LOS ANGELES: Influential jazz guitarist Jim Hall, who recorded with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Sonny Rollins in a career spanning over half a century, died Tuesday aged 83, media reports said. Hall, who began as part of the West Coast jazz scene in the 1950s and had been active until shortly before his death, passed away in his sleep in New York, Jazz Times reported. It described Hall, whose birthday was last week, as “prolific, adventurous and greatly admired,” saying he “changed the role of the guitar in jazz.” He died after a short illness, it said.
He was born in New York state into a musical family, and took up the guitar aged 10, studying at the Cleveland Institute of Music before moving to Los Angeles.–AFP