NAMM Yamaha Show: Jamie Cullum, Bob James, Nathan East, and Chris Gero perform at NAMM 2015, held in Nashville, Tennessee at the end of January.

“For many of his fans, Bob James is to jazz what James Brown is to R&B — the music and the musician go hand in hand.” (NPR Music) From his early years touring with Sarah Vaughan to founding smooth jazz supergroup Fourplay, U-M alumnus Bob James has explored a vast stretch of musical territory. A leading force in 1970s crossover jazz, the keyboardist, composer, and producer played an essential role on a series of hit records and has had a profound effect on the history of hip-hop music, with two of his songs among the most sampled in hip-hop history. James’s most recent album, Quartette Humaine, was recorded a month after Dave Brubeck’s death and pays tribute to the iconic pianist. His long-awaited homecoming will feature concert materials drawn from James’s extensive songbook, including tunes from his CTI Records catalog and Dave Brubeck compositions. A UMS debut.

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Happy 4th of July!

Check out this Official Video for Nathan East’s “America the Beautiful”…

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One of the most important things in Jazz Guitar is being able to improvise. To pull off a good solo, you need to know which key and scales work with the backing chords. What can be confusing when learning jazz guitar is that there are a variety of patterns and locations to play the same scale. It’s important to know the most efficient way of finding the right notes for the desired key from anywhere on the neck as you move around.

The way to do this is to learn the geography of the fretboard and understand how the notes relate to each other – which brings us to what Chuck Loeb refers to throughout his jazz guitar lessons as “The 6 Positions.”

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Presenting the title track from the forthcoming Chuck Loeb album

“Silhouette”

Available

August 2013

Follow Chuck

www.chuckloeb.com

Twitter: @chuckloeb

Fourplay performing “Sonnymoon” in Leverkusner, Germany (2012)