American jazz guitarist Jim Hall, now aged over eighty, is one of the living legends performing at North Sea Jazz this year. In the early sixties, "the reigning master of the jazz guitar," as The New Yorker described him, played in bands with giants like Ella Fitzgerald, Bill Evans, Zoot Sims and Ben Webster. Today, his playing is regarded as very influential and Hall is mainly active as a composer. He prefers to play in a duo. At the North Sea Jazz Festival, he will be performing with the much younger bassist Scott Colley (48), who recently played with Herbie Hancock and who is known in the jazz world as the ideal sidekick. In recent years, Colley has been gaining a reputation in his own right. He has played on over 200 albums, including seven of his own.
