Oscar Moore - the most ignored jazz guitarist?

DustyRusty · #1 01-28-2010, 07:23 PM

Hi all,

I wonder if there are any other Oscar Moore fans out there?

No i'm not referring to the novelist, but the jazz guitarist. He played with the King Cole Trio for many years and had a fairly unsuccessful solo career. Check out this playing on 'moonlight in vermont':

YouTube - Oscar Moore 'MOONLIGHT IN VERMONT'

I just wonder why he's so forgotten in the jazz history? Is he too similar to Charlie Christian? To my ears this player is an absolutely crucial one in the development of jazz guitar.

DR

derek · #2 01-28-2010, 09:52 PM

I think you have to be aware of someone before you can ignore them. I was never aware of him. Thanks for the link.

604bourne123 · #3 01-29-2010, 01:17 AM

thanks for the information.Nat plays quite well too.

hot ford coupe · #4 01-30-2010, 12:33 AM

I'm also a big Oscar Moore fan. I have recordings of the King Cole trio with both Oscaar and Irv Ashby. In my opinion, Oscar Moore is the better player.

604bourne123 · #5 01-30-2010, 12:46 AM

you have a point,Nat sings the tune very well and does some harmony licks, Oscar plays leads.

DustyRusty · #6 01-30-2010, 01:10 AM

Thanks Hot Ford. I don't think i've heard the ones with Irv Ashby. A quick google search tells me he joined the group after 1947 so i presume everything nat recorded after that with a guitar was with Irv...? I'll dig around my collection and try to see if i've got anything, would love to compare the two as you obviously have. Thanks again,

DR

Drumbler · #7 01-30-2010, 08:21 AM

I like him. I have an album of his. Very talented.

Are there any live videos of Oscar Moore actually playing? I haven't seen any. It's a shame.

http://www.classicjazzguitar.com/art....jsp?artist=20

Oscar Moore

Oscar Moore (1916 - 1981), and his brother Johnny Moore, began studying the guitar in Texas as grade schoolers and by the time they were teenagers they were both playing professionally. The Moore brothers played rhythm and blues together until Oscar was drawn to jazz by another Texas guitar player, Charlie Christian. Johnny Moore continued to pursue R & B.

Oscar Moore moved to Los Angeles in the 1930's and by that time he was already an accomplished jazz musician. In Los Angeles he played with both the Lionel Hampton and Art Tatum groups and was later picked up by Nat Cole for a job at a Los Angeles night club. The legend goes that the drummer didn't show up for the group's first show and the trio was born.

Oscar Moore's work with the Nat King Cole Trio lasted 10 years and brought him to the forefront of jazz guitarists. Many of his contemporaries and guitarists who came later have acknowledged a huge debt to Oscar Moore. First, Barney Kessel has said, Oscar Moore almost single handedly created the role of the jazz guitar in small combos. And, Kenny Burrell has acknowledged Oscar Moore as the first guitarist he knew of who used the modern jazz chord formations so common today. Oscar Moore's influence is also heard in the playing of young guitarists like Joshua Breakstone.

Oscar Moore won several awards for his playing, most notably from Downbeat, Metronome and Esquire in the early forties. When the King Cole Trio broke up in the late forties, Moore went to work as a session guitarist in Los Angeles and he began playing again with his brother. He appears as a guest on a number of recordings by Johnny Moore's Three Blazers. Eventually he left music altogether except for a brief period in the 1960's.

He settled in Los Angeles as a bricklayer and passed away in 1981.

©Copyright 2005 Classic Jazz Guitar

gps · #8 01-30-2010, 01:01 PM

I had to join the forum just to reply to this! I think Oscar Moore is a wonderful guitarist, so subtle and with beautiful phrasing. He works so well in the trio.

JohnRosett · #9 01-31-2010, 10:56 AM

He was truely one of the greats
I used to take mandolin lessons from Jethro Burns, and he said that when he was room mates with Chet Atkins after WWII, they spent many hours listening to King Cole Trio records and trying to figure out Oscar's solos.
I think that he quit music and became a brick layer.

daveg · #10 01-31-2010, 11:59 AM

Oscar Moore:

YouTube - Nat King Cole Trio - Better to be By Yourself

DG

DustyRusty · #11 01-31-2010, 03:02 PM

Thanks for all the comments. Daveg thanks for that link! Some of Oscar's quintissential playing! I loved his really old skool valve distortion tone that you get on a recording like that too.

GPS, welcome to the forum! Glad this topic got you interested, sounds like there are a few fans of Oscar here which is great to hear.

JohnRosett, thanks for the info, i love hearing stories like that! Except for the news that he became a bricklayer later in life. Nothing wrong with being a bricklayer but when you are such a dark horse of jazz guitar like Oscar was it's terribly sad that he couldn't make a long term career in music like he obviously deserved to.

604bourne123 · #12 01-31-2010, 04:50 PM

He was a welder before the world let him in,being jazz was a virgen art form.Art has always paid the gifted when they pass on.

brad4d8 · #13 01-31-2010, 05:36 PM

I've known about Oscar Moore for a long time. I think he falls in Charlie Christian's shadow much the way Oscar Aleman falls in Django's. It should be noted that before he became a successful crooner, I'm pretty sure Nat "King" Cole was a poll winner in Downbeat's readers poll as a pianist. I don't think they had a guitar category back then, so hard to say where Oscar Moore would have been. There weren't a lot of soloing guitarists in the early 40s, Eddie Lang was gone, Barney Kessel hadn't really arrived, and I don't know how much Django was heard in the US. The guitar was still pretty much a rhythm instrument. Anyhow, here's a pretty good example of the King Cole Trio as instrumentalists:
YouTube - The King Cole Trio - WHAT IS THIS THING CALLED LOVE
Brad

Drumbler · #14 02-01-2010, 07:33 AM

Wow! Thanks for posting those vids. I hadn't seen them.

daveg · #15 02-03-2010, 11:18 AM

The guitar, by the way, appears to be a full bodied L5 with a CC Pickup (as opposed to an ES250).

DG

Eddie Lang · #16 02-12-2010, 12:38 AM

I love Oscar Moore. Great player, very underrated and it is unfortunate. He is on my list of favorite players.

Another underrated NKCole alumni is John Collins who was with Cole from 1951 to 1965. He is certainly one of the great rhythm players. I think he never took a solo as a Cole sideman, but he is quite inventive as a soloist nonetheless. If you have a chance, listen to his album "The Incredible John Collins", 1984.

604bourne123 · #17 02-12-2010, 11:21 AM

to" Sometimes I'am happy" with Collins comping and Nat King Cole singing and playing piano quite a different musical background.

AndyV · #18 03-10-2010, 04:01 PM

Oscar was a beautiful player and very influential in his day even if he's little remembered today. I love his velvet sound with chords and his ability with slides and slurs and chord subs that made the music he played with Cole so sublime. His few solo records are good too.

604bourne123 · #19 03-10-2010, 06:14 PM

Nats voice and his tonal harmonies paved the way.

Rob 62 · #20 06-19-2010, 06:23 PM

I don't know why Oscar Moore should fall in the shadow of Christian - they had completely different approaches to the guitar, and different sounds, too. Moore was doing a lot more with the harmony - maybe a more piano-like concept than CC, who sounded like a horn player to me. Love them both. I think Burrell was listening to Moore, Christian, Jimmy Raney, T-Bone and Lester Young. What company . . .

fumblefingers · #21 06-19-2010, 07:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by daveg

The guitar, by the way, appears to be a full bodied L5 with a CC Pickup (as opposed to an ES250).

DG

headstock and tailpiece look like a super 400 to me.

monk · #22 06-19-2010, 07:25 PM

Oscar Moore was a wonderful player. One of my favorites.

Aside from the one solo album, there are some excellent King Cole Trio instrumental CDs available that show him making the transition from acoustic to electric. Also worth hearing is his later work with brother Johnny Moore's Three Blazers with Charles Brown on vocals.

Johnny Moore was a good "uptown blues" guitarist but not as sophisicated as Oscar.

By the way, the photo shown during Oscar's guitar solo on "What Is This Thing Called Love?" is not Oscar. It's Irving Ashby with his Stromberg guitar. The opening and closing trio shot is OM with what may be an ES-250.

Regards,
monk

EDIT: The guitar in DaveG's video with the flowerpot headstock definitely looks like an L-5. I've never seen an ES-250 with a headstock that fancy. Apologies for my previously misinformed last sentence.

franco6719 · #23 06-20-2010, 04:39 AM

Keep posting these names. Many of us have simply never heard of these players because we are still trying to learning so much that we need to catch up on from even the legendary players. Just the other day, for example, I learned of an album by old Wes called "Far Wes" that I hadn't even heard about. Now, I am stunned and overwhelmed by that one. There is a always a tremendous amount to listen to and, if you want to really LISTEN without distraction, it takes time.

franco6719 · #24 06-20-2010, 04:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DustyRusty

Hi all,

I wonder if there are any other Oscar Moore fans out there?

No i'm not referring to the novelist, but the jazz guitarist. He played with the King Cole Trio for many years and had a fairly unsuccessful solo career. Check out this playing on 'moonlight in vermont':

YouTube - Oscar Moore 'MOONLIGHT IN VERMONT'

I just wonder why he's so forgotten in the jazz history? Is he too similar to Charlie Christian? To my ears this player is an absolutely crucial one in the development of jazz guitar.

DR

Very nice. Thank you for posting.

Rob 62 · #25 06-20-2010, 09:26 AM

BTW - I just looked up Oscar Moore on a Downbeat Poll Index. He was the Poll winner for guitar four years running: 1945, '46, '47, '48.

ES125er · #26 06-20-2010, 09:46 AM

I had never of him, but really like what I'm hearing. Thanks for sharing!

Gambrosius1984 · #27 06-21-2010, 02:10 PM

Love Oscar Moore and the King Cole Trio. His playing was very swinging and his chords were very advanced. Many players, notably Kenny Burrell, profess they were very drawn to his chord voicings and style. Good to see a shout going out to this now lesser known giant of jazz guitar (As the downbeat polls indicate above, he was very much known in mid 40's just before the onslaught of legends to follow).

Cool vid of the Trio YouTube - Nat King Cole Trio - Better to be By Yourself

Easy to also see why Nat was one of the leading pianist of his day.

swingitjack · #28 02-12-2011, 02:13 PM

Oscar Moore was an amazing musician. The Nat King Cole's arrangements were hand down the best in the small-combo setting. There is a band in Boise, Idaho of all places, that plays and studies these arrangements, and even composes in the style of the NK3. Enjoy this link clip of them!

The Frim Fram Four - Don't Scratch That Riff, Cat!

YouTube Video

markerhodes · #29 02-12-2011, 02:22 PM

I liked Oscar's work with the Nat Cole Trio. (I loved that trio--no drums! I'm not against drums, mind you, but a trio that can swing without a drummer--Oscar Peterson's trio with Herb Ellis was even more impressive--does a lot for me.) I really liked the way they did "Frim Fram Sauce" and "Sweet Lorraine." And of course, "Straighten Up And Fly Right."

markerhodes · #30 02-12-2011, 02:25 PM

Here's "Frim Fram Sauce"

YouTube - ‪Nat King Cole Trio - Frim Fram Sauce‬&rlm;