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Charlie Byrd

Charlie Byrd jammed with Django Reinhardt, recorded with Woody Herman, studied with the great Segovia, and with Stan Getz introduced the Brazilian bossa nova to international audiences. He then proceeded to form a super guitar trio with Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis. His musical interests took in virtually every form in which the guitar found a prominent voice

Charlie Byrd began playing the guitar at an early age under the guidance of his father. In his teens he was playing plectrum guitar with local groups in Virginia and Washington. At the Polytechnic Institute in Virginia, he played guitar with the school band. During World War II he played with an Army band in Europe. After the war he settled in New York where he played with local jazz groups such as Joe Marsala and Freddie Slack.

In 1950 Charlie Byrd returned to the Washington DC area where he began studying the classical guitar. He had always had an interest in classical guitar and decided at this time to begin a serious study of the instrument. He studied guitar with Sophocles Papas and music theory with Thomas Simmons. In 1954 he went to Italy to study with Andres Segovia.

It was shortly after that trip that he formed a jazz trio for the first time and began performing in local clubs. His instrument of choice for his trio was the concert guitar. In the trio format Byrd’s found the perfect form for mixing his love of jazz and blues with classical music. The orientation of the music for the trio was jazz, but jazz infused with classical technique and sound. Between 1957 and 1960 his trio performed in and around Washington. During that time Charlie Byrd made some of his best recorded work: “Jazz Recital,” ‘(57) “Blues For Night People,” (’57) “Jazz at The Showboat,” (’58) “Guitar in the Wind,” (’59) “The Artistry of Charlie Byrd, was in 1960 and in 1961 he released “Charlie Byrd at The Village Vanguard.” It was this recording that introduced Charlie to a broader audience than he had had in Washington DC.

In 1962 Charlie Byrd and his trio traveled to South America under the sponsorship of the State Department. When he returned to the US he made the landmark recording with Stan Getz “Jazz Samba,” this record caught on with the listening public and made Charlie Byrd a household name.

Charlie Byrd continued to evolve, and did some exceptional recordings with Barney Kessel and Herb Ellis as “The Great Guitars,” often employing a rhythm section which featured his brother, Joe Byrd, on bass, and drummer Chuck Redd. He continued to record for Concord, and produced a prodigious amount of work for that label. His last recording was “For Louis,” his tribute to Louis Armstrong, done in 1999 right before his death.

Charlie Byrd: Bamba Samba Bossa Nova

Read "Bamba Samba Bossa Nova" reviewed by David Rickert

by David Rickert
October 17, 2005

Charlie Byrd never really got his due as a jazz guitarist; most people see him as a pioneer in bossa nova and little else. Of course it doesn't help that many of his records were quiet affairs, lacking soul and preoccupied with applying classical technique to jazz chops. Many preferred to stick with Wes or Kenny rather than follow Byrd on his world music excursions.

However, Byrd really excelled in the area of presentation, reshaping South American folk ...

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Album Review

Charlie Byrd: Homage to Jobim

Read "Homage to Jobim" reviewed by Jim Santella

by Jim Santella
March 19, 2005

Charlie Byrd was a genius. For this live session that opened the 26th annual Fujitsu-Concord Jazz Festival in 1994, the guitarist brought in harmonica player Hendrik Meurkens, clarinetist Ken Peplowski, and one of the finest rhythm sections around for his set. A tribute to Antonio Carlos Jobim, the program features Byrd's musical partners in a sensual bossa nova excursion.

As Byrd weaves his melodic lines around Peplowski's clarinet expressions and Meurkens' lovely harmonica stories, you can feel the ...

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Album Review

Charlie Byrd: Byrd & Brazil

Read "Byrd & Brazil" reviewed by John Kelman

by John Kelman
July 13, 2004

Once again Concord Records has reissued two simpatico dates as a budget two-CD collection, this time two live sets by guitarist Charlie Byrd, originally issued as '80's Sugarloaf Suite and '82's Brazilville. Both sets are indicative of Byrd's lightweight and low-key approach to Brazilian music, which he discovered while in his mid-30s and dedicated much of his musical career to afterwards. Somewhat unique in that he worked in jazz ensembles using strictly a classical guitar, he went on to popularize ...

259

Album Review

Charlie Byrd: Solo Flight

Read "Solo Flight" reviewed by David Rickert

by David Rickert
October 18, 2003

Solo guitar albums can be a tricky affair; even the best of them, like Joe Pass’s Virtuoso occasionally flirt with tedium and seem to exhaust all possibilities relatively quickly. As a result, many guitarists tend to stay away from the demands of the format, preferring the company of at least one other sideman to share the spotlight.

Although many guitarists had tried a solo number here and there, Charlie Byrd was one of the first to devote ...

203

Album Review

Charlie Byrd: Solo Flight

Read "Solo Flight" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor
October 10, 2003

Rarely in today’s global music marketplace does an artist successfully combine staggering talent with equally superlative success. There are those who manage one or the other, but only a select few achieve both. Guitarist Charlie Byrd was one such individual, though admittedly the playing field back during his prime was much more populous with publicly lauded and brilliantly accomplished musicians. His back-story reads like a string of serendipitous twists of good fortune and included fateful meetings with guitar icons Django ...

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Album Review

Charlie Byrd: Byrd Song

Read "Byrd Song" reviewed by Derek Taylor

by Derek Taylor
March 20, 2003

Eclectic is an adjective easily applied to Charlie Byrd. Over the course of his career the guitarist shaped a reputation as a genre-hopping virtuoso who crossed over into Latin, classical, country and popular music camps, while retaining his abiding affection for jazz. His preference for acoustic over-amplified strings also set him apart from his peers. Certain myopic critics saw his versatility as a symptom of a jack-of-all-trades, master of none syndrome. Byrd responded to his skeptics with album after album ...

290

Album Review

Charlie Byrd: Byrd Song

Read "Byrd Song" reviewed by David Rickert

by David Rickert
March 19, 2003

Byrd Song is a peculiar album, even from a man whose career was always hard to pigeonhole. Although not as well-known or perhaps as highly regarded as Wes Mongomery or Kenny Burrell, Byrd was an accomplished guitarist who fused classical technique and jazz licks on everything from standards to Brazilian folk music. On Byrd Song (recorded in 1965) he embellishes his guitar- bass-drums format with a choir that sings vocalese licks (a la Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross) in response to ...