Barney Kessel
Barney Kessel was born in Muskogee Oklahoma on October 17 1923, he took up guitar at an early age, by the time he was a teenager he was playing steadily in many swing and dance bands around town; later to join a touring band backing up Chico Marx.
Chico Marx Orchestra
Kessel's early style was molded heavily after Charlie Christian also from Oklahoma. Kessel and Christian met and jammed together, while they were playing Kessel released that all of his guitar note choices were derived or a copy of Christian's Ideas and he realized that he needed to find his own voice on the instrument.
Wessel Showing the Love for Charlie Christian
Barney Kessel was the original guitarist in the oscar peterson trio and left to play more session after a year in 1953, he was replaced by Herb Ellis
Live in the 1970s with Oscar Peterson
Another Clip from the same Performance
A great version of Lady be Good written by George and Ira Gershwin preformed as a duet with another great guitarist Herb Ellis
Kessel Became a first call session musician in the fifties and sixties playing on countless hits and film scores.
Playing on Julie London's Cry Me a River in 1955 this song really showcases Kessel's unique chord voicings
Another Julie London one this time singing Blue Moon
Wessel Playing bass for Spock's Vulcan Mind meld one of the many film scores he played on
Barney played the intro to the Beach Boy's Wouldn't it Be Nice on a custom instrument with a Gibson 12 string neck and a mandolin body see below
You can reed more about the instrument here http://uniqueguitar.blogspot.com/2010/08/to-study-barney-kessels-personal-guitar.html
Kessel in the studio playing a fender telecaster not something you see every day
another shot playing a different fender telecaster
Signature Guitars
A mint condition model from 1968 in cherry burst
The Gibson Barney Kessel was discontinued in 1972 with a few custom orders finished and shipped in 1973.
Headstock of a Barney Kessel Custom
Headstock of the standard
Headstock of a Kay Barney Kessel
Kessel had a line of kay guitars starting in the mid fifties and he never liked them usually saying he would never play one or they were horrible guitars. They looked cool but don't usually play that great.
Favorite Gibson
Playing his favorite Gibson 350 onstage in the 1970s.
Wessel talking about why he loves his guitar and what makes it special to him
Kessel's guitar started out life an acoustic archtop and he added a charlie christen pickup at some point in the 1940s. he also replaced the fingerboard with an ebony one with more simple dot inlays instead of the traditional parallelogram inlays on stock Gibson 350s.
Kessels finger board would have had inlays like the ones above when he purchased his 350 new in the 1940s
A lesson with the man him self pretty cool
Another Lesson
Kessel and Herb Ellis playing the Flintstones theme song
Wessel died in 2004 of a brain tumor he was 80 years old he is buried in new york
Playing on Julie London's Cry Me a River in 1955 this song really showcases Kessel's unique chord voicings
Another Julie London one this time singing Blue Moon
Wessel Playing bass for Spock's Vulcan Mind meld one of the many film scores he played on
Barney played the intro to the Beach Boy's Wouldn't it Be Nice on a custom instrument with a Gibson 12 string neck and a mandolin body see below
You can reed more about the instrument here http://uniqueguitar.blogspot.com/2010/08/to-study-barney-kessels-personal-guitar.html
Kessel in the studio playing a fender telecaster not something you see every day
another shot playing a different fender telecaster
Signature Guitars
The Gibson guitar company gave barney a a signature model in 1961 it had two florentine cutaways and two hum bucking pickups. The custom Kessel was $560.00 for the Custom and $395.00 for the less ornate standard model. The guitar was 17 inches at the lower bout and 3 inches thick. the scale length is 25.5 inches and the width at the nut is 1 and 9-16ths
A mint condition model from 1968 in cherry burst
The Unfinished Rosewood tail piece
Headstock of a Barney Kessel Custom
Headstock of the standard
Kay Barney Kessle
Headstock of a Kay Barney Kessel
Kessel had a line of kay guitars starting in the mid fifties and he never liked them usually saying he would never play one or they were horrible guitars. They looked cool but don't usually play that great.
Favorite Gibson
Playing his favorite Gibson 350 onstage in the 1970s.
Wessel talking about why he loves his guitar and what makes it special to him
Kessel's guitar started out life an acoustic archtop and he added a charlie christen pickup at some point in the 1940s. he also replaced the fingerboard with an ebony one with more simple dot inlays instead of the traditional parallelogram inlays on stock Gibson 350s.
Kessels finger board would have had inlays like the ones above when he purchased his 350 new in the 1940s
A lesson with the man him self pretty cool
Another Lesson
Kessel and Herb Ellis playing the Flintstones theme song
Wessel died in 2004 of a brain tumor he was 80 years old he is buried in new york
No comments:
Post a Comment