Legends of Jazz Guitar - Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop

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LEGENDS OF JAZZ GUITAR VOLUME TWO by Mark Humphrey What becomes a legend most? Judging from the dazzling improvisatory exchanges in the trio performance which opens this video, perhaps it’s comradely competition. Then again, it may be the challenge a master improviser like Joe Pass makes of the blues idiom. Rhythms that are anything but routine please these legends, as do the harmonic textures they extract from standards. Drive delights these legends, but so, too, does understatement. Variety apparently becomes these legends best. They deliver dynamics, sundry shades of blue and brighter tonal colors as well. Chameleon-like, they change sonic shades without notice. They run the gamut from playfully funky to moody and meditative, and it is their absolute mastery of so much emotional and musical territory which justifies calling these artists legends. 2
BARNEY KESSEL “Above all, the humanness of a performer should be apparent...the essence of a living being is greater than the music. The music is only an expression of that essence.” — Barney Kessel Photo by Tom Copi Articulate and passionate, Barney Kessel has been a crusader for jazz since discovering it in his teens in Muskogee, Oklahoma. That was Kessel’s birthplace in 1923, and it was there he first explored jazz in an otherwise-black band at age 14. “I knew what I wanted to find,” Kessel once remarked of his first forays into jazz, “and I used the guitar to find it.” Finding Charlie Christian grooving to his playing at an Oklahoma City club was the shock of Kessel’s life. Christian’s encouraging words (“I’m gonna tell Benny about you”) inspired the sixteen-year-old Kessel to strike out on his own, first to the upper Midwest and ultimately to California. There his presence at jam sessions brought him to the attention of producer-promoter Norman Granz, who enlisted Kessel (along with Lester Young and other greats) for the 1944 film short, Jammin’ the Blues. Kessel soon took the guitar chair in a succession of notable big bands, including those of Artie Shaw, Charlie Barnet, and Benny Goodman. He began exploring bebop when Dizzy 3
Page 1: Legends of Jazz Guitar Volume Two f
Page 5 and 6: personal mannerisms — the upward
Page 7 and 8: Photo by Tom Copi 7
Page 9 and 10: as session man on Blue Note recordi
Page 11 and 12: versions of pop tunes (“Going Out
Page 13 and 14: CHARLIE BYRD “Some guitarists imp
Page 15 and 16: Photo by Michael P. Smith JOE PASS
Page 17 and 18: 17 Photo by Tom Copi

Legends of Jazz Guitar - Stefan Grossman's Guitar Workshop

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