Jim Hall
Marriage and management makes master jazz guitarist Jim Hall a doubly qualified member of the Lushlife family — John’s wife, Devra Hall Levy is not only Jim’s daughter but also his manager.
Jim is an adventurous spirit who strives to live in the moment and thrives on exploring new musical frontiers. We congratulated him on his 2004 NEA Jazz Masters Award and applauded the successful launch of jimhallmusic.com powered by ArtistShare – which embraces a brand new model that enables artists to maintain control over and ownership of their own creations by communicating directly with the audience online.
If you’d like to know more about Jim Hall, check out the video documentary Jim Hall: A Life in Progress (see the description and review below), and don’t forget to visit his web site and check out his ArtistShare projects.
JIM HALL: A Life in Progress
1998 Color/B&W 60 Min. $19.95
Cat. No. 9042 UPC No. 7 45475 90423 0
Produced and Directed by Bruce Ricker
Edited by David W. Mester
Written by Devra Hall
Executive Producers: Jane Hall and John Snyder
Featuring the Jim Hall Trio (Jim Hall, Scott Colley and Terry Clarke, accompanied by string and brass ensembles). Guest artists: Tom Harrell, Joe Lovano, Pat Metheny, Greg Osby
Interviewees: Chico Hamilton, Nat Hentoff, John Lewis
A Rhapsody Films production available on DVD from ejazzlines
“Jazz is full of exceedingly strange people, but the guitarist Jim Hall isn’t one of them. Indeed, the lasting impression of Mr. Hall after this documentary ends is of a mild-mannered, curious Midwesterner in his 60’s who is admired by his colleagues because he is so certifiably sane. (‘I want to be like him when I grow up,’ says the fully-grown saxophonist Greg Osby, when asked to sum up Mr. Hall at one point in the film)
The film, by Bruce Ricker, benefits from good timing: Mr. Hall is now going through a creative burst. He has suddenly discovered an affinity for writing arrangements, and he has been releasing a slew of albums, showing off his expanded visions, with brass and string sections and guest soloists. The film’s contemporary segments center on the recording of Mr. Hall’s most recent album, ‘By Arrangement,’ and because it involves some of Mr. Hall’s friends (including the saxophonist Joe Lovano, the guitarist Pat Metheny and Mr. Osby), it manages to lead some of jazz’s more important figures into excited assessments of Mr. Hall’s accomplishments.
Outside of the recording studio, Mr. Hall narrates his own life, with film footage of him playing with Jimmy Giuffre, Chico Hamilton, Sonny Rollins and other performers, as well as glimpses of Mr. Hall’s domestic life with his wife and daughter. As he talks, he’s measured in his self-assessment, and wryly funny; he’s a reliable guide to his own career, and the film lets him tell most of the story.”
— Ben Ratliff, THE NEW YORK TIMES