If you've been biting at the bit to learn jazz guitar but have found all of the courses you've tried too thick with theory, too many exercises, or too overwhelming with information - you are not alone. For every player that has learned to play jazz guitar using traditional methodology, there are thousands who threw their hands up in frustration and put the material back in their bookcase. That's the bad news.

The good news? At last, in 1-2-3 Jazz, Frank Vignola presents an intuitive approach for learning how to play jazz guitar without a trace of theory, no tedious exercises and no long drawn out hyperbole about modes, altered chords and similar rocket science.

In fact, this approach is also exactly how the original jazz cats learned their jazz guitar trade; with their ears, a few chords, a few rhythms, and a few techniques for jazzing up a tune's melody. Whether you're a late beginner, advanced rocker, master bluesman or singer-songwriter, Frank Vignola's 1-2-3 Jazz will get you up and running faster than you could possibly imagine. Guaranteed.

Video Introduction

Click below for a sample video from the course

About the Guitar Lesson Plan

Interactive Video Guitar Instruction

Vignola's approach is simple and highly effective. First he'll teach you just three movable chords; a major 7th, minor 7th and a dominant 9th. These three chords alone will power you through hundreds of jazz standards and progressions.

Rhythm guitar and comping is next; Frank demonstrates and walks you through just three jazz rhythms: a swing, the Charleston and a Latin rhythm. Again, thousands of jazz tunes are played with these three jazz rhythms.

You'll then learn the rhythm guitar parts for six popular jazz standards; Ja Da, Bill Bailey, April Showers, Georgia On My Mind, Avalon and St. Louis Blues. Play-alongs for each tune assure that you'll nail the timing, rhythms and jazz feel for each part.

Finally, Vignola shows you how to learn a melody and then "jazz it up" using just three embellishments. You'll learn the melodies for all six standards and then learn how to solo over the tunes' progressions by simply jazzing up their respective melodies using Frank's three techniques.

Learn these three chords, three rhythms, three ways to jazz up melodies and you'll be well on your way to playing the rhythm parts, melodies and blowing solos for hundreds of jazz standards.

Frank provides tab and standard notation for everything but urges you to use your ears to get the melodies, rhythms and embellishments in your head. Do that and you're home free.

About Your Instructor

Frank Vignola

Frank Vignola is one of the most extraordinary guitarists performing before the public today. His stunning virtuosity has made him the guitarist of choice for many of the world's top musicians, including Ringo Starr, Madonna, Donald Fagen, Wynton Marsalis, Tommy Emmanuel, the Boston Pops, the New York Pops, and guitar legend Les Paul, who named Vignola to his "Five Most Admired Guitar List" for the Wall Street Journal. Vignola's jaw-dropping technique explains why the New York Times deemed him "one of the brightest...stars of the guitar".

Born on suburban Long Island on December 30, 1965, Vignola was raised in the New York area. The Italian-American started playing the guitar at the age of six and grew up admiring a variety of guitarists. Far from a jazz snob, Vignola never listened to jazz exclusively and was also a major fan of classical, rock, R&B, and pop. The guitarists that he admires range from Django and Les Paul to rock icons like Frank Zappa and Eddie Van Halen.

As a young adult, Vignola studied at the Cultural Arts Center of Long Island and went on to enjoy an enormous amount of sideman gigs in the 1980s including recording and touring with the likes of Madonna, Leon Redbone, Ringo Starr as well as coming into his own as a leader in 1988 with his famed Hot Club of France tribute which was hailed in the NY Times as one of the top ten acts in New York City in 1988 and forged the way for the many Django Hot Club groups that followed. The New Yorker was 27 when, in 1993, he signed with Concord Jazz and recorded his first Concord session as a leader, Appel Direct. Many more Concord releases followed in the 1990s as well as 3 releases for the Telarc label as co-leader of the group Travelin' Light.

The early 2000's found Vignola recording a solo guitar CD for Acoustic Disc as well as performing regularly with guitarist, Les Paul. This also marked the time that Frank began working with record producer Joel Dorn as well as making featured appearances on Atlantic, Sony and Warner Brothers Records with the likes of Donald Fagen, Queen Latifah, Mark O Connor and Wynton Marsalis. He also recorded a collection of Gershwin pieces for Mel Bay Records titled, "Vignola Plays Gershwin" which was number 2 in NPR radio airplay charts. In recent years, Vignola has recorded two important collaborative CD's, "Just Between Frets" with Tommy Emmanuel on Solid Air Records and "Frank-N-Dawg, Melody Monsters" with mandolinist David Grisman on Acoustic Disc Records.

Frank has written 18 guitar instruction books for Mel Bay Publications and has recorded 6 TrueFire courses. He has performed hundreds of clinics and masterclasses at major universities and colleges throughout the world including Julliard and Boston University. Currently, Vignola is touring worldwide.