True Fire and Muse Eek Publishing Team Up to Present “Bruce Arnold's Jazz Guitar Summit NYC” Handpicked Insights from Jazz Masters

Among the plethora of great guitarists, it is the rare one who can also communicate ideas and techniques. But these were exactly the kinds of musicians that guitarist and educator Bruce Arnold gathered at his annual Summer Guitar Intensives in New York City. He knew that the students would pay more attention if they knew that their teachers were not just giving them great information, but that they were also monster players. So he chose very carefully and created an environment for learning that truly was a Summit. When the educational video company True Fire learned of this project, they offered to videotape selected lessons, and the result is Bruce Arnold's Jazz Guitar Summit NYC, a course of almost 9 hours of enlightening demonstrations, and a cross section of what some of the best guitarists around were fascinated by within that juncture of time, as well.

Interestingly, the artists involved were not all specifically known as jazz players. For example. Sheryl Bailey has a solid reputation for her no holds barred rock and roll sound, and Dusan Bogdanovic is a formidable, touring classical guitarist. Yet all of these musicians had something valuable to add to the vocabulary of jazz, and they do so with clarity and precision. (And it should also be mentioned that this is also a gender neutral gathering; all choices were made on quality and content with no old boy network in sight!)

Each player has his or her own particular item to teach, and the curriculum is extensive. Scales, modes, reharmonization, improvisation, comping and playing technique are only some of the subjects covered. In particular the sessions with Dusan Bogdanovic, Leni Stern and Brad Shepik shed light on how to play and adapt African and Balkan polyrhythms to jazz, a subject of increasing interest these days. As Bruce puts it "no matter what genre you are interested in, from jazz to classical to world music, you will find something here to chew on. I'm proud of this course. It is full of fascinating ideas that are just waiting to be explored. I think that after learning all that you think you can from it, you will return to it maybe years later and realize there was something you didn't quite catch, or maybe were not ready for. And now you are."

This summit of distinguished faculty includes: Bruce Bartlett, Sheryl Bailey, Roni Ben-Hur, Dusan Bogdanovic, Gene Ess, Mimi Fox, Jane Getter, John Hart, Randy Johnston, Peter Leitch, Peter McCann, Brad Shepik, Leni Stern, Kenny Wessel, Jack WIlkins and of course, Bruce Arnold.

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