What's the deal with Barney Kessel?

**TheCube** · 06-04-2016, 08:58 PM

I'm relatively new to jazz guitar and to jazz in general, and I've if course been looking for some guitar players with the jazz sound I like (Coltrane), and basically listening around. A lot of people seem to reccomentd Barney Kessel, but when I listen to him I just really don't dig it.

**MarkRhodes** · 06-05-2016, 10:43 AM

Find someone you dig now. You may dig Barney later.

**Groyniad** · 06-05-2016, 03:43 PM

try jim hall's first album as leader

'jazz guitar'

**NoReply** · 06-05-2016, 04:09 PM

Early Coltrane or late Coltrane is key to the answer.

I would put Barney with Early Coltrane both created great melodies with their lines. Late Coltrane I don't know who maybe Sonny Sharrock or today Dom Minasi, Derick Bailey, Nel Cline, Marc Ribot.

**stratcat** · 06-05-2016, 04:18 PM

I appreciate Barney Kessel but he is far from my favourite player. While I find his playing technically good it just doesn't have that earthyness that I like in the players I like most - Grant Green and Kenny Burrell. I like Jim Hall and Tal Farlow even though they don't have quite the same earthyness either.

It's good that we all like different stuff, it makes the world an interesting place!

If I'm honest I tend to like listening to horn players more, but that's a different story

**neatomic** · 06-05-2016, 04:58 PM

i have one guy to recommend..kenny burrell..he cut an lp with coltrane!

barney kessel is more of an acquired taste...nevertheless a good taste!! haha

cheers

**goatrace** · 06-05-2016, 05:12 PM

I never tire of the two Jims. Jim Hall and the often overlooked, Jimmy Raney. As to Barney Kessel, he did marry one of Mickey Rooney's wives, so how you gonna top that?

**neatomic** · 06-05-2016, 05:19 PM

i don't think of jim hall as a horn like player...he's more textural...i think thats why he has such a huge influence on modern guitar players...why he was able to hang with jimmy giuffre and bill evans

raney was a horn like player..but the player was bird..pre coltrane... bop

2 of my ultimate faves btw

cheers

**mr. beaumont** · 06-05-2016, 06:10 PM

Guitar player like Coltrane? Check out Sony Greenwich:

**pubylakeg** · 06-05-2016, 06:41 PM

**yebdox** · 06-05-2016, 08:03 PM

As your chops improve, you may grow to appreciate how difficult it is to play what Barney is playing. It might not ring your bell, but it will likely at least generate some respect. As recommended, listen to what you like, but expect that to change as your ears grow.

**snoskier63** · 06-05-2016, 09:13 PM

I happen to be a big Barney Kessel fan, but to each their own. Perhaps Pat Martino, Mark Elf, or Jimmy Bruno will pique your interest. There are so many. Just listen to whomever you can and you will find your direction.

**christianm77** · 06-05-2016, 09:22 PM

Barney Kessel swings

**wintermoon** · 06-06-2016, 12:59 AM

everyone has their own favorites, it's what makes them all valid and interesting.
for example, if everyone thought that Wes was the one and only and no one else was worth listening to, it would make for a pretty boring guitar scene. and I'm as big a fan of Wes as there is...

as for myself, I find Barney to be a complete player of the highest caliber, not just from a technical viewpoint, but he's bluesy, jazzy and swings, as christian77 points out. your just not gonna hear anyone that out blueses, out jazzes and outswings Barney. I love how he was always pushing the limits, like Tal, really going for it when they could easily coast w/their great chops.

doesn't mean ya gotta like him, that's why there's Wes, Joe, and and all the other flavors.
for example, I remember when I was young not really appreciating Kenny Burrell until a little later because he wasn't as flashy as some of the other greats that caught my ear early on. silly boy....

welcome to the forum, and your tastes will likely change over time.....

**Groyniad** · 06-06-2016, 07:44 AM

when i recommended jim hall's first album i didn't mean to imply i didn't love bk

he not only swings

he never does not swing

every single thing he plays swings: take it out of context - it swings

and its the kind of swing you can't miss - utterly in your face swing

always puts a smile on my face

**grahambop** · 06-06-2016, 09:55 AM

You could check out Wes Montgomery playing 'Impressions' - that was one of the first things I heard by a guitarist which had something of the intensity or drive of Coltrane.

**sjl** · 06-06-2016, 10:15 AM

The deal is ... He was great, his music is great.

dortmundjazzguitar · 06-06-2016, 05:29 PM

barney kessel is a god if only for his opening statement on satin doll:

**boatheelmusic** · 06-06-2016, 05:36 PM

Maybe it's the color of his scarf that's off-putting.........

**lawson-stone** · 06-06-2016, 05:55 PM

I love Kessel's playing but I think a couple of things can be hard for people to get.

First, he is very "guitaristic" in that he uses lots of bends and other "guitar tricks" that sometimes get panned by those not fans of guitar. Many jazz players intentionally cultivate a tone and technique that avoids some of the most obviously "guitar-like" moves.

Second, Kessel made a real attempt to be contemporary, recording pop songs, sometimes successful, other times, maybe less so. For example, he did Simon and Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence" which I find generally unsuccessful as a jazz vehicle. Other times he does an amazing job with them.

Which means he took risks and tried lots of stuff, sometimes with great effect, sometimes less so. I admire that willingness to give anything a shot. He was a studio regular in the LA recording scene all through the 50's and 60's, so he was capable of playing super-cleanly, super-accurately, to fit the "one take" necessities of the pop era when producers paid for studios by the hour and a musician had to be able to get it right, get it clean, and get it quickly. Kessel inhabited that world very effectively.

So that's why I'm not bothered by what some think is "sloppy" playing on some of his recordings--smears, lots of sweeps and such. His performance on hundreds of studio recordings suggests to me that apparently sloppy playing was in fact totally intentional and done for an effect he desired. Still, some don't like that choice of technique.

To my ear, and this is just me, I never felt like the swing era and bop era styles were fused and integrated in Kessel's playing. You can hear the debt to Charlie Christian, and also Charlie Parker, but it's like one, then the other, not "third" integrated thing. I might be wrong about that, and it's not a negative at all. I love BK and have stacks of CDs by him and love listening to him.

**neatomic** · 06-06-2016, 08:31 PM

young (23 years old) barney k cuttin it up with bird!..

cheers

**Cunamara** · 06-06-2016, 09:03 PM

You're not going to find a guitarist that really does the Coltrane thing as such; the instruments are too different. Allan Holdsworth comes perhaps the closest to the "sheets of sound" thing of Coltrane's- Holdsworth was a huge fan and really wanted to play sax rather than guitar. He developed his legato thing on guitar to try to get close. If you want to hear him in a more jazzy setting than most of his records, get "None Too Soon" which features Coltrane's "Countdown."

Kind of a shame they fade out the ending, Allan seemed to be on a roll. If you're a later Coltrane fan, you might dig Ben Monder. You might dig John Scofield too. As starting points.

**nado64** · 06-07-2016, 04:53 AM

The recordings "Matador" and "Solid" by Grant Green with Mccoy Tyner and Elvin Jones.
You should dig them !

**AndyV** · 06-07-2016, 08:03 AM

I'd suggest Jimmy Bruno, Bruce Foreman or Bill DeArango might be worth a listen. Wes is in a class by himself. Immerse yourself in Wes Montgomery and reap the rewards.

Personally, I love Kessel's playing and his very guitarist approach. As noted above, he really took chances and was willing to fall on his face yet almost never did. His was a very colorful, physical, visceral, and even at times, somewhat aggressive approach to jazz while someone like Jim Hall is more of a poet on the instrument.

"You can hear the debt to Charlie Christian, and also Charlie Parker, but it's like one, then the other, not "third" integrated thing." Lawson, you are absolutely right and this is something about BK that never occurred to me before. Great insight. And as noted above, that "sloppiness" in Kessel's playing was quite intentional. He valued feeling above all else though at times, I feel he was playing at the outer limit of his technique and heard some lines in his head that were on the hairy edge of his technique to execute. With Barney, you could always hear the effort and the physicality that it took to express his ideas.

With Wes, though it took tremendous effort to get to the moment, in the moment of playing, the ideas seemed to unfold effortlessly, like a river.

Joe Pass played a very sophisticated single note style but to my ear, his feel for the time was rooted in the swing area which gives his inflection a certain feel that's different from the pure bop-influenced players.

**lawson-stone** · 06-07-2016, 09:55 AM

Originally Posted by AndyV

I'd suggest Jimmy Bruno, Bruce Foreman or Bill DeArango might be worth a listen. Wes is in a class by himself. Immerse yourself in Wes Montgomery and reap the rewards.

Personally, I love Kessel's playing and his very guitarist approach. As noted above, he really took chances and was willing to fall on his face yet almost never did. His was a very colorful, physical, visceral, and even at times, somewhat aggressive approach to jazz while someone like Jim Hall is more of a poet on the instrument.

"You can hear the debt to Charlie Christian, and also Charlie Parker, but it's like one, then the other, not "third" integrated thing." Lawson, you are absolutely right and this is something about BK that never occurred to me before. Great insight. And as noted above, that "sloppiness" in Kessel's playing was quite intentional. He valued feeling above all else though at times, I feel he was playing at the outer limit of his technique and heard some lines in his head that were on the hairy edge of his technique to execute. With Barney, you could always hear the effort and the physicality that it took to express his ideas.

With Wes, though it took tremendous effort to get to the moment, in the moment of playing, the ideas seemed to unfold effortlessly, like a river.

Joe Pass played a very sophisticated single note style but to my ear, his feel for the time was rooted in the swing area which gives his inflection a certain feel that's different from the pure bop-influenced players.

It was realizing (a) Kessel was a huge studio player in the 50's-60's, and (b) the pressure on studio players of that era to get it right, get it clean, and get it NOW, that led me to realize his "sloppy" playing was, essentially, an artifice, a "Pseudo-Sloppy" that was striving for a certain effect, something more aggressive. It wasn't any kind of failure or inadequacy in his chops.

I don't think anybody would find much support for criticizing Kessel's chops!