Focus on Barney Kessel

[jazzcorner]

Have read  some Info about  he died recently.  He was  and still is among my top 3 gutar artist with the JATP, later the Peterson Trio (replaced by Herb Ellis) and many albums under his own name.

A great loss.

Here are some of his works from my collection

 

 

 

[Stereojack]

Died in 2004.

[Dub Modal]

Unexpectedly gritty & always jamming. I enjoy his records. The guy loved what he was doing and it came through his playing. 

[HutchFan]

I dig Kessel.

Here's another really good one:

with Bobby Hutcherson, Chuck Domanico, and Elvin Jones

 

[Larry Kart]

1 hour ago, HutchFan said:

I dig Kessel.

Here's another really good one:

with Bobby Hutcherson, Chuck Domanico, and Elvin Jones

 

Yes, really good.

[Peter Friedman]

These two are among my favorites by Barney Kessel.

[mjazzg]

5 hours ago, HutchFan said:

I dig Kessel.

Here's another really good one:

with Bobby Hutcherson, Chuck Domanico, and Elvin Jones

 

 That's a great listen.  The only Kessel i have so will be interested in this thread to see where else to pay attention

3 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

Yes, really good.

 

[Larry Kart]

I've always enjoyed my first Kessel album, "To Swing or Not to Swing" -- that's a nice little band (Harry Edison, Georgie Auld or Bill Perkins, Jimmy Rowles, Red Mitchell, Shelly Manne or Irv Cottler)  -- and I recall thinking that "Straight Ahead," the final "Poll Winners" album, was quite good.

[Dub Modal]

Barney Plays Kessel is a good one, and he turns in a good sideman appearance on Red Norvo's Music to Listen to Red Norvo By 

[jazzcorner]

20 hours ago, Stereojack said:

Died in 2004.

Yes this is correct. Obviously the article I have read was somewhat older And I didnt pay attention enough.

Anyway the rest ob my thread is what I meant.

Thanks

W ;-]]

 

[jazzcorner]

More on Barney Kessel

 

Have all the albums shown above plus some more.

Here they are

a) The special group called "The Pollwinners" [one more is allready up there in the tableau with 6 LP's]

b ) some more albums  under his name on the Contemporary label

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 4, 2020 by jazzcorner

[Fabio Baglioni]

Here is a ''rare'' Mr. Barney in Trio with France jazz musicians,,: BARNEY KESSEL.cht ,Trio , ''Music Inn'' ,1975.. Live at ''Music Inn'' jazz club in Roma , on april,1975... Franco Manzecchi,,dr ,.. Daniel Amelòt,cb (cut)!,t.22*..vd1050..

-

 

[sidewinder]

The only time I saw Kessel in performance at a club the seating I had was on a sofa right in front of Barney. Intimate and wonderful !

By coincidence this afternoon my local shop had a 2nd hand copy of that big paperback biography of him that is largely a discography. The sheer size of it discouraged me from purchase.

Edited November 5, 2020 by sidewinder

[sgcim]

I first discovered BK on a great record my father had, "Great Guitars of Jazz" on Verve. Barney was featured, along with Tal, Oscar Moore, Wes, Howard Roberts and Herb Ellis.

My father loved Wes, but the other guys, he wasn't crazy about. He used to call Tal, Tad Farlow, Barney, Barney Kessler.

Anyway, he found a guy playing the schist out of a guitar in amusic store, and he got him to give me guitar lessons at about the age of 12 or so, and he was a real Kessel freak. He loaned me a bunch of Kessel albums, which I taped on my Sony Sound on Sound reel to reel tape deck. I could slow the tapes down to 1 and 7/8 speed, and sit around for hours trying to copy Tal and Barney.. I worshiped the ground my teacher walked on. He had Dale Carnegie's "How To Win Friends and Influence People", and he probably brainwashed me to like him.

One day he brought in the BK album "Guitarra", and raved about the way BK bent his strings while playing with an Italian organ trio, so I raved about it, too.That's my album suggestion.

 

[Д.Д.]

I like his "Solo" on Concord. 

[catesta]

[JSngry]

16 hours ago, sgcim said:

One day he brought in the BK album "Guitarra", and raved about the way BK bent his strings while playing with an Italian organ trio, so I raved about it, too.That's my album suggestion.

That's a really good record.

[sgcim]

32 minutes ago, JSngry said:

That's a really good record.

Yeah, BK was always a very spontaneous player, and he wails on that record. Some people accused him of sloppiness (like on that "Feelin' Free" album), but while that may be true in some cases, he makes up for it with the feeling he put into everything he played.

His opinions could be kind of weird, I remember a DB interview where he started putting down musicians who were changing their names to Islamic names. He also had these creepy video lessons where he had some pretty corporate-sounding ideas abut how to achieve success in the music biz.

[JSngry]

I remember a late-ish one in guitar Player(?) where he just went off on how soul-numbing studio work got. At what point that was, he didn't say, so maybe it was before he stopped doing it or after, who knows?

Bottom line, for me - he was an Okie, and was at his best when that part of him came out loud and clear.

[medjuck]

17 hours ago, JSngry said:

I remember a late-ish one in guitar Player(?) where he just went off on how soul-numbing studio work got. At what point that was, he didn't say, so maybe it was before he stopped doing it or after, who knows?

Bottom line, for me - he was an Okie, and was at his best when that part of him came out loud and clear.

At the recording session for The Beat Goes On (which I consider a great song) after strumming the same chord over and over again, he stood up and announced to the rest of The Wrecking Crew "You know, guys, this song has got a great change."  Then he turned to the recording booth and said to Sonny Bono "Never have so many played so little for so much." 

[jazzcorner]

On 5.11.2020 at 5:43 AM, sgcim said:

I first discovered BK on a great record my father had, "Great Guitars of Jazz" on Verve. Barney was featured, along with Tal, Oscar Moore, Wes, Howard Roberts and Herb Ellis.

 

[BillF]

https://onlineshop.oxfam.org.uk/shop/music-films-video-games/music/kid-orys-creole-jazz-band-1955-uk-lp-good-time-jazz-vogue-lag-12064-kid-ory-bar-hd_101536099

A less expected Kessel date. 

[AllenLowe]

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but I believe Kessel (whose sound and playing I love; had a lot to do with those Charlie Christian pickups) played the screaming "rock" guitar solo in the Orson Wells movie Touch of Evil.

[sgcim]

6 hours ago, AllenLowe said:

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, but I believe Kessel (whose sound and playing I love; had a lot to do with those Charlie Christian pickups) played the screaming "rock" guitar solo in the Orson Wells movie Touch of Evil.

He probably did play it. He's listed as the only guitarist in the film score in the book, "Jazz in Film", and Kessel, could play any type of pop music (he was considered to be part of the Wrecking Crew). I was amazed to find out he also played guitar on the David Raksin Western film "Will Penny", when I bought the soundtrack album.

I always found it ironic that the first jazz guitar I bought was a used Gibson Barney Kessel Custom (because I wanted to sound like my hero), but Kessel barely used it when he played jazz. He preferred the sound of his ES-350 with CC pickups to the Humbuckers that came with the Gibson Barney Kessel model. In the end, I was better off with the BK model, because it was a much more versatile guitar that I could use on the R&B gigs I did with Melba Moore and Sister Sledge, and still a serviceable jazz guitar, though nowhere as good as the ES-350. Kessel hated the BK model, but it was a very popular guitar, and he received a percentage of every sale.

[JSngry]

I guess I'm carrying this one to my grave, 1947, full frontal Okie via CC, just....DAMN is that good.