Barry Galbraith Video

[jmgalich]

Hot on the heels of my Johnny Smith "video" find, this actual video is courtesy of the Facebook Barry Galbraith page. Barry is in a quartet backing Woody Herman, who sings and plays clarinet on the Guy Lombardo Show sometime in the 1950s:

Barry is playing one of his Strombergs with a mounted pickup. The video is quite clear, with good shots of BG playing rhythm and fills. Good glimpses of his picking style, too!

John Galich

[PMB]

Nice find, John!

[Cunamara]

I believe that's the only video of Barry actually playing that I have ever seen.

[wintermoon]

I believe that's the only video of Barry actually playing that I have ever seen.

Not many but there's a few....

[sgcim]

Not many but there's a few....

I'm reading a book on Kenton right now, and it said that",Barry filled in for Sal Salvador, who couldn't bring himself to fly the Atlantic". Then the author said that Barry was "actually the superior player".
You win the award for esoteric jazz guitar knowledge if you can name the regular guitarist for Kenton before Laurindo Almeida and Sal Salvador played in his band.
I never heard of the guy before.

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

You win the award for esoteric jazz guitar knowledge if you can name the regular guitarist for Kenton before Laurindo Almeida and Sal Salvador played in his band.
I never heard of the guy before.

Bob Ahern

He’s the guitarist seen at about 1:36 in this 1945 film short about Kenton:

Here’s a better picture:



Apart from one Sinatra compilation, I’ve never seen his name on a recording other than Kenton’s.

[sgcim]

Bob Ahern

He’s the guitarist seen at about 1:36 in this 1945 film short about Kenton:

Here’s a better picture:



Apart from one Sinatra compilation, I’ve never seen his name on a recording other than Kenton’s.

We have a weiner!
Kenton was a pretty intense dude. At one point he decided to get rid of his entire orchestra at the height of their popularity, and become a psychiatrist. Then he changed his mind and added string players from the best orchestras on the West Coast, and not just for padding. He had his roster of composers write string parts that were as important to the pieces as the the horn parts. He invented Third Stream Music.
Then along came Bob Graettinger and "City of Glass...

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

We have a weiner!

Hot dog!! I'm on a roll now, baby.

Kenton was just plain weird, and not a vry nice guy IME. I grew up at the Jersey shore and went to see all of the big bands at Steel Pier in Atlantic City in the late '50s an early '60s when I was a kid (my parents took me until I was in high school and could go myself). Kenton was a regular there, and I went with my bandmates after our own gigs ended (which was usually at 9 or 10 PM, since we played mostly kids' parties and dances when I was in high school). He and most of the regular big band leaders there (including Sal Salvador and Maynard Ferguson) recognized us as a kid band. I think the matching collarless blazers and the fact that we always showed up at the same time and together gave it away.

We asked a milllion questions and acted like the star struck kids we were. Most of the band leaders and sidemen were really nice to us. But Kenton was a true jerk. Everybody else talked to us, offered advice, and at least seemed happy to inspire 4 young jazz musicians. One memorable night, our drummer asked Kenton to play Artistry in Rhythm. He replied "for two bucks" with a sneer, and turned away. They did not play it.

We had to stop going when we started getting real gigs. When I was 16, our drummer somehow landed a gig for us at the Alibi Lounge, which was a strip club at New York Avenue and the Boardwalk. I don't know why, but we didn't mind giving up the ability to see the big bands at that point

[Cunamara]

I can just imagine my parents' reaction when I was in high school if I was gonna go play at a strip club! They'd have hit the roof when I was 40!

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

I can just imagine my parents' reaction when I was in high school if I was gonna go play at a strip club! They'd have hit the roof when I was 40!

Yeah - my parents’ approach to my musical career was interesting. Our drummer was 2 years older than I am, and still is - we’ve stayed friends for 65 years, despite living a thousand miles apart for 55 of them. He was captain of our high school football team and an imposing figure. Our bass player and I were both 6’ tall when we were 16, and all 4 of us in the band were very comfortable going to play in places high school kids didn’t go. Our sax player was cocky to an extreme, and we all had a ball playing together.

For some oddball reason that I’ve never figured out, my parents trusted the drummer (who drove 2 years before I could and had a car) to be careful and watchful. Since they’d been sharing driving duties with my bandmates’ parents for the first 2 years of my life as a band member, I’m sure they were thrilled to get that part of their lives back. I was amazed that they didn’t complain about the Alibi gig - they even seemed to think it was funny, and it was only for a few weeks that summer. The most surprising gig we had was a one off at the Senator Hotel bar in Atlantic City the same summer - and that’s the only gig we ever played that stiffed us. I don’t know how the drummer got these gigs.

I’d been playing up and down the Jersey shore since my freshman year in high school, so they were used to it. A local radio station ran record hops and wanted a kids’ band to entertain and to back the few pop stars who could and would sing live at them (since almost all lip synched). We got the gig, and the DJ who ran the program drove us to all the gigs. By the time we got past dances at the community center and our parents’ backyard parties, our families had come to accept this all as normal.