George Barnes was one of the most brilliant jazz guitars to have lived, and my personal favourite. His clear, smooth lines were accompanied by an incredibly expressive, deft touch marking him as a virtuoso swing guitarist of the highest calibre.
I find it sad that Barnes is not a household name, but he is certainly well-known and beloved by the top echelon of guitarists. While his technique is well informed by the blues, his is some of the happiest music ever recorded and this may sometimes disguise his intricate playing as well as his masterly arrangements.
Barnes began playing professionally in his teens and continued to do so for his entire life. While his earier session work at NBC and Decca, as well as his recordings with his own octet are well worth hearing, Barnes' later work is pure gold. He advanced the fledgling form of the guitar duet with his equally brilliant partner Carl Kress, and after Kress' death with Bucky Pizzarelli. While these albums can be hard to find a wonderful CD of Barnes and Kress is available as part of the Music Minus One series.
This is a wonderful chance for any guitarist to learn the smooth style that made Barnes famous, as well as some great duet tunes. Even for non-guitarists the CD makes wonderful listening.
Barnes' untimely death in 1977 was doubly tragic as he was making the best music of his life at that time. For many years the only recording released from this era was the magnificent Blues Going Up. For unknown reasons, Concord Jazz decided NOT to release Blues Going Up on CD - a decision incomprehensible to me - but they DID release the other half of that recording as Plays So Good. This wonderful CD belongs in the collection of any serious jazz lover, and those that just like good music no matter what the genre.
One final recording was released recently, apparently the serendipitous result of someone with a tape recorder and an obliging Mr. Barnes which gave us one last glimpse of this truly original musician.
The Wikipedia article on George Barnes is a bit scant, but Dave Gould has a good deal of information as well as quite a good bibliography at: http://www.gould68.freeserve.co.uk/barnesgeo1.html
I have received permission from George Barnes' wife and daughter to post some great examples of his playing from Blues Going Up. These examples have been digitized from my personal copy of the LP, which has been almost worn out by playing it over the years. I had to use vinyl restoration software to remove pops and clicks as well as needle noise. Ideally I would prefer that Concord Jazz put the album out on CD, digitized from the master tapes, but this seems extremely unlikely, so for now this is the best we can do.
Click the buttons to hear George Barnes play:
When Sunny Gets Blue
The Flintstones Theme