This month I’m joined by one of the UK’s finest jazz guitarists, Prof Chris Allard.

Chris is known primarily a contemporary jazz guitarist, but is at home in a variety of genres. He has recorded seven original albums to date, garnering critical acclaim including four star reviews in Jazzwise, Jazz Journal, Guitarist and BBC Music magazines. Chris has also appeared on many other recordings and concerts in collaborative projects and as a session musician.

He has performed at the Royal Albert Hall, the Pyramids and Great Sphinx in Cairo, the Barbican, Montreux Jazz Festival, Nuremberg Festival, the O2 Arena London, Midem Festival (Cannes), Friends of Jordan Festival, The Queen Elizabeth Hall, Beiteddine Arts Festival (Lebanon), Edinburgh Festival, Emirates Palace Auditorium (Abu Dhabi), Duoro Jazz Festival (Portugal), Spring of Culture Festival (Bahrain), The BBC Proms in Hyde Park, Ronnie Scott’s, The Royal Festival Hall and many other venues. 

Chris has performed/recorded with Jacqui Dankworth MBE, Charlie Wood, Dame Cleo Laine, Sir John Dankworth, Omar Kamal, the BBC Big Band, Jamie Cullum, Gwilym Simcock, Alison Balsom OBE, Lea Salonga, Russell Watson, Tim Garland,  Il Divo, Mike Walker, Ken Peplowski, Tom Richards, Sheridan Smith, Paul Booth, Steve Waterman, and many others.

He is a Professor of Jazz at the Guildhall  School of Music and Drama, where he is currently completing a doctorate in contemporary jazz guitar.

During this workshop Chris will be looking at some simple reharmonisation techniques to get interesting new sounds and chord changes into your playing, which are applicable in live situations, and also in composition and arranging.

In the workshop we’ll be focusing on two classic jazz standards - Night and Day, and Goodbye (by Gordon Jenkins).

This will be practical class, not just a theory lesson, so please make sure you have your instrument ready to play.

Everyone is muted in the class, so you are welcome to play along as much as you like, or just tune in and observe. Either is fine. There is also a Q&A session at the end of the class.

The workshop lasts approx 1hr and starts at 10:30am

If you are not already a VIP member, you can get a free invitation to the class by signing up for a no-commitment 14-day FREE trial, which gives you access to everything on the site, including over 100 hours of lessons and courses.

​If you can’t make the live session a video recording of the class will be available in the lesson vault.