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Mick Goodrick

Mick Goodrick is a renown guitarist and educator, has recorded and performed internationally for the past 40 years with other world famous musicians such as Gary Burton, Pat Metheny, Charlie Haden, John Scofield, Jack DeJohnette, Paul Motian, Dewey Redman, John Abercrombie, Dave Liebman, Joe Diorio and Steve Swallow, to name a few. Mick is renowned for both his harmonic command of the guitar and his prowess as an influential teacher. He is author of the book known among players as the “guitarist's bible” entitled, The Advancing Guitarist (Hal Leonard Publications). He is author of the three volume series, Mr. Goodchord's Almanac of Guitar Voice-Leading for the Year 2001 and Beyond, co-author with his business partner Mitch Haupers of the rhythm-training book entitled, Factorial Rhythm: For All Instruments, now in its second edition, and composer/arranger/author of four new books awaiting production through Mr. Goodchord Publications, including a book of solo compositions for fingerstyle guitar.

Mick Goodrick: In Pas(s)ing

Read "In Pas(s)ing" reviewed by Jack Kenny

by Jack Kenny
July 10, 2026

Let us start with the recording itself. For this album the quality of the recording is as important as the playing. It was made at Talent Studio in Oslo by Jan Erik Kongshaug--and is typically in the style of ECM Records: spacious, detailed, each instrument given room to breathe without being isolated from its neighbor. But here it genuinely enhances the music's atmosphere. The recording never feels artificially distant; instead, it amplifies the sense that the quartet is improvising inside ...

Album Review

Mick Goodrick: In Pas(s)ing

Read "In Pas(s)ing" reviewed by Frank Housh

by Frank Housh
July 9, 2026

In Pas(s)ing, originally released in 1979, was Mick Goodrick's first and last ECM Records recording as a leader. Indeed, aside from an appearance on Charlie Haden's recording of ECM's musical manifesto The Battle Of The Fallen (1983) by the Liberation Music Orchestra, Goodrick never again appeared on an ECM recording. In Pas(s)ing will be re-issued July 10, 2026 as part of ECM's Luminessence series.The album's title is a homonym, referring to the title song and “Pasing," the name of the street and district of Munich ...

Album Review

Mick Goodrick & Fred Hersch: Feebles, Fables And Ferns

Read "Feebles, Fables And Ferns" reviewed by Jack Kenny

by Jack Kenny
June 22, 2026

Recorded in Fred Hersch's New York studio in August 1988, Feebles, Fables and Ferns captures a rare, one-time meeting between two luminaries who were both active in Boston at the time. That it has taken nearly four decades to reach the public is a question the music itself seems to answer: this is not the kind of recording that announces itself. It simply waits, patient and self-possessed. Notorious for shunning the limelight,Mick Goodrick--spent the bulk of his career as a ...

Album Review

Mick Goodrick & Fred Hersch: Feebles, Fables And Ferns

Read "Feebles, Fables And Ferns" reviewed by Neil Duggan

by Neil Duggan
June 5, 2026

Feebles, Fables and Ferns captures a rare duo session between guitarist Mick Goodrick and pianist Fred Hersch. Recorded in August 1988 at Hersch's studio in New York, the album provides an intimate display of the superbly matched improvisational skills of two musicians in full flight. During his career, Goodrick perfected the art of avoiding the spotlight, even when collaborating with artists such as John Surman, Charlie Haden and Gary Burton. He was not prolific as a composer or ...

Album Review

Jack DeJohnette: Sorcery

by Rob Garratt
September 18, 2023

Which Jack DeJohnette is best known? The subtle sticksmith at the heart of Keith Jarrett's Standards Trio, perhaps? Probably the heavyweight hitter driving electric-era Miles Davis' '70s sonic brew. Maybe the percussive upstart propelling Charles Lloyd to crossover flower-power fame? Or even the fearless bandleader behind the ever-thrilling Special Edition band ... At age 81, DeJohnette can (still) fairly claim to be the most in-demand jazz drummer on the planet. But even the most studious acolyte ...

Album Review

Jack DeJohnette: Sorcery

by Scott Gudell
August 7, 2023

Jack DeJohnette gets around. The Chicago born drummer was drawn to R&B and bebop in the late 1950s and eventually toyed with a more avant-garde jazz sound when he spent some time with the esoteric Sun Ra. It seems like DeJohnette played in the big leagues almost from the beginning since, by the time he moved to New York City in the mid-1960s, he was teaming up with other monsters of jazz such as Keith Jarrett and Charles Lloyd. Several ...

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Interview

Master Guitarists Wolfgang Muthspiel and Mick Goodrick Interviewed at AAJ...And More!

Source: All About Jazz
June 22, 2010

When guitarists Wolfgang Muthspiel and Mick Goodrick walked up to the stage on January 30th, 2008, they were not only preparing to record a live album for Muthspiel's Material Records label, they were celebrating a musical and personal relationship that stretches back more than two decades. First meeting at the New England Conservatory, where Muthspiel studied under the Goodrick's tutelage, these two iconic players have continued to work together as duo partners over the years, with 2010's Live at the ...
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Recording

Mick Goodrick/Wolfgang Muthspiel Duo Release "Live at the Jazz Standard"

Source: Michael Ricci
April 9, 2010

"Mick Goodrick and Wolfgang Muthspiel have given us a map of the world on the guitar. The guitar fretboard is vexing terrain. Unlike the piano fingerboard, which proceeds with relentless logic from the lowest note on the left to the highest on the right, the fretboard has a geometry all its own.

Exploring the possibilities of the guitar involves endless stumbling into cul-de-sacs; combinations and series of notes easily realized on the piano simply can't be done, but there are ...
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