Group Lessons

Swing Guitar Workshop

McCabe’s is pleased to present a Swing Guitar Workshop with Greg Ruby
This two-hour workshop will deepen your understanding of swing guitar. Using
common repertoire to the genre, this hands-on experience will provide a solid
foundation for good chord voicings, rhythm guitar strumming patterns, pick
technique, melody playing and accompaniment practices. Participants should plan
to have fun while learning some of their favorite tunes. Handouts will be in
standard notation, tablature and with chord diagrams.
The first part of the class will focus on rhythm guitar accompaniment as you learn
the foundational elements of four to the bar, Freddie Green’s 2 and 3 note chord
system, Django’s La Pompe and Eddie Lang’s “active” accompaniment style. The
second part of the class will develop lead playing, melodic embellishments,
improvising with chord tones and adding a few hot licks to your vocabulary.
Open to all levels.

Greg Ruby Bio:
“Greg Ruby lives and breathes jazz guitar” states the Fretboard Journal. From
acoustic swing to jazz manouche to surf music, Ruby inhabits many musical forms
and brings his compositional voice to each of them.
He has taught at Django in June, DjangoFest NW, The Seattle Jazz Night School
and is the Guitar Week Coordinator for the Swannanoa Gathering. Ruby is a
contributing writer to Acoustic Guitar Magazine and has authored the Oscar
Alemán Play-Along Songbook Vol. 1 (2019), Frank D. Waldron: Seattle’s
Syncopated Classic (2018), and the Pearl Django Play-Along Songbook (2005).
Born in Toronto, Ruby’s early years were spent near Pittsburgh before moving to
the West Coast in the late 1990’s. On the forefront of the Django Reinhardt
renaissance, he co-founded the seminal group Hot Club Sandwich and later joined
Seattle’s Pearl Django. His rock-solid rhythm guitar work propelled the group
through multiple recordings and extensive touring – including their debut at the
Festival Django Reinhardt in Samois-sur-seine, France. With appearances at the
burgeoning west coast Django festivals, Ruby accompanied jazz guitar greats
Howard Alden, Patrick Saussois, Frank Vignola, Gonzalo Bergara and John
Jorgensen. By 2010, Ruby stepped out on his own and released Look Both Ways,
an album of all original compositions which Dan Hicks (of the Hot Licks) declared

“is a soundtrack in search of a movie.” The album reached #1 on the Roots Music
Review radio chart. Beginning in 2015, Ruby’s attention turned to the roots of jazz
in the Pacific Northwest with Syncopated Classic – a project which unearthed,
restored and recorded the lost compositions of 1920’s Seattle jazz pioneer Frank D.
Waldron. The resulting record was awarded Earshot Jazz Magazine’s “Northwest
Jazz recording of the year.” His most recent album, Corner Café, is co-written with
accordionist Steve Rice and evokes the mid-century Parisian swing bands.
Ruby recently relocated from New York City to Los Angeles & set up a studio in
Venice Beach where he continues to live a creative life composing, recording,
writing and teaching online guitar lessons.
www.gregrubymusic.com

Teacher: Greg Ruby
Date: Janurary 27th
Time: 12 - 2 PM
Cost: $80

Sign Up Online or in Store!

(310) 828-4497

 

 

 

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Beginning Harmonica

Have fun learning the foundations of harmonica-scales, learning the "keyboard", breathing technique, simple songs, bending notes, creating "licks", fun harmonica tricks-great for first timers!
Mimi Mayer:
Multi-instrumentalist-harmonica, keyboards, accordion, acoustic guitar, vocals. All styles. Piano+keys for over 55 years.
Teacher: Mimi Mayer
Price: $165
Dates: February 10-March 2 (4 weeks)
Time: 11-12pm

Teacher: Greg Ruby
Date: Janurary 27th
Time: 12 - 2 PM
Cost: $80

Sign Up Online or in Store!

(310) 828-4497

 

 

 

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