Brent Mason – Richard Smith Masterclass Wows Georgia Guitarists

Brent Mason and Richard Smith – two of world’s finest guitar pickers – shared their personal musical genius with a select few for a full day of guitar magic.

The program was limited in size and was taught in master-class format.  Brent Mason and Richard Smith alternated throughout the day with exclusive one-hour seminars – this format allowed participants to both focus on specific issues and avoid getting overwhelmed with too much amazing information at one time. All levels of players were encouraged to participate and to bring their guitars! 

Jazz Guitar Today caught up with Cody J. Jung (event organizer) to discuss the Mason/Smith Masterclass

JGT:  What was your motivation for putting together the Brent Mason and Richard Smith guitar clinic and show? 

Cody: The idea for the event on June 1st dates back almost four years. In 2014, I attended the summer CAAS (Chet Atkins Appreciate Society) event in Nashville. While there, I met some of my favorite guitar players for the first time; guys like Thom Bresh, Richard Smith, and John Knowles. On my drive home, I called the other guitarist in my band, Kris Anderson, and we both just lamented the fact that these incredible guitarists were not performing near Atlanta with any kind of regularity. It was that conversation that planted the seed and created my two main motivations for putting together shows in Atlanta: (1) Atlanta is a town that loves music, but does not host guitar-related events with any regularity. I wanted to be a small part of the movement that changed that. (2) From a selfish perspective, I wanted to be able to play more shows with the guitar players I have idolized my whole life. Hosting these events is an opportunity for me to hang out with my guitarist friends, and forge new relationships with guitar people.

So, in 2015, I was able to coordinate an event with Thom Bresh. Since 2015, I have had the opportunity to bring more friends to Atlanta from Nashville, including Richard Smith, Aaron Till, and Doyle Dykes. These shows led to the next step – a guitar clinic. Guitarist Richard Smith was instrumental in facilitating this idea. Richard was holding clinics in Nashville on a fairly regular basis, and he was lining-up some phenomenal teachers. I asked Richard if I could be a part of a few clinics, and we eventually started hatching a plan for bringing a clinic to Atlanta. The first person, besides Richard of course, on my list to be a part of this was Brent Mason. To my surprise and delight, Brent was more than willing to be a part of the event, and the planning process started from there.

JGT:  So what’s the next step? 

Cody: More shows and clinics of course! We are already discussing another clinic with Richard and Brent, and there are talks for bringing a third or fourth prominent instructor to join the event.