It was one of the great pleasures of my life to be a personal friend of Barney. I have cards and letters from him here in England following his superb musical visits over here. Such a pleasure to know a wonderful man. RIP old friend. Barry.
It's been 5 years since my first post below, and I'm still trying to figure out jazz guitar-- (Man, I taught myself to play bebop alto sax in a year..) After 7 years of concentrated practice and gigging, the guitar is a humongous harmonic puzzle that I'm still putting together-- I have nearly 200 standards worked out chord-melody style (arrangements in my head) and each time I work out a new tune it gets easier and makes more sense, building on the prior tunes-- But to really get INSIDE a tune, like Kessel does here, you need that fluency and the ability to look at the fretboard and instantly see all those little nuances and find them (so much harder to see than on a piano)-- and the artistry to make it interesting and engaging, not just "getting through" a song by plunking the chords and melody.. I get at least 5-6 hours of practice in a day, but it never seems like enough... I can feel myself getting better but it's been a long road and the end is nowhere in sight. Thankfully we have the recordings of Kessel, Pass, Smith, etc. to look to for inspiration and encouragement regarding what can be accomplished on the instrument.
To play jazz guitar like this takes every bit as much knowledge, dedication, and artistry as it does to play classical guitar. As a teen, I would read interviews of Barney Kessel in Guitar Player Magazine - even bought his book on "Guitar" but never could find any of his albums in my local record stores...but now it's so great to see videos of him on youtube here! And Barney, Love the shirt man!!!
I remember one (maybe the only) in GP ..think it had a brown cover, the Barney Kessel issue..carried it with me all the time to college class to read when I should have been paying attention to the teacher. I used to lust for the Ovation acoustics that were new back then.
I remember one (maybe the only) in GP ..think it had a brown cover, the Barney Kessel issue..carried it with me all the time to college class to read when I should have been paying attention to the teacher. I used to lust for the Ovation acoustics that were new back then.
What a marvellous translation of this great tune into pure jazz guitar language. Barney's arrangements were always packed with interest and swing. His control of dynamics and tone were always perfectly apposite.
Barney was a genius at these slower arrangements, check out the shadow of your smile and many more. His giant chords are worth learning to any budding player.
I had the great pleasure of seeing Barney at the Colchester Arts Centre Jazz Club twice. This was a showstopper and a heart-stopper both times. Very witty guy, as well. Thanks Roger B. for this.
Wow! I was there too and so enjoyed it. I was with my mum, dad and grandad, none of whom were musicians, yet were spellbound as was I. We went because I had attended his Effective Guitarist seminars in Newcastle, a wonderful week in my early days of interest in jazz fingerstyle guitar. Strangely, one of the things he said to us in the first day was “if you want to write a book and you only have 5 minutes today, sharpen your pencil’. What a brilliant encouragement to aim high then get on with it! Years later I found myself attending a benefit concert in Birmingham, for his wife and there was standing room only, enough said.
I like the way that Kessel connected his chords with melodic passage work. Some of his contemporary jazz musicians emphasized the "chord" in the "chord melody" more and came out with a more cumbersome approach. Kessell was kind enough to share much of his musical knowledge with fledgeling guitarists.
Wow! I was at Colchester Arts Centre too, my home town, and so enjoyed it. I was with my mum, dad and grandad, none of whom were musicians, yet were spellbound as was I. We went because I had attended his Effective Guitarist seminars in Newcastle, a wonderful week in my early days of interest in jazz fingerstyle guitar. Strangely, one of the things he said to us in the first day was “if you want to write a book and you only have 5 minutes today, …. sharpen your pencil’, (it stuck with me). What a brilliant encouragement to aim high then get on with it! Years later I found myself attending a benefit concert in Birmingham, for his wife and there was standing room only, enough said. Barney Kessel, thank you, much more than a guitarist, as if that wasn’t enough.
BURT BACHARACH I REMEMBER YOU WITH BARNEY KESSEL AND HIS RENDITION OF 'ALFIE'... FROM A MOVIE SCORE SUCH A BEAUTIFUL SONG... BARNEY IS ONE OF THE MOST ORIGINAL JAZZ GUITAR PLAYERS EVER, AND IT SUITED PERFECTLY WITH YOUR MUSIC... SOLO GUITAR BARNEY KESSEL 🎸❤
totally second that. He's got an incredibly wide range of music imagery, this music is folk, avant garde, impressionism, pop...and jazz. it's not just "jazz".
Saw Barney perform a few times back in the seventies and eighties. He sounded so good that I used to wonder why I continue to play. This is such a great performance!
I did meet Barney.....amazingly in the north of Finland in a club with only a dozen punters who had no idea of the gem in their midst. I asked him to play Sunday Dreamin'......a Kessel compositon....he was so suprised that I added....if you don't I will !!! That was when I was young and didn't have arthritis. Bob Nadkarni
As an ongoing self-taught jazz guitarist (mainly a sax player) I find I learn so much from watching others-- In the case of Kessel, I always noticed how he picks/strums the strings in the spot where they are directly over the pickup-- Makes so much sense: Obviously, that's where the sound of the string is most directly "miked" by the pickup, so why not just play in that spot? So I do it that way too. (I have a floating pickup that's directly attached to the neck, so I pick/strum a bit closer to the neck than he does.)
It depends. He only has one pickup so quite naturally it would be over that one. He gets the richest tone there. If he plays back towards the violin bridge, the strings are tighter and the sound will be punchier. If he plays over the frets towards the neck, the wood will absorb a lot of the vibration and the strings will have less echo or reverb. This is without adjustments to the tone knobs and amp settings of course.
Crunkboy415 is correct, in that many guitarists will want different tones to emphasize different musical ideas they are executing, and (setting aside the ability to switch pickups or turn tone knobs on an amplifier) they will usually change up where they pluck the strings to achieve more expressive effects. Just as violin players will change the angle of the bow to affect how much of the bow-hair "footprint" hits the string, and where on the string they bow. For Kessel, he may have wanted the entire piece to have the same mellow sound, so he parked his hand over the pickup. A player like Django Reinhardt, on the other hand, enjoyed putting tonal extremes into his musical phrases, and thus plucked all up and down the strings between the bridge and the high end of the fretboard.
I met Barney at Doubletree lounge in Tucson early 80's, he was phenomenal. Played an original called "Slow Fire" he discussed working with Django late 40's, funny but serious monster of a player.
I once had the good fortune to bring him onstage at a gig he did in the UK. In the intermission he came across to me, and we chatted for a full 30 minutes. It's surprising what you learn just talking to the experts.
Wow. I love that moment at 4:30 where he picks those chords closer to the bridge for that brighter sound. Just a bit of contrast to the rest of the tune. Fucking brilliant.
Love the karate-chop harmonics at 0:36. His picking technique is interesting to watch...I can't always connect the motions I see with the notes I hear...he's very quick and has amazing economy of motion.
Very cool! I hadn't seen that episode yet so I looked it up. You can find it here on RU-vid, just enter in "Perry Mason S5 Ep3 The Case of the Missing Melody" in the search. I spotted Mr. Kessel at around 29:11 in the video. And that's definitely his music playing throughout the episode. Awesome, thanks for pointing that out!
Ha! I'm sure you are making a joke, but Sco had more hair in 1979 than the guy you reference. Check out the cover to Sco's "Who's Who" album...he was a suave young man!
had to only listen, worst camera work and direction of pretty much any kessel vid i've watched on youtube, brilliant playing of course though - wish i could've seen more of it!
