[Dixielandjazz] Guitarist Barney Kessel died at 80

[Norman Vickers]

 Listmates:  Another member of  God's Jazz Band--Barney Kessel
Norman Vickers

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New York Times
May 8, 2004
Barney Kessel, 80, a Guitarist With Legends of Jazz, Dies
By PETER KEEPNEWS

Barney Kessel, a guitarist who was both a celebrated jazz soloist and a
ubiquitous but anonymous studio musician, died on Thursday at his home in
San Diego. He was 80.

The cause was brain cancer, said his wife, Phyllis. Mr. Kessel had been
inactive since a stroke in 1992, and he learned in 2001 that he had
inoperable cancer.

By the mid-1950's Mr. Kessel was one of the most popular guitarists in jazz,
a perennial winner of music magazine polls and a sideman whose résumé
included work with Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Art Tatum and countless
others. But he still found it hard to pay his bills, so he began a second
career in the studios, which came to dominate his professional life until he
decided to return to jazz full time in the 1970's.

He was born in Muskogee, Okla., on Oct. 17, 1923, and began his professional
career there at 14 as the only white musician in an otherwise all-black
dance band.

Mr. Kessel initially modeled his style closely on that of the pioneering
electric guitarist Charlie Christian, a fellow Oklahoman, and he continued
to regard Christian as his main influence.

But when he had the opportunity to play with Christian at a jam session, he
told The New York Times in 1991, the experience inspired him to develop a
style of his own.

"I realized that I had been methodically lifting his ideas from records,"
Mr. Kessel said. "What was I going to play? All I knew was his stuff. There
were two guys playing like Charlie Christian. I knew I had to find myself."

With Christian's encouragement, Mr. Kessel moved to Los Angeles in 1942 and
was soon on the road with a band fronted by the comedian Chico Marx.

Over the next few years he worked with the big bands of Artie Shaw, Charlie
Barnet and Benny Goodman, establishing a reputation as one of the most
versatile and reliable guitarists on the West Coast.

He soon began working regularly as a sideman for the record producer Norman
Granz, and in 1944 he was one of the many musicians featured in "Jammin' the
Blues," the acclaimed short jazz film produced by Granz and directed by the
photographer Gjon Mili. (In a strange echo of his first job, Mr. Kessel was
the only white musician in that film; all that was clearly visible of him
were his hands, which were dyed black.)

Mr. Kessel's profile in the jazz world continued to grow in the 1950's. In
1952 he joined the pianist Oscar Peterson's trio and toured with Granz's
all-star Jazz at the Philharmonic aggregation.

The next year he began his recording career as a leader with the first of a
series of small-group albums for the Los Angeles-based Contemporary label.

Within a few years he had also become a fixture in Hollywood's recording
studios. In this parallel career he could be heard on movie and television
soundtracks and in television and radio commercials as well as on records by
everyone from the Beach Boys to Liberace to Frank Sinatra.

In 1973 he joined forces with his fellow jazz guitarists Herb Ellis and
Charlie Byrd to form the group Great Guitars. In 1983 at 59 he made his New
York nightclub debut as a leader.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Kessel is survived by two sons from a previous
marriage: Dan, of Hemet, Calif., and David, of Pacific Grove, Calif. Also
surviving are three stepchildren: Christian Wand, of Los Angeles; Colette
Wand Wirtschafter, of Marysville, Calif.; and Cleo Dougherty, of Boonton,
N.J.; and five grandchildren.