My first contact with jazz guitar as a little kid

[Bop Head]

Today it dawned on me that my first contact with jazz guitar was the intro / outro melody of a program called “Betthupferl” (could be translated as “lullaby story”) at Bavarian public radio that I loved to listen to as a little kid. Maybe that “diminished from above” moving to the two chord is the reason why I am such a fan of “old-fashioned” harmonic concepts LOL.

The intro starts at 0:20, the outro at 4:08, the story is told in Bavarian dialect.

Here are the opening bars in better quality. Nowadays they use another melody unfortunately. Sleep well and sweet dreams

[Joe Carlson]

For me is was was probably "Handyman" Joe Negri on Mr. Rogers -

[ragman1]

My first contact with jazz guitar? I have absolutely no idea. I was moving around the world a lot back then. I probably heard jazz guitar but it didn't register. But I do remember hearing jazz and thinking that those moody 'flat' notes (almost certainly on saxophone) were pretty clever and grabbed the ear but I couldn't tie it down to a particular time, player or tune.

Sorry, not much help!

[ragman1]

I can show you one of the earliest jazz pieces I really liked. This is the theme music from a TV show called 'Public Eye' about a run-down private eye. Great music by a guy called Bob Sharples who was a prolific pianist, arranger and composer. The series ran for 10 years and they kept the original theme tune all the way through.

Robert Sharples - Wikipedia

[tbeltrans]

Since I wasn't ready for jazz (guitar or otherwise) until later in life, I can relate one situation that, had I been musically where I am now, I would have been all over it.

As a kid growing up in the San Fernando Valley, my musical world was Top 40 radio (KRLA, KHJ, and "The Big X" with Wolfman Jack on XERB). There obviously was jazz around and Ted Greene lived just a few miles away, but I was oblivious and my parents didn't want me to have anything to do with the guitar anyway.

Later, when I was in a road band in the late 1970s, I was exposed to jazz and to the standards (Great American Songbook). The bandleader was probably 20 years older than I was, and he introduced me to a friend of his who had played with Johnny Smith from time to time.

The guy played a lot of chord melody, though I didn't even know what that was yet. He had a really nice Gibson archtop, though I don't recall the model. He let me play it. About all I knew was what I had learned from Mickey Baker, which got me through as a sideman for the stuff we played in supper clubs.

I never forgot the sound and the feel of that guitar, and have been looking for that ever since. Recently, I found it when I played the Gibson Citation that I bought a month or so ago. Clearly, it isn't the guitar that guy had since that was in 1978 that I met him and played his guitar, but the feel and sound was the same.

Now, I wish I could go back in time and spend time with that guy and learn a thing or two from him. He sounded just like Johnny Smith and I do remember his hands spanning the fretboard like Johnny Smith did.

When I watch some of those youtube videos that have the theme songs for some of those old TV shows, I can much better appreciate the music in some of them.

Tony

[whiskey02]

My intro was from my first teacher hipping me to Bright Size Life then taking me to a Metheny gig a couple days after I turned 16. It was just so far over my head, didn't know what I was listening to but I knew that I loved it.

[gregunit]

In 9th grade we had the freaky bus driver with a beret, a beard that looked like a calico cat, and very long fingernails on his right hand, very short on his left. He made us listen to Coletrane and Montgomery instead of Hendrix and Clapton. Half way through the school year I began seeking it out on fm radio (which was new at the time). It was decades before I actually started to play play it. I still play other stuff, but jazz is my fav. I would save '93 Chicago Jazz Festival was my turning point.

[Litterick]

I don't recall, but probably it would have been Oscar Peterson's television show, I suppose.

[JFranck]

I remember it well !
I was a young kid and my uncle was a student. He played piano and guitar in a small jazz combo. He had a big F hole guitar and had built a small amp with a friend.

And he had records, especially this one :

[gregunit]

I listened to some of his amazing music. Es-150 guitar with a Charlie Christian pickup, through a EH-150 amp. I have the schematic. He played with Benny Goodman too. I used to be a reed man (sax, clarinet and flute). I was all about Benny Goodman. Amazing piece of history.