ne key to becoming a great jazz guitarist is to listen to a great jazz guitarist. Modern jazz stylist and Epiphone endorsee Nick Collionne took his cue from Wes Montgomery.

"The main thing was like, I listened to a lot of Wes Montgomery's stuff all the time, even now," Colionne said. "His style of playing really gets to me. I try to put myself in his frame of mind a lot of times. 'Where would he go here?' Because Wes, more often than not would avoid going to the obvious note at the end of a phrase. Where a lot of people would end a phrase on the root, I noticed that Wes would end a phrase on the sixth or ninth degree of the scale, which is kind of funny. It makes it stand out."

Once you figure out where your chosen inspiration is coming from, be prepared for a lot of hard work.

"Well basically you do a lot of practicing and a lot of listening," Colionne said. "I listened to Wes Montgomery just about all my life, being that my step father played guitar. He and my mom both were really into Wes Montgomery and Kenny Burrel. There was something about Wes' style that really soothes me. As I progressed into playing guitar more, I started off playing the Wes Montgomery style. Then I went into playing the stuff of the times; the R&B, the rock, you know. But I always incorporated Wes' style into everything I played."

According to Colionne, playing with feeling is also imperative if you want your notes to stand out.

"I'm usually playing it by feel or by ear, what I'm hearing in my mind or what I'm hearing in my heart at that time," Colionne said. "I tend to just go with what I'm feeling, try to hear where the song is going, I just kind to find my way through there. Try to find a door so I can get there."

A big stumbling block to people trying to play jazz is that is contains unusual chord changes and changes keys frequently. What Colionne refers to as "doors" are notes or licks that help you connect the chord changes without sounding awkward.

"That's what I mean by doors," Colionne said. "You create a lot of little doors for yourself to get in and out because that is the main difference between rock/blues and jazz. Instead of having one or two chords to solo on, you have an abundance of chords and then the thing's moving to different keys. There are a lot of chord changes in most jazz songs, but you can't play on every chord because it would sound kind of ridiculous. So you create doors. Some guys have phrases that they'll use all the time to get from one place to the another. You kind of find little passing notes and scales to get through to the next part."

For example?

"I say, 'well okay, I know this is going from an Ebmin7b9 to an A9b9.' So I create little passages for those types of changes where I know what door I can go through to make that move."

But with so many chords and changes, there has to be a better way to figure it out, right?

"The more I listened, the more I heard other people's approach to it," Colionne said. "Hearing how they were going there, how they weren't trying to play every little nuance that happened in the chord. They found their spots to come in. The more fluent players like Wes, Burrell and George Benson, you really hear the fluidity of the passages they play.

Despite the fact that jazz is very challenging on an intellectual level, Colionne says the key to fluidity is not to think about it too much.

"Other guys, you can hear them thinking," Colionne said. "That tells me that they don't really have these doors that are open to them already. I try at all times not to ever think, especially when I'm playing a solo. That was something my mom taught me. Never think, just play from feel. Just go with the music and see where it takes you. You'll be surprised where you end up sometimes."

Colionne notes that when you play from your heart instead of your head, you tend to play solos that fit the song better.

"If you try to think about where you want to go, you tend to want to play too much stuff," Colionne said. "As I've progressed, I've found out that a lot of times, less is more."

A good comparison is that when a vocalist sings a melody, it would sound silly if they sang lots of different notes.

"The whole thing is that with a solo, it's just like singing a song," Colionne said. "The reason why a lot of people don't understand jazz and instrumental music is that they don't understand that the solo is telling a story just like if someone was singing. My whole thing is that I'm trying to express what I'm feeling about this particular song or this particular piece of music."

Colionne applies this attitude when he's composing music as well.

"What I write is basically about moods," Colionne said. "For example, the first song on the CD It's My Turn is called 'East Evergreen.' That was all set just to make you feel that particular mood... the mood that I was feeling the time when I was creating it. That's the street that I live on, East Evergreen. I was looking out of the window and I was watching the geese and the ducks in the pond and it was very serene. That's what the song is supposed to express; serenity."

In creating music, Colionne tries not to force the music to happen. Instead he lets it happen.

"I never sit down to write a song," Colionne said. "I can be somewhere and an idea will hit me. If it's a good idea, I'll remember it. I work it out on the guitar first. A lot of times, things will come up in songs that are accidental. You're thinking one chord and your hand might slip and hit something else and it will be what you're actually hearing."

Whether hitting notes on purpose or making "happy accidents," Colionne generally does so on his Epiphone Joe Pass Emperor II.

"I play the Joe Pass Emperor II. That's the guitar that I just really love, you know? I also have a Gibson L-5. But there's something about the Joe Pass that gets me. It cuts very well in the studio. The neck also feels really good to me. It looks like someone made that neck just for me. The other Emperor guitar, the Regent. I think that has the best neck on it, it's something else."

While Colionne's primary love is jazz, he says the versatility of the Joe Pass comes in handy too.

"The Joe Pass is my main instrument," Colionne said. "It's durable and I'll be putting it to the test because I play mostly jazz, but at any given moment, I'll get these attacks. I'm in a jazz club and I'll switch from Bumpin' On Sunset by Wes to Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix in a heartbeat. I flip that switch and I'm gone."