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…
Byrd's Word! is an early Charlie Byrd recording that finds the guitarist in a variety of settings. The idea seems to be showcasing Byrd with a number of friends, including valve trombonist Bobby Felder, tenor saxophonist Buck Hill, and pianist Tee Carson. Though there are really no bad cuts on the album, the content is so diverse – acoustic trios, electric guitar with brass, and acoustic guitar with vocals – that the album doesn't flow as a whole. "Byrd's Word" opens the album, with a big brassy sound, complete with Byrd cutting loose on electric guitar.
Byrd's Word! is an early Charlie Byrd recording that finds the guitarist in a variety of settings. The idea seems to be showcasing Byrd with a number of friends, including valve trombonist Bobby Felder, tenor saxophonist Buck Hill, and pianist Tee Carson. Though there are really no bad cuts on the album, the content is so diverse – acoustic trios, electric guitar with brass, and acoustic guitar with vocals ~ AllMusic
Having been a major part of Stan Getz's very popular Jazz Samba album, it was only fitting that guitarist Charlie Byrd would start recording his own bossa nova records. This CD reissue brings back the 12 songs originally on the Riverside LP Bossa Nova Pelos Passaros plus six of the 11 tunes from Once More! Bossa Nova. Byrd and his trio (which included bassist Keter Betts and drummer Bill Reichenbach) are augmented on some selections by strings, extra percussion, plus horns.
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…