“Charlie Christian has a special place in my heart, if only because he was my first source of inspiration,” he once told an interviewer. 17, 1925, he hailed from Muskogee, Okla., not far from Christian’s hometown of Oklahoma City. History of jazz and one of the most original voices ever to play the guitar, Kessel is the guitarist who came closest to the pioneering jazz guitarist Charlie Christian in sound and spirit.īorn on Oct. He was on many of Phil Spector’s pop records and served as an A&R man for Verve Records where he produced Ricky Nelson’s first big hit and also produced the records Woody Herman sang on, He has also played and recorded with a long list of jazz greats including Lester Young, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Ben Webster and Sonny Rollins. Marlene Dietrich, Maurice Chevalier, Gene Autry, Sonny and Cher and the Righteous Brothers. He also worked for almost 40 years in Hollywood as an arranger and freelance musician for radio, film and TV, performing and recording with such diverse talents as Fred Astaire, Lawrence Welk, the Beach Boys, Barbara Streisand, Liberace, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, He recorded several classic recordings as a member of the Oscar Peterson Trio followed by a long string of recordings as a leader in his own right. Widely regarded as one of the swing-ingest players in jazz. His social security check covers his rent and his wife, Phyllis, works full-time just to cover Barney’s medical care.Ī perennial poll-winning guitarist from the ‘50s and ‘60s, Kessel was renowned for his brilliant harmonic improvisation, bluesy and hard-driving earthy style. Sadly, Barney has no life insurance and has not worked in more than 10 years due to a massive stroke he suffered in 1992.
He receives visitors and enjoys listening to music at his home in San Diego.
He is partially blind but is still able to talk on the telephone. A host of the genre’s finest pickers and burners, including George Benson, Les Paul, John Scofield, Larry Coryell, Russell Malone and Jim Hall, turned out for the gala benefit concert held at Birdland to pay tribute to Kessel and speak about the profound influence he had on their own musical development.Īt age 78, Kessel was diagnosed late last year with an inoperable tumor (anaplastic astrocytoma) requiring 24-hour home care and therapy. New York’s jazz guitar community rallied around one of its own last Wednesday, June 12, in a strong show of support for the ailing jazz guitar great Barney Kessel.
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