Artist: Jim Hall

Jim Hall was an American jazz guitarist, composer  and arranger. 

He began playing the guitar at the age of 10. At 13 he heard Charlie Christian play on a Benny Goodman record, which he calls his "spiritual awakening". Hall's major influences since childhood were tenor saxophonists Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Paul Gonsalves, and Lucky Thompson. While he copied out solos by Charlie Christian, and later Barney Kessel, it was horn players from whom he took the lead. In 1955, Hall attended the Cleveland Institute of Music, where he majored in composition, studying piano and bass in addition to theory. 

In 1956, Hall moved to Los Angeles, where he studied classical guitar with Vicente Gómez. In 1955 and 1956, Hall played in Chico Hamilton's quintet, a group associated with the cool jazz movements. Hall left Hamilton's group to join another cool jazz ensemble, the Jimmy Giuffre Three, and he worked on and off with Giuffre from 1957 to 1960.

Hall toured during the late 1950s with Jazz at the Philharmonic and worked around this time in Los Angeles with Ben Webster, appearing on Ben Webster at the Renaissance (recorded in 1960). In 1959, he recorded the first of six albums as a featured soloist with Paul Desmond. In 1960, Hall toured and recorded with Ella Fitzgerald in Europe. 

Hall moved to New York City around 1960 and began performing with band leaders including Lee Konitz (1960–61), Sonny Rollins (1961–62, 1964), and Art Farmer (1962–64). He formed a studio partnership with Bill Evans during this time, appearing on four albums with Evans from 1962 to 1966. 

Hall also worked as a studio guitarist for commercial recording dates during the early and mid-1960s. As a freelance studio musician, he appeared on albums by singers Big Joe Turner, Johnny Hartman, June Christy, Big Miller, and Freda Payne, as well as on commercially-oriented orchestral pop and jazz albums by Quincy Jones, Lalo Schifrin, Oliver Nelson, and Gary McFarland.