Musicians Join Forces to Perform at Benefit for Legendary Jazz Guitarist Barney Kessel

A benefit concert for jazz guitar great Barney Kessel, who has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, has been scheduled for Wednesday, June 12th, at Birdland located at 315 West 44th Street in New York City. Artists to perform include George Benson, Jim Hall, Larry Coryell, John Scofield, George Coleman, Ray Bryant, Harold Mabern, Chico Hamilton, John & Bucky Pizzarelli, Jimmy Cobb, Howard Alden, Mark Whitfield, AJ Lambert, Carl Barry, Jack Wilkins, Eric Alexander, Gene Bertoncini, Ray Barretto, Candido, Jackie Paris, Rodney Jones, Frank Wess, Benny Powell, Peter Bernstein, Russell Malone, Vic Juris, Jimmy Bruno, Randy Johnston, Peter Washington, Harvie S, Sean Smith, Steve La Spina, Chuck Redd, Gray Sargeant, Lee Musiker, Kyle Eastwood, Ron Affif, Sabina Sciubba and Vinny Valentino, other special guests to be added. Tickets are $25 at the door. All proceeds from the show, beginning at 7 p.m., will go to assist Kessel.

“Barney Kessel stands tall as one of the dominant pillars of this music we call jazz," says benefit organizer and producer Charles Carlini, noted guitar aficionado who has produced many tributes to legendary guitarists. “His contributions are inestimable."

Known for his brilliant harmonic improvisation, bluesy and hard-driving earthy style, Kessel is one of the swing-ingest players in jazz. A master at pulling every last bit of emotion from a beautiful ballad, and at the other extreme setting an audience on fire with an up tempo jazz standard, he has also delighted audiences with his natural talent for standup comedy. A composer and arranger (the jazz classic “Swedish Pastry" is perhaps his best known tune), he was also a popular teacher who gave seminars and workshops all over the world. Kessel originated the idea of the guitar being used instead of a piano as the predominate voice of a jazz trio with bass and drums. His five Poll Winners albums with Shelly Manne on drums and Ray Brown on bass set the standard for all the guitar records that came after them. Kessel was also the first one to use the guitar to sound like a full jazz orchestra. His landmark 1955 recording with Julie London, Julie is Her Name, and its memorable “Cry Me a River," is an early example of his ability to make arrangements, which bring out full orchestral tonal colors with only a string bass and electric guitar. He was also the first in modern jazz to use the flute and oboe on his recordings. Kessel has played and recorded with a long list of jazz greats including Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Ben Webster and Sonny Rollins. His is the author of the book, “The Guitar," he has made three videos explaining his process of improvisation in detail for Rumark Video.

A winner of all the major jazz polls including Downbeat, Metronome, Melody Maker and Playboy for several years; he was the most popular jazz guitarist of the 1950s and 1960s. He worked for almost 40 years in Hollywood as an arranger and freelance musician for radio, hundreds of films and TV shows such as Steve Allen’s Tonight Show and Hollywood Palace, and created original music for many commercials including Der Wiener Schnitzel and Rice Krispies. He performed and recorded with such diverse talents as Fred Astaire, Lawrence Welk, the Beach Boys, Barbara Streisand, Liberace, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier, Gene Autry, Sonny and Cher and the Righteous Brothers. He was on many of Phil Spector's pop records and also was an A&R man for Verve Records where he produced Ricky Nelson’s first big hit and also produced the records Woody Herman sang on. Barney was featured in the 1944 award-winning documentary film “Jammin’ the Blues" with Lester Young and other jazz greats, and as a member of Norman Granz’s Jazz at the Philharmonic became well-known in Europe from the time of the JATP 1952 tour. Kessel was a musical ambassador for the State Department during the Carter Administration and he played in the White House for both Presidents Carter and Nixon.

At age 78, Kessel was diagnosed late last year with an inoperable tumor (anaplastic astrocytoma) requiring 24-hour home care and therapy. He is partially blind but is still able to talk on the telephone. He receives visitors and enjoys listening to music at his home in San Diego. Sadly, Barney has no life insurance and has not worked in over ten years due to a massive stroke he suffered in 1992. His social security check covers his rent and his wife Phyllis works full time just to cover Barney’s medical care.

A legend in the history of jazz and one of the most original voices ever to play the guitar, Kessel is the guitarist who came closest to Charlie Christian in sound and spirit. Born on October 17, 1925, he hailed from Muskogee, Oklahoma, not far from Christian’s hometown of Oklahoma City. “I started out playing cowboy music at 12 years old," he told Jazz Hot in a 1972 interview. “At 14, I played with a black group. I was the only white guy in the group. They helped me to understand how to play jazz. I bought all of Charlie Christian’s records at the time and I later had the pleasure of meeting him. I even took his place in a band in Muskogee. Charlie was my idol when I was 16. He was the brilliant synthesis of Al Casey, ‘Daddy’ Jim Walker, Django Reinhardt and Eddie Durham. His harmonic concept was original and well ahead of its time. His single-string improvisation opened up the way to a harmonic conception that was completely new and revolutionary. He also introduced the tenor-sax way of playing guitar as much in the linear concept as in his rhythmic aggressiveness and deliberate attack. I admired his ideas, his sound, his attack and his musical conception. Charlie Christian has a special place in my heart, if only because he was my first source of inspiration."

Arriving in Los Angeles at age 17, Kessel jammed around L.A. nightclubs before landing a gig in a big band fronted by Chico Marx in 1943. Through the early Œ40s he worked with the big bands of Charlie Barnet (1944-45) and Artie Shaw (1945) and also recorded with Shaw’s Gramercy Five. By 1946, Barney had followed Christian’s footsteps into the Benny Goodman band. Leaving Goodman a year later, he settled on the West Coast where he became involved in the studio-recording scene. In 1947, he won the Esquire Silver Award and also met the musician who was to have a decisive influence on his musical thinking. As he told, “When Charlie Parker was on the West Coast, I went to hear him one night. I jammed with him and he liked my playing very much. Shortly after, he called me to record with him." These post-Camarillo Hospital sessions documented for Ross Russell’s Dial label featured such great Southern Californian jazzmen as Howard McGhee, Wardell Gray, Red Callender, Don Lamond, Dodo Marmaroso along with Barney on guitar.

Kessel toured with the Oscar Peterson Trio with bassist Ray Brown from 1952-53 (their swinging chemistry is documented on a number of classic Verve recordings) and then led an impressive series of records for Contemporary -- beginning with 1953’s Tenderly -- that lasted until 1961and included several with bassist Ray Brown and drummer Shelly Manne in a trio called “The Poll Winners." during the late 1950s and early 1960s, Barney became increasingly involved in studio and TV work but his enthusiasm for jazz was never affected and he continued to produce fine, swinging albums such as the adventurous Coltrane-inspired Feeling Free with drummer Elvin Jones. After touring Europe with George Wein’s Newport All-Stars (1968), Kessel relocated to London for a time. In 1973 he began touring and recording with the Great Guitars, a trio that also included Herb Ellis and Charlie Byrd. He made a string of superb recordings for Concord Jazz through the ‘70s and ‘80s. His final studio recording was a 1988 session for Contemporary, Red Hot and Blues, featuring bassist Rufus Reid, drummer Ben Riley, pianist Kenny Barron and vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. Kessel remained active on the scene up until a serious stroke permanently sidelined him in May of 1992. During a 1991 engagement at New York's venerable Village Vanguard, the New York Post called him “one of the finest guitarists in jazz" while the New York Times referred to him as “a master of guitar."

In 1991, following successful tours of the United States, Canada, Portugal, Sweden, Italy, Germany, the British Isles and Japan, Barney was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame along with the late Chet Baker. In 1995, Vestapol Videos released a one-hour video titled “Barney Kessel Rare Performances," covering a period of television performances from 1962-1991 along with a British interview and a clip of his acceptance speech at the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame. Additional film clips of Kessel are included in the “Legends of Jazz Guitar I, II and III" video series from Vestapol. New books of jazz photography in which Barney is included are “Jazz Photographs of the Masters" by Jacques Lowe (Artisan Books, New York, 1995) and a photo documentary by Esther Bubley, text by Hank O’Neal, of a 1950s Norman Granz recording session, titled “Charlie Parker Jam Sessions," published in France by Hachette Filipacchi, 1995. It includes hundreds of photographs of Kessel, Charlie Parker, Oscar Peterson, Ben Webster and other giants of jazz laughing, talking and playing. In 1994 Kessel was flown to Turin, Italy for a huge tribute concert and since there have been various benefit concerts in England, Germany and Los Angeles honoring him. He was also a guest at Flip Phillips’ 80th birthday jazz party in Florida in 1995. At the July 1995 memorial concert for Concord Records founder Carl Jefferson, Kessel walked out on stage (with a cane) for the first time since his stroke and took a bow. In May of 1996, Kessel was flown to his home state and given an honorary doctoral degree by the University of Oklahoma for his lifetime contribution to music. For a gentleman who had only had formal schooling through the ninth grade, this was a well-deserved and meaningful honor. At George Wein’s JVC Jazz Festival in New York City, June 1997, Kessel was given a tribute concert by both the up and coming and old guard of the guitar world. At this concert Kessel walked on stage and spoke to an audience for the first time since his stroke. The September 1997 issue of Just Jazz Guitar magazine was devoted entirely to Kessel, a collector’s item today. In October 1998, Kessel celebrated his 75th birthday to accolades from around the world.

The late eminent jazz critic Leonard Feather once called Barney Kessel “as lyrical a guitarist as we have in jazz...a rhythmic natural who can out-swing any man in the house." Among Andre Previn’s praises for him are that “he has a staggering amount of technique, a healthy respect for the traditional, a ceaseless curiosity for the experimental, and an admirable and lovely harmonic sense." Critic Nat Hentoff called him “one of the most extraordinarily consistent and emotionally huge improvisers of our era" while the well-known European jazz critic Joachim Ernst Berendt referred to Kessel as “the most rhythmically vital guitarist in modern jazz."

But perhaps it was the late critic Ralph Gleason who summed up Kessel’s contribution best when he wrote in his liner notes to Barney’s 1955 Contemporary album, To Swing Or Not To Swing: ‘The jazz musician who has the ability to reach with his music the greatest audience, old and young alike, is the musician who swings in a delightful variation of tempos that characterize the great middle road of jazz. A musician such as this is able to lead a lot of listeners to new sounds because he always keeps them on a familiar, foot-tapping footpath. And while tapping their feet, their ears may be absorbing things that otherwise they would have missed. Barney Kessel is a musician like that. He swings so much that he breaks down all barriers psychological and musicological that have been built over the years. He appeals to jazz fans, no matter what their background. To each, of course, he says different things but he meets them on the common ground of the great jazz artists, the area where Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Woody Herman, Erroll Garner and Benny Goodman have all made music you can play over and over again and never tire of returning after ten years absence to find still the freshness and vitality that characterizes any art. Barney Kessel’s message to the jazz fan is the same as Duke Ellington’s classic line, ‘It Don’t Mean A Thing If It Ain’t Got That Swing.’ With Barney, as with Duke, you take that as your fundamental promise and go on from there."

Please send all checks to:
MRS. PHYLLIS KESSEL
4445 North Ave.
San Diego, CA 92116-3940