RIP Billy Bauer

[JPF]

I'd like to believe it's not true, but it's been reported on another board by one of his guitar students that the great guitarist Billy Bauer has passed away. He was an excellent soloist with a unique style that you could identify almost immediately.

He would have been 90 this fall.

Edited July 14, 2005 by JPF

[JSngry]

A long life certainly not wasted.

Congratulations are every bit as much in order as regrets.

[Joe G]

I certainly take my hat off to him.

[White Lightning]

RIP mr. Bauer. We'll celebrate your life and music.

[Nate Dorward]

Goodbye Mr Bauer. Now I'm kicking myself I never picked up that limited reissue of Billy Bauer, Plectrist.

[J.A.W.]

Sad news - again...

[brownie]

Billy Bauer's life was as discreet as his guitar lines were complex. He was one of the guitar giants.

His autobiography 'Sideman' was a highly enjoyable read!

[vibes]

Goodbye Mr Bauer.  Now I'm kicking myself I never picked up that limited reissue of Billy Bauer, Plectrist.

←

Nate, I think you might be able to get it from Tower Records. It's a great album. I'm not familiar with any of Billy Bauer's other work, but I love "Plectrist."

[Sundog]

Here's to a long productive life. RIP

[paul secor]

He was a wonderful musician.

Thanks for all of your music, Mr. Bauer.

[Alfred]

Nate, I think you might be able to get it from Tower Records.  It's a great album.  I'm not familiar with any of Billy Bauer's other work, but I love "Plectrist."

←

This one is still available?!

It is a great CD. Bauer's only session as a leader. Highly recommended.

[king ubu]

RIP - have to spin some of those Tristano sides again soon! And "Plectrist", too - a great musician!

[Clunky]

His sound was quite distinctive as was one I really liked. RIP, love Plectrist and his sides with Konitz

Any followers, Liberty Ellman perhaps , any others ?

[Kalo]

One of my favorite Tristanoites.

90 years! That's like 160 in jazz musician years!

[mmilovan]

Konitz, Tristano, Marsh and Bauer... the music so mellow at the same time complex and - beautifull.

R.I.P. Mr. Bauer!

[Brad]

Wonderful musician. I'll always treasure the Plectrist

[Mark J]

What an amazing musician! Plectrist is one of my all time favorites - his playing is complex and beautiful and never boring or repetitive, and my favorite Tristano is when he recorded with Bauer - especially the Keynotes. Bauer was a man who could swing. The man leaves quite a legacy!

[brownie]

Th AP's report today on Billy Bauer's death.

Billy Bauer

MELVILLE, N.Y. (AP) — Billy Bauer, a jazz guitarist who worked with Lennie Tristano, Benny Goodman and Charlie Parker, died Friday. He was 89.

Bauer, who lived in Albertson, N.Y., died of complications from pneumonia, said his daughter, Pamela.

He developed much of his solo technique while playing with Tristano's group, which he joined in 1946. Before that, he had played mostly rhythm parts.

Bauer recorded both with the band and with individual members, such as saxophonists Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh. He founded a publishing company, William H. Bauer Inc., to publish compositions by himself, Tristano, Konitz and Marsh.

He went on to work with Goodman and Parker, and recorded one album as band leader: "Plectrist," in 1956.

As the jazz recording industry began to fade, Bauer switched to teaching, opening the Billy Bauer Guitar School in 1970. He continued teaching lessons until shortly before his death.

He wrote an autobiography called "Sideman."

The New York Times will probably have an obituary in its edition tomorrow. Maybe the paper will also mention the two other albums Bauer recorded under his name (the first one for AdLib and the final one for Interplay)!

[Michael Fitzgerald]

And folks, remember to pause track 1 and rewind on the Verve Elite series CD of "Plectrist" -

From www.nytimes.com

June 23, 2005

Billy Bauer, 89, an Early Modern Jazz Guitarist, Dies

By PETER KEEPNEWS

Billy Bauer, one of the first modern jazz guitarists and later a renowned guitar teacher, died on Friday in Melville, N.Y. He was 89 and lived in Albertson, N.Y.

The cause was complications of pneumonia, said his daughter, Pamela.

Mr. Bauer first gained national attention in 1944 for his work with Woody Herman's big band, an ambitious ensemble with a repertory including Igor Stravinsky's "Ebony Concerto." He later performed and recorded with Benny Goodman, Charlie Parker and many others. But he was best known for his association with the pianist and composer Lennie Tristano, whose idiosyncratic, harmonically complex brand of modern jazz was considered challenging even by his fellow modernists.

Mr. Bauer had been primarily a rhythm guitarist before joining Tristano's group in 1946. But he quickly mastered Tristano's distinctively serpentine melody lines, and under the pianist's guidance he developed into a compelling soloist.

"Lennie was a strong player," Mr. Bauer recalled in 2000. "Even though I didn't know what he was doing all the time, I had to follow him. With a player that strong, you had no choice!"

Mr. Bauer took part in some of Tristano's most celebrated recordings, including an experiment in spontaneous improvisation in 1949 that presaged the so-called free jazz of a decade later. He also worked frequently with two other members of Tristano's group, the saxophonists Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh. In 1958 he formed a music publishing company, William H. Bauer Inc., which published all three musicians' compositions as well as his own.

William Henry Bauer was born in the Bronx on Nov. 14, 1915. His first instruments were banjo and ukulele, and he began his career at 14 playing banjo on the radio, but he soon switched to guitar. He was playing electric guitar in dance bands by 1940.

Although he established himself as a leading voice on his instrument in the late 40's, Mr. Bauer - who called his autobiography "Sideman" - always said he preferred to work in support of other musicians. He recorded only one album as a leader, the 1956 quartet session "Plectrist." And by the mid-70's, after several years in recording and broadcast studios, he had virtually abandoned performing to become a full-time teacher.

His motivation, he said in 2000, was primarily economic: "People were waiting for the studio work to come back, but I didn't think it was going to."

For the last three decades of his life he rarely played, either in the studio or in public. His focus was the Billy Bauer Guitar School, a one-man operation in a small second-floor office in Roslyn Heights, N.Y., which he opened in 1970. His hundreds of students ranged from young children to professionals like Denny Dias, an original member of the rock band Steely Dan.

Mr. Bauer continued to teach until he was hospitalized in the early spring, his daughter said, adding that he continued to teach and advise students from his hospital bed.

In addition to his daughter, of Pocono Pines, Pa., Mr. Bauer is survived by a son, William G. Bauer of Dix Hills, N.Y., and four grandchildren. His wife of 63 years, Marion, died last year.

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Mike