Charlie Byrd

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Charlie Byrd 1997

Charlie Byrd (born September 16, 1925 in Suffolk , Virginia , † December 2, 1999 in Annapolis , Maryland ) was an American jazz guitarist .

Life

Charlie Byrd, actually Charles L. Byrd, became one of the most popular guitarists in the United States in the 1950s , first on the American East Coast, and later throughout America, whose legendary reputation came from his concerts and his first record releases. Byrd became famous in and outside America in 1962 when his name was inextricably linked to the music of bossa nova , a modified samba from Brazil that sparked a true bossa nova boom in the United States. Charlie Byrd was at home in both jazz and classical music, and had consistently committed to both. He was one of the instrumentalists who successfully combined jazz and classical music. As the “father of nylon string jazz”, he was the only classical guitarist on the jazz scene at the time. Since 1963 his younger brother Joe "Gene" Byrd played in his trio .

Act

Byrd's repertoire of classical guitar literature ranged from Spanish Renaissance music to works from the 19th and 20th centuries from Central and Latin America. His studies of classical finger playing technique on the unamplified Spanish guitar enabled him to play compositions that were not inferior to those of other classical guitarists. He soon became a musician who also achieved considerable success as a solo guitarist on the classical guitar.

In addition, he applied the technique of the classical guitar to different styles of jazz, trying to fuse European traditions with Afro-American jazz attributes. He also had a deep understanding of the blues , which he cherished all his life. He integrated numerous third-party compositions with different musical styles into his repertoire and nevertheless created his own style. His highly developed Spanish and Latin American technique on the classical guitar enabled him, like no other guitarist before him, to open up new areas in jazz. After a trip to Brazil in 1961, he combined Brazilian rhythms with North American jazz and from 1962, together with saxophonist Stan Getz , played a key role in establishing bossa nova in the United States. The joint album Jazz Samba was number one in the US album charts for a week in March 1963 .

Charlie Byrd, who initially played the acoustic as well as the electric guitar, later stayed with a few exceptions with the unamplified guitar, which he considered acoustically stable enough in small ensembles; this often gave his performances a chamber music character. The fact that he consistently applied the playing techniques of the Spanish guitar to jazz was quite unusual at the time, but it showed great self-confidence, and the success with the audience proved him right.

In the guitar trio Great Guitars , supported by bass and drums, he played with Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis in the 1970s .

Discographic notes

Albums under your own name

Albums as a sideman

  • Stan Getz: Jazz Samba (Verve, 1962)
  • Ken Peplowski: It's a Lonesome Old Town (Concord, 1995)

Web links

Commons : Charlie Byrd  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The date of death, December 2, is found as confirmed by the family in the Social Security Death Index . The same date appears in the obituaries at the Washington Post , salon.com and UPI  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. and can also be found in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Occasionally other sources cite November 30th (according to the jazzhouse.org article ) or December 1st (according to the obituary in the New York Times and The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz by Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler) as the date of death .@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.encyclopedia.com  
  2. ↑ a b c Alexander Schmitz: The guitar in jazz. Supplementary considerations on JE Berendt's article. In: Guitar & Lute. Volume 5, Issue 1, 1983, pp. 82-84; here: p. 83.
  3. ^ Joel Whitburn: Top Pop Albums 1955-2001. Billboard / Record Research, 2001, p. 120
  4. ↑ The booklet contains complete facsimiles of the original LP artwork and all discographic information about the recordings. Audio samples
personal data
SURNAME Byrd, Charlie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Byrd, Charles L. (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American jazz guitarist
DATE OF BIRTH September 16, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Suffolk (Virginia)
DATE OF DEATH December 2, 1999
Place of death Annapolis, Maryland