in blues,”
Mann says. “I became interested in jazz, and then I met
Lenny Tristano. He became my mentor, which opened up
17
the whole world of music for me. For 10 years I played
only straight ahead jazz. I played with Atilla Zoller, and
studied as much as I could with Lenny. Like Davis, Lenny
was very big on finding original ideas and developing your
own style.”
Eventually the different musical elements of Mann’s
background began to connect. He returned to the acoustic
guitar, and began writing his own music and playing with
fingerpicker and visionary John Fahey.
“I felt it was finally time for me to play my own music,
rather than ‘here’s a Gary Davis tune’ or ‘here’s a jazz tune,“
Mann says. “My own music, that’s what I hear. Use whatever
influences you have, but try to find your own voice. To get
on stage and play a straight copy of a Robert Johnson
tune doesn’t work. I’d rather listen to the record.”
Three of Mann’s four originals – “Mr. Guitar,” “Gypsy
Girl,” and “Cat Burglar” – are also featured on Mann’s
“Stairwell Serenade” album on Acoustic Music Records.
All of the tunes for that record were written with a particular
guitarist in mind, more or less as tributes.
“I tried to think of all the guitarists who have greatly
inspired me – Gary Davis, Eddie Lang, Lonnie Johnson,
Joseph Spence – and I tried to write something that
emulates the feeling that makes their playing special,”
Mann says. “For me, it was like pulling together all these
bits and pieces I had floating around in my mind for years.
I’m very happy with that record. In a way it was very
cleansing for me.”
Mann attributes the inspiration for the stylish, vintage
jazz lines of “Mr. Guitar” to Eddie Lang.
“It’s not directly based on him, but I was trying to use
a little bit of jazz harmony while keeping a kind of bluesy
fingerpicking feel in it. The middle is just a three or four
chord improvisation, like a blues.”
“Uptown Tails,” from Mann’s “Heading Uptown” album
on Shanachie, was written in a tuning favored by Lonnie
Johnson.
“It’s a dropped D and G tuning I learned from his
records,” Mann says. “His creativity, tone, and swing, it’s
really inspiring – at least his instrumentals are to me.
They’re straight ahead blues, they’re fingerstyle, but they
have a very different voice. He was one of the first guitarists
I heard outside of the Blind Blake tradition who really made
18
it sound complete. I love his sense of improvisation – it
just works!”
Mann uses a low C and G tuning for “Gypsy Girl,” which
has a kind of Celtic melody but was also inspired, in part,
by a gypsy musicians he heard in Portugal. “Cat Burglar”
began years ago as just a riff in open G minor. Mann
originally recorded the tune with a tabla player for Takoma
Records, but the track was never released. Not one to let
an idea get away, Mann resurrected and reworked it for
“Stairwell Serenade,” and it closes the video.
The next record Mann wants to make will feature his
guitar in a jazz trio setting, although it’s a reasonably sure
bet that he won’t be cutting songs from any songbook other
than his own.
“That’s the whole thing in the jazz world, you’re solo
should be your solo,” he says. “It’s a journey.”
Jim Ohlschmidt
19
 Martin Taylor
(Recorded at the Manchester Craftmen’s Guild, Pittsburgh, PA. 1996. Directed by Jay Ashby)
Shiny Stockings 5:40
by Frank B. Foster
My Funny Valentine 5:00
by Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart
Just Squeeze Me 5:14
by Duke Ellington

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

20
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