Tal Farlow

Tal Farlow's technique has been a legend among guitarists: John McClaughlin, George Benson, Wes Montgomery and many others have cited Tal Farlow as one of their biggest influences. Tal Farlow recorded some of his most amazing solos in the 1950's and continued to innovate all the way until 1998 when he died.

Tal Farlow was also a master of jazz harmony. When playing live, you could see the interplay and humor between Tal and the other players (especially if Ray Brown was on Bass) - often stacking substitution upon substitution - always in a musical way.

The two solos here are from the This is Tal Farlow album which came out on CD in a japanese reissue. Tal was at his technical peak on this album as these solos demonstrate.

• All The Things You Are - This starts from the last 'A' of the melody where Tal plays an alternative melody he invented on the spot. This was the first recording of this song that I had ever heared, and it took me a while to realize that this was not the actual melody.
• Stella By Starlight - In this solo (and others), Tal plays melodic lines that easily span 3 octaves, which makes his solos very hard to sing, even though they are very melodic.