Sad to hear my good friend Mundell Lowe passed a couple of days ago in San Diego.

Mudell and I worked together many times since the 1980's both in Europe and the US.

He was a wonderful jazz guitarist, a highly talented composer for TV and film, and was also a real gentleman.

Here's the tribute from the Jazz Times on Mundell... a true jazz guitar great....

I'm absolutely delighted that my new guitar the 'Joya' is now available.

We've been inundated with orders since the launch last week, and quite overwhelmed by the positive response.

Guitarist Magazine gave a rave review calling the guitar "A stunner"

If you'd like to find out more about the guitar you can get the full technical specifications along with videos at https://martintaylorguitars.com/

We've just had a fabulous time at the Martin Taylor Guitar Retreat Scotland 2017 which we held at the Lands of Loyal House, a beautiful country house in Perthshire.

It was really great to see so many ArtistWorks students at the retreat, and quite a few of the guitarists said they're going to be joining us here soon on ArtistWorks.

More guitar retreats are planned for 2018 in California (January), Italy (June), New York (August) and Scotland (October)

I'm looking forward to teaming up again with my jazz guitar buddy Ulf Wakenius for three nights in Copenhagen and the famous Montmartre Jazzhuis on Oct 5th, 6th & 7th.

Ulf and I will also be touring our 'Legacy' guitar duo in December in Bangkok, Singapore, Macau, Hong Kongs, and Tokyo and in the UK in March 2018.

For more tour dates and information go to www.martintaylor.com

This weekend I will be celebrating the music of Django Reinhardt with three concerts with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra under the musical direction of Tommy Smith.

We'll be playing new arrangements specially commissioned for these concerts, recreating those wonderful iconic big band recordings that Django recorded in Paris in the 1940's.

The Martin Taylor Guitar Retreat New York 2017 was another amazing success. This is the 4th year we've held the retreat at the Full Moon Resort, Big Indian, NY, and this year was probably the best yet. It was good to see we had five ArtistWorks students there, and I was assisted by my guest teachers Laurence Juber, Scott Perry, Jim Cunningham (Guitar Repair & Maintenance), Alison Burns (Vocal Coach) and James Taylor (Music Business and Creativity)

I've just spent four fantastic days at the Full Moon Resort, Big Indian, NY, holding my annual guitar retreat in the Catskill Mountains.

Robben Ford was also holding his Dojo Guitar Camp at the same venue, so it was great to catch up with Robben and his co-teacher Jeff McErlain.

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.

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

It is with deep sadness that we hear of the passing of our fellow ArtistWorks teacher Chuck Loeb.

Chuck was a great jazz guitarist and music educator, who gave us so much music, and passed his incredible musical knowledge on to his many students worldwide.

Chuck and I first met in 1978 in London at Ronnie Scott's Club. Chuck was in the Stan Getz group and I was in the house band.