I found a video clip on YouTube of a short pre-concert talk that I gave last year during a solo tour of the UK.

This is a topic that I've covered a lot in Video Exchanges here on ArtistWorks, but I thought you may be interested to watch this condensed version of how I approach solo jazz guitar improvisation.

Here's the link... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31pHidEBdk4

In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a new feature around town: Messaging. This comes as a special request from our online students to add more community features so we hope you enjoy communicating with each other! Messaging is going to open the doors for new conversations and connections with like minded ArtistWorks musicians around the world. Talk about the lessons, talk about the music, talk about whatever you want!

Please note: this is a still a “beta” version of Messaging. 

We’ll be rolling out another version with added features soon, but let us know how you like this one first. Please send any feedback or questions to our Customer Service Team and be sure to tell us your Operating System and browser please. You can also email any feedback to info@artistworks.com. Have fun!

How to Send a Message:

On the Dashboard and Community below the Shout area you can now see who’s online.

Click on the green Chat button next to someone’s name to send them a message. You can have multiple one to one Messages at the same time, and you can always minimize the windows if you just want to focus on one at a time.

You’ll see if you have any new messages near the top of the page with a little number telling you many unread there are. If you’d rather not be visible for other students to contact you, just choose the Invisible feature by clicking the Settings icon and choosing Privacy.

Now see who’s online and give Messaging a try!

It is with a very heavy heart that I must pass on the sad news that the jazz guitar world has lost another guitar great John Abercrombie.

John Laird Abercrombie, a supremely eloquent and lyrical player whose career over the last four decades included seminal jazz fusion music and eminently refined ECM albums alike, died Tuesday of heart failure. He was 72.

John had had health problems in recent years, including a stroke earlier this year. John died peacefully after a long illness at Hudson Valley Hospital outside of Peekskill, N.Y., in the presence of his family.

Born in Port Chester in Westchester County, New York in 1944, Abercrombie did not begin playing guitar until he was 14. A few years later, in 1962, he attended the Berklee College of Music. His breakthrough album was the 1975 ECM disc Timeless, which featured him with drummer Jack De Johnette and keyboardist Jan Hammer. Abercrombie would record more than 30 records as a leader, the bulk of which were on ECM, including this year’s album Up and Coming, which featured him with his latest working band, which included pianist Marc Copland, bassist Drew Gress and drummer Joey Baron.

Pianist Copland, who played with Abercrombie off and on for almost 50 years, wrote me in an email Tuesday night: “To my mind John was his generation’s Jim Hall.