Barney Kessel – guitarist (b. October 17, 1923 – d. May 6, 2004)

was an American jazz guitarist whose career encompassed bebop, West Coast jazz, small-group performance, and an extensive body of studio work in radio, television, film, and popular music. Born in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Kessel became one of the most active guitarists of his generation and recorded both as a leader and as a sideman from the 1940s through the early 1990s. Kessel came from a Jewish family, and his father, an immigrant from Hungary, owned a shoe shop. Kessel was largely self-taught as a guitarist. According to biographical accounts, he had only three months of formal guitar lessons, beginning at the age of twelve. He first became interested in the instrument after seeing a guitar in a music-store window while working on a newspaper route. As a teenager, Kessel became increasingly involved in the local jazz scene. His principal early influence was Charlie Christian, whose electric guitar work with Benny Goodman had demonstrated the instrument's possibilities as a solo voice within a jazz ensemble. Kessel developed a style based on single-note lines, chordal playing and a detailed knowledge of harmonic movement. His later playing would remain closely connected to the... Read