Jim Hall & Art Farmer

Remembering Jim Hall

Jim Hall performs with the “Art Farmer Quartet” on TV during the 1960s.

Personnel:

Art Farmer, flugelhorn
Jim Hall, guitar
Steve Swallow, bass
Walter Perkins, drums

As a boy in Cleveland, James Hall was given a guitar for Christmas when he was ten and became infatuated with jazz after hearing Charlie Christian on a Benny Goodman record.

Jim went on to study piano composition at the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1955 and roughly a year later Moved to Los Angles where cool jazz had taken hold. At this point that he began to focus on classical guitar.

He gained attention while playing with Chico Hamilton’s Quintet the following year.

During the late ’50s he taught at the Lenox School of Jazz and performed with Ben Webster, Bill Evans, and Paul Desmond.

In 1997, Jim Hall won the “New York Jazz Critics Award” for Best Jazz Composer & Arranger.