I no longer have piano/sax envy.

[brent.h]

Barney Kessel's early albums are teaching me a few things:

1:
Guitarists don't have to play harmony like a pianists. We're supposed to take advantage of the natural tuning of our instruments in fourths (and a third). We're supposed to use grips because they are easily playable, movable, and transposable. We can add immediate tension to the harmony/changes by just shifting a grip a half step above or below where it is supposed to played. Guitarists are capable of creating very complex harmonic movements that are less intuitive for pianists.

2:
Guitarists don't actually have to play blazing, unending 8th-note lines like pianists or horn players on fast tunes. To produce a decent sound on the guitar, the left and right hand must be absolutely coordinated which in and of itself is already a challenge and probably takes up a lot of our bandwidth. I'm not saying that pianists/horn players don't have coordination challenges, but I think these challenges are more pronounced for guitarists that they can seriously impede our speed.

One way to deal with high speeds is feel high them as a two-feel. Then play ridiculously simple & clear rhythms like the Charleston, or try playing quarter notes / quarter note triplets to give this 'singing' quality to our lines.

The other way, which BK leans into heavily, is to simply play the blues. With blues vocabulary, we can ignore the changes (phew) and by focusing on bluesy, guitaristic techniques like bends and slides, we can even ignore the tempo (double phew!). This hearkens back to the trad era where Louis Armstrong would just float above the changes and time with a bluesy phrases.

3:
Guitarists should work on their swing feel. I can't count the number of times (on slow or fast tunes) I heard BK put the simplest of chords or notes in just the right spot at the right time, and I exclaimed, "Yeah!" It's not about being able to play dense pianistic chords or blazing bebop horn lines. It's about rhythm, note placement, and precision.

4:
This is unrelated to piano/sax envy but guitarists need to listen to as much music/jazz as possible. I'm starting to realise that BK is one of the most 'complete' and 'fluent' jazz guitarists ever; the amount of blues, trad, swing, and bebop vocabulary which he has is jaw-dropping. When you hear him play you can hear the sound of so many players in his music. (I hear Charlie Christian, Django, Louis Armstrong, Lester Young, Charlie Parker). I'm sure his commercial work in so many genres, which might not have been his favourite thing, did influence his musical tastes, too. As a result, this BK is one of if not the most entertaining guitarist to listen to in my view.

It took me this long to stop seeing the guitar as an inferior piano/horn. Better than late than never, I guess?

[2bornot2bop]

Each instrument is a challenge on its own. Do you think the trumpet player has an inferiority complex when he knows he can’t hit Maynard Ferguson style high notes? No. You don’t spend your time on that. Instead you develop ways to sound musical. It’s the sound that counts.

I fail to understand why any guitarist would feel as if he has to imitate a piano? No, a guitar is a guitar. Each instrument is something to behold unto itself, and each has its own unique characteristics and challenges.

[Groyniad]

I dig the whole piano (chords) sax (lines) envy - as a guitarist. I enjoyed your post.

After spending a great deal of time digging the poll winners albums (in the first five years or so of playing) I am also not one to underestimate BK's musicality. I still can't get over how direct and intelligent and swinging those records are - and not a trace of 'trying to be clever' in any of the takes.

my picture though is that we ALL (whatever instrument) have to get as close to vocal vibes as we can (and that horns have a bit of a head start when it comes to achieving that fluidity, poise, grace - and, above all, that rhythmical freedom.)

I think BK gets as close to sounding conversational and vocal as any guitarist I know.

I find it hard to dig his fast 'chording' (as they use to call it) - but find it doesn't get in the way much in the classic records with Ray Brown and Shelley Manne.

Every phrase he plays achieves something - and in a cool way too.

The clip below is a crazy interview on Swedish TV - in which he takes a pretty folk tune (that they all know in Sweden) and makes it 'jazzier' and 'jazzier' in stages - with crystal clear explanations of what he is doing. It's as good a demonstration of what jazz improvisation is really about as anything I've seen (apart from BH of course). He even gets a sort of mediaeval folk song vibe in his voicings because that's part of the feel of the tune. He's a joy.

I always think you have to swing at least as much as him - even if you don't do it in the same sort of way. That's a high bar.

1:00 - 9:10 ish on the video :

[Stringswinger]

Barney rules. Nuff' said.

[brent.h]

I fail to understand why any guitarist would feel as if he has to imitate a piano?

Been playing for 25 years, and was frustrated at not having an identity or personal sound/voice. Had incredibly bad technique. Couldn't play like how every guitarist around me would play (proper guitaristic stuff like lots of strumming or alternate picking). Massive love-hate relationship with guitar. Only recently I found what I wanted to play and how to play it technique-wise. Imitating piano/horns was a way to learn music and run away from dealing with the guitar guitaristically. But I'm realising that guitaristic isn't bad at all.

I am also not one to underestimate BK's musicality. I still can't get over how direct and intelligent and swinging those records are - and not a trace of 'trying to be clever' in any of the takes.

my picture though is that we ALL (whatever instrument) have to get as close to vocal vibes as we can (and that horns have a bit of a head start when it comes to achieving that fluidity, poise, grace - and, above all, that rhythmical freedom.)

I think BK gets as close to sounding conversational and vocal as any guitarist I know.

Yeah, BK doen't mess about or beat around the bush. I think it's his grounding in Swing (with a capital 'S') and in Charlie Christian that allows him to phrase like that.

And there's something about his playing thay makes me wanna listen more and more. Some players have too much bebop in their playing. Some have too much blues. Some have too little trad vocabulary. But BK has the right balance of everything.

[pamosmusic]

I fail to understand why any guitarist would feel as if he has to imitate a piano? No, a guitar is a guitar. Each instrument is something to behold unto itself, and each has its own unique characteristics and challenges.

Haven’t met many guitarists?

[Kirk Garrett]

I especially love BK as a solo player (meaning playing by himself or as the main accompaniment to a singer.) His rhythmic vocabulary even when playing the song’s melody is terribly pleasing to my guitaristic-loving ear.

[RLetson]

As an unschooled, ear-biased, folk- and swing-rooted (and rather lazy) musician, I've never been able to avoid facing the guitaristic nature of the guitar, despite my admiration for the players who make it do hard things that other instruments do easily. And I've had my nose rubbed in the fact that a traditionally-constituted bebop group does not have much space for a swing-style rhythm guitarist, since the piano occupies that space along with its own solo space. (And that's before we get to the matter of tempos and eccentric melodic lines.)

I shouldn't have been surprised, since I put in my listening time long ago and should have noticed that bop groups didn't have guitarists until guitarists figured out how to sound like horns, and especially like saxes. And the techniques required to navigate that harmonic space in a linear, hornlike manner are quite different from the ones that a member of the rhythm section in a dance band needs. In the folk world, it's not unlike the difference between backing a fiddler, Texas-style, and playing fiddle-tune leads a la Doc Watson and Clarence White.

So as much as I love Monk, I pretty much sit out when the jazz guys call a Monk tune--it's not really material for a guitarist lacking serious technical chops. (On the other hand, Duck Baker has an album of fingerstyle arrangements of Monk--but then, Duck does have serious fingerstyle chops.)

[Al Haig]

^ Monk didn't have serious technical chops, at least compared to his peers. It's what he did with his approach that made it incredible. Maybe look at playing Monk that way.

[Al Haig]

Well if it makes you feel any better, as a vibraphonist I have guitar envy. I can only play 2 notes at a time, although I can sustain notes for a chordal effect. I ain't messing with 4 mallets. Also, the Milt blues vocab is way more intuitive on guitar. I'm going back to my brief stint playing guitar and trying to remember box 1 licks.

[brent.h]

Also, the Milt blues vocab is way more intuitive on guitar.

I had no idea! I'll have to check it out now

[Al Haig]

47:25

[2bornot2bop]

Haven’t met many guitarists?

the only thing I’ve repeatedly read on this forum is how often pianists overplay on gigs. But it’s the first time I’ve read that guitarists are actually envious of piano players. When I play Flugelhorn and Trumpet I don’t even think of the fact that I can play piano. So perhaps this is something unique to guitarists?

[wintermoon]

btw, Bags was also a guitar player

[Al Haig]

^ Yeah, that's pretty cool!