Album Review
1957: Jazz Recital
1957: Blues for Night People
1961: Which Side Are You On?
1962: Blues Sonata
1962: Jazz Samba (with Stan Getz)
1963: Byrd at the Gate
1965: Brazilian Byrd
1977: Charlie Byrd (Direct to Disc Recording)
Jazz Recital (1957)
Album: Fan Acquisition, 5/10 | Genre: Cool Jazz | Undertones: Swing, Bebop, Spanish Classical Guitar | Label: Savoy
A certain intensity to jazz guitar’s aristocratic subtlety
Charlie Byrd and his classical guitar performs some originals (that really do sound like early romantic guitar in spirit – stately and balladesque) and some jazz standards (mostly by Rodgers/Hart and Gerswhin) in the same style. Although the title positions this as a jazz/classical fusion work, and although it starts out as a solo guitar album, things take a positively impressionistic turn when a wistful flute gets added in the middle section before the album adds a saxophone and Byrd even switches to electric guitar to end up in bopping swing territory with “Homage to Charlie Christian”. Despite this concept (from solo classical guitar to 1940s-era swing), the album stays on the good, but inconspicuous side of things, although Byrd foreshadows why he would be an important ambassador of bossanova, as there is always an certain intensity to his aristocratic subtlety on the guitar.
Blues for Night People (1957)
Album: Fan Acquisition, 6/10 | Genre: Cool Jazz | Undertones: Swing, Bebop | Label: Savoy
The master of fusing swing and bop with classical spanish guitar
Blues? Not so much. Night people? For sure! Byrd’s jazz guitar trio presents a mixture of intimate, stylish swing with latin influences that is perfect for late night relaxation. So grab your cognac and fedora while listening to this master of fusing swing and bop with classical spanish guitar. Byrd was one of the main protagonist of forging samba-jazz and is best in a reduced trio setting which lets his rhythmic instincts and his classy, impeccable, precise guitar picks shine. As this is really halfway between straight jazz and spanish classical guitar, the titular „blues“ was probably a marketing move to lure in the jazz audiences – fortunately this worked in the long run. Bigger and better things were to come, but this sophomore album is better than other of his more inconspicuous efforts, like his more straight jazz oriented debut Jazz Recital.
Which Side Are You On? (1961)
Album: Genre Acquisition, 7/10 | Genre: Cool Jazz, Latin Jazz | Undertones: Samba-Jazz | Label: Riverside
A fusion between the subdued tone of cool jazz and the mellow intensity of samba
The A-side consists of three rather lengthy cool jazz standards with a guitar trio, for example Ellington’s languid, pensive “Just Squeeze Me”, and the trio veers into livelier samba-jazz on “You Stepped Out of a Dream” without really changing dynamics. Byrd hat gotten into samba and bossa nova in the late 1950s and this is a still rather early example of his samba-jazz approach. These three songs sport a stately, magnificent guitar, and you can hear how articulate, how poised Byrd’s decisions are – he’s really one of the guitarists that leaves time for you to appreciate the craft. But it’s side B which blows this album out of mediocrity: the Fantasia on the spirituals-infused union hymn “Which Side Are You On?” is 20 minutes of samba-jazz that picks up at second one and never drops focus, keeping you engaged for its whole run. Bass solos, minimalistic drum interjections, Byrd’s guitar strumming, picking, paraphrasing, varying and permutating the main theme, while presenting a fusion between the subdued tone of cool jazz and the mellow intensity of samba that, at his point, was probably his own, at least in the US. Very exciting, I listen to this side more often than most other pieces from Byrd’s overall excellent catalogue.
Blues Sonata (1962)
Album: Genre Acquisition, 7/10 | Genre: Cool Jazz | Undertones: Latin Jazz, Samba-Jazz, Bebop | Label: Riverside
Salon-friendly jazz between cool, swing and romanticism
This 1961-album (released 1963) finds Charlie Byrd still in the territory of applying the style of classical guitar to a jazz setting – tellingly, he never gets lumped in with the “third stream” crowd: the composition style is deliberate and very schooled, but it is foremost the attitude, the diligent way he phrases his licks and the way of presenting different compositional sections to you instead of locking onto a groove – or ostinato, as it were. Side A is his “blues sonata” (again, no blues, it’s just a signal to announce the jazz vs. classical mélange) with his trio. His bassist, Keter Betts, needs special mention – he has a very playful approach to the proceedings without showing off, I think Byrd’s records from this period would sound quite a bit more stilted without him. Side B adds a pianist and takes on swing standards – this makes the overall sound more conventional while dimming down the in truth quite elegantly odd, Victorian sound Byrd had developed before his plunge into samba-jazz. Blues Sonata is a quite successful take on Byrd’s at that time unique sound, even though the dynamics rarely shift – it’s pleasant, salon-friendly jazz between cool, swing and romanticism – quite good.
Byrd at the Gate (1963)
Album: Fan Recommendation, 6/10 | Genre: Samba-Jazz | Undertones: Cool Jazz | Label: Riverside
Some samba-jazz here, but the focus is on jazz standards from an era long gone
High quality music from a small venue – Byrd had at this time already recorded 1962’s seminal Jazz Samba with Stan Getz and more or less established bossanova and samba-jazz in North America, at least for aficionados. Byrd at the Gate is a wistful look back. There is some samba-jazz here, but the focus is on jazz standards from an era long gone, delivered in a high society cocktail bar – you can feel the Old Fashioned drinks being poured during the applauses of the small crowd. Byrd’s cool jazz guitar does his usual solos exuding sophistication, and the occasional addition of a tenor sax and a trumpet changes the nocturnal timbre of the core trio, emphasizing the nostalgia with their callback to 1940s era swing. It’s a good gig, but just a decent record – the only true highlight is the closing “Where Are the Hebrew Children?”, where the trio manages to transform their gentle approach to a focused pull, again conjuring up that mix of classical guitar and cool but sweaty jazz feeling. Bassist Keter Betts, intelligently agile and eager to take solos, always deserves a shout-out for tackling the leader Byrd on eye-level. Quite a trio, but the live album sounds a bit like they’re were documenting their departure from a swing style left behind.
Charlie Byrd (Direct to Disc Recording) (1977)
Album: Fan Recommendation, 7/10 | Genre: Samba-Jazz | Undertones: Cool Jazz, Bebop | Label: Crystal Clear
An air of demure Biedermeier
Late-1970s-entry into Charlie Byrd large catalogue of bossa- and samba-tinged small-combo jazz. There is something to the guitar trio augmented by flute and a low-register trombone rummaging through the melodies, it adds an air of demure Biedermeier interior design to the affairs (although the cover indicates art deco). Except for the Byrd-classic “Old Hymn” and the stylishly nervous opener on the traditional “Moliendo Café”, which bustles with the early energy of a summer evening after the second Arakú liquor, the tracks are nocturnal and mellow – notably, Byrd continues his infatuation with contemporary pop music by including Janis Ian’s “At Seventeen”, and they play Django Reinhardt’s “Swing 39” at cool jazz mid-tempo – both songs disappear behind the tone-down bossa-aesthetics. I really like the timbre the trombone adds, but other than that, this is a good Byrd-record, not a great one. There is a supposed ‘audiophile’ aspect to the “direct disc recording”, but I honestly can’t hear it.
Text Lambrecht 