Charlie Byrd Album

Avid Jazz presents four classic Charlie Byrd albums including original LP liner notes on a finely re-mastered and low priced double CD. “Jazz Recital”; “Blues For Night People”; “Byrd’s Word” and “The Guitar Artistry of Charlie Byrd”.
You might say Charlie Byrd was on a mission on his first album as a solo artist “Jazz Recital”, recorded in Hackensack, New Jersey in February 1957. A passionate believer in the guitar as an affective lead instrument in jazz, five of the ten cuts here are solo guitar pieces. With a background in classical guitar technique and having studied in Italy with the guitar maestro Segovia, Byrd lays out his ambition in the original liner notes “I’d like to see the guitarists of today using more of the vast store of knowledge…

Charlie Byrd's second album as a leader features the acoustic guitarist in a trio with bassist Keeter Betts and drummer Gus Johnson. One side of this LP finds the trio interpreting four swing-era standards (including "Blues My Naughty Sweetie Gave to Me" and "Jive at Five") while the flip side consists of the three-part suite "Blues for Night People." Listeners only familiar with Byrd's bossa-nova performances may find this early recording (which predates the emergence of Jobim) a bit of a surprise although the lyrical guitarist is easily recognizable.

Some of acoustic guitarist Charlie Byrd's albums can get a bit sleepy while tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton has recorded so much throughout his career that there is always a danger of a certain sameness pervading. Hamilton sits in with Byrd's trio (which also includes bassist John Goldsby and drummer Chuck Redd) on this CD and the combination is somewhat magical. The bossa-nova rhythms give Hamilton a new setting while Byrd is clearly inspired by the tenor's presence. They perform 11 mostly well-known standards, coming up with fresh ideas on such songs as "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea," "My Shining Hour," "Street of Dreams" and "Let's Fall in Love." Easily recommended to fans of both Charlie Byrd and Scott Hamilton.

Partly because of its Brazilian collaborators and partly because of "The Girl From Ipanema," Getz/Gilberto is nearly always acknowledged as the Stan Getz bossa nova LP. But Jazz Samba is just as crucial and groundbreaking; after all, it came first, and in fact was the first full-fledged bossa nova album ever recorded by American jazz musicians. And it was just as commercially successful, topping the LP charts and producing its own pop chart hit single in "Desafinado." It was the true beginning of the bossa nova craze, and introduced several standards of the genre (including Ary Barroso's "Bahia" and Antonio Carlos Jobim's "Desafinado" and "Samba de Uma Nota Só" [aka "One Note Samba"])…

Tasteful, low-key, and ingratiatingly melodic, Charlie Byrd had two notable accomplishments to his credit – applying acoustic classical guitar techniques to jazz and popular music and helping to introduce Brazilian music to mass North American audiences…

Some of acoustic guitarist Charlie Byrd's albums can get a bit sleepy while tenor saxophonist Scott Hamilton has recorded so much throughout his career that there is always a danger of a certain sameness pervading. Hamilton sits in with Byrd's trio (which also includes bassist John Goldsby and drummer Chuck Redd) on this CD and the combination is somewhat magical. The bossa-nova rhythms give Hamilton a new setting while Byrd is clearly inspired by the tenor's presence. They perform 11 mostly well-known standards, coming up with fresh ideas on such songs as "Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea," "My Shining Hour," "Street of Dreams" and "Let's Fall in Love." Easily recommended to fans of both Charlie Byrd and Scott Hamilton.

When Charlie Byrd recorded Byrd in the Wind in 1959, he was still two years away from discovering bossa nova. The guitarist had yet to interact with Astrud and João Gilberto or record anything by Antonio Carlos Jobim, and he had yet to become a major player in the Brazilian jazz field. Nonetheless, Byrd was an impressive jazzman even before he discovered bossa nova. Byrd (who sticks to the acoustic guitar on this album) already had a recognizably melodic sound - one that underscored his appreciation of Django Reinhardt as well as Andrés Segovia and the Spanish school of classical guitar - and he would have left behind a worthwhile catalog even if he had retired in 1960. The guitarist's classical leanings are hard to miss on Byrd in the Wind, especially when he employs woodwind players (all of them members of the National Symphony Orchestra) on some of the selections…