Charlie Byrd, Byrd Song Reviews

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Charlie Byrd opened our ears to a new melodic style of jazz guitar, mainly accomplished through the warmth of his classical style. His breakthrough came riding the popular wave of Latin influx at the end of the fifties, but he must have felt a little lost by the mid-sixties when pop was the new sound, jazz was slipping into the background and this album was recorded.

And this album was clearly a gimmick to propel Byrd back into the mainstream, but one that didn't prove anywhere near as lucrative as approximate namesake Charlie "Bird" Parker With Strings.

The effect of adding an unnecessary but beguiling (in a nice way) chorus to an oddment of cuts weird for Charlie Byrd to perform in the first place is like handing the Let It Be tapes to Phil Spector (coincidentally Byrd would cover this Beatles track half a decade later).

Lush it up with sweet sweet tones. Much dowop de do doing and sha la laing over classics like I Left My Heart in San Francisco, Jobim's Felicidade, God Bless the Child and My Favorite Things. Ironically the magic happens most when the voices don't get in the way like on Bart's Who Will Buy? which is given a cool uptempo funky treatment, ending up like the spawn of Manitas de Plata and Bert Jansch.

Yesterday's smooth jazz it may be, but what a shame it's not still like that.