ECM Records:

Guitarist Mick Goodrick has died, aged 77. Long regarded as a musician’s musician, widely admired for the subtlety of his playing, Goodrick devoted much of his life to teaching, helping other guitarists to find their paths as improvisers. On ECM he was first heard on Gary Burton’s The New Quartet in 1973, soon followed by further Burton albums, including Seven Songs for Quartet and Chamber Orchestra with music of Michael Gibbs. Through the 1970s he shared guitar duties with Pat Metheny in Burton’s band (as on the albums Ring, Passengers, and Dreams So Real). A reluctant leader himself, he stepped into the spotlight for “In Pas(s)ing”, a 1979 quartet session with John Surman, Eddie Gomez and Jack DeJohnette (the album’s curious title referenced ECM’s first office address in Munich’s Pasing district.) Mick also played with Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra and appears on Ballad of the Fallen alongside Carla Bley, Don Cherry, Paul Motian, Paul Motian, Dewey Redman, Jim Pepper, Michael Mantler and more. In the 1990s Steve Swallow recruited him for his quintet, and Goodrick can be heard on Deconstructed and Always Pack Your Uniform On Top, the latter recorded at Ronnie Scott’s Club in London.
At the age of 60, Mick retired from live performance to concentrate fully on jazz education, teaching and writing instructional books. The many musicians who studied with him and considered him a mentor include John Scofield, Bill Frisell, Mike Stern, Lionel Loueke, Lage Lund, Julian Lage and Wolfgang Muthspiel. “When I showed up in Boston in 1973, Mick had a gigantic impact on the way I think about sound,” Bill Frisell told Jazz Times. “He took the legato, liquid phrasing that Jim Hall had developed even further. He joined notes together in ways I never heard before. He was the link from bebop to what lay ahead.”