I'd like to learn jazz guitar

[john]

Can anyone recommend a good starting point? I've been playing guitar for more than twenty years and I still haven't got round to it.

I figured I'd ask and see if anyone had any pointers...

[Gang_Lu]

I'm still learning that myself, but a good start is to learn more complicated chords like min and maj 7ths and so one. Also, if you haven't learned modes, might be a good time to. Since you've been playing for so long you could probably grab a couple books and figure it out. I would also scour the web. I found a couple sites here and there that helped.

[Rudi]

Well Im no jazz player, but I have learned a few tunes that I can improvise over. Miles's `So What', Coltrane's `Love Supreme' etc.

Chords are an obvious place to start. Im reasonably sure that the `charts' these guys wrote out were modes based on chord substitutions. -

At the simplest level something like a mixalydian mode for a major key works very well.

This is nothing more than a major scale with a dropped 7th. So a G mixalydian scale uses an F for its 7th instead of an F sharp. An easy cheat way to do this is to play the scale of the chord a 5th above. So play the scale of C to get the right notes for G mixalydian.

For ballads though, Im not aware of any short cuts. Get them chord charts out!

Good luck - have fun