S.D. Guitarist Kessel Gets Lots of Bites in Big Apple

San Diego-based guitarist Barney Kessel received a hero’s welcome when he played New York City’s Village Vanguard for a week in early June. Critics from the New York Times, New York Post and Village Voice raved about the 67-year-old jazz master.

Rock star Robert Plant, Atlantic Records head Ahmet Ertegun, jazz festival producer George Wein and fellow jazz guitarist Larry Coryell were among those who turned out to hear Kessel, who, surprisingly, has rarely played New York City during his long, illustrious career, which includes recording or playing with the likes of Charlie Parker, Lester Young, Dexter Gordon, Art Tatum, Sonny Criss and Hampton Hawes.

Legendary recording producer Phil Spector was so in awe of Kessel’s New York performances that he turned up for nearly every show, and the two even dined together one night. Also in June, Kessel was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame (Kessel was born in Muskogee), along with Chet Baker and a handful of other jazz players. On the strength of his triumphant New York dates, Kessel’s career appears to have sprouted new legs. He didn’t have a recording deal before June, but is now on the verge of signing with a major label.

But Kessel is not the only one reaping the fallout of the New York shows. San Diego photographer Will Gullette has been getting some welcome exposure back there. It was Gullette who snapped the warm, folksy portraits of Kessel that appeared in all the New York papers, and it was Gullette’s photo that a New Yorker magazine artist used as a model for a sketch of Kessel that appeared in the June 3 issue of the magazine.

Meanwhile, the Village Vanguard was so pleased with Kessel’s well-received performances that it has asked him back for a return engagement Dec. 10-15.

Alto saxman Joe Marillo, a longtime fixture on the local jazz scene, believes he finally has a handle on life at age 58.

“I feel good about what I’m doing. I’m playing a lot of piano during the day, and that’s helping me with chord changes, structures and technique,” said Marillo, who plays the new Jazz by the Way club in Rancho Bernardo this Friday night at 8. “I’m not worrying about (job) security anymore. I worried long enough, and it didn’t do any good. I was always trying to get out there and be concerned with making a living, and it gets in the way of the music.”

Lately, Marillo has added a new color to his music: trombonist Jim Kimbrough, who moved to San Diego from Pittsburgh two years ago. Kimbrough will be on hand Friday night.

“About four months ago, he came and sat in with me at Croce’s and I took a liking to him,” Marillo said. “So whenever I can, I try to put him with the band.”

Marillo has even reshaped his repertoire to suit Kimbrough, adding several trombone-reliant arrangements, including some 1960s material penned by Horace Silver, Wayne Shorter and others for drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.

Besides his date this weekend in Rancho Bernardo, Marillo has been playing some Thursday nights at Cafe Roma, a La Jolla restaurant that added jazz to its entertainment menu about a month ago.

For Kimbrough, jazz is an avocation. He spends his days working as an organizational development specialist for the city of San Diego. He said he has been disappointed with the local jazz scene.

“Pittsburgh is loaded. It’s an incredible jazz place, and there are so many great musicians there,” said Kimbrough, who nevertheless left the area to escape the weather. “I was surprised there wasn’t more going on in San Diego when I got here.”

Kimbrough--who had visited San Diego and participated in some early 1980s jams at the Bahia Hotel led by Jimmy and Jeannie Cheatham--has also been drumming up other jobs in San Diego, including playing with Warren Mooers’ band and sometimes joining Marillo at Croce’s in downtown San Diego on Sunday nights.

RIFFS: Along with Milt Jackson, Terry Gibbs and a very few others, Bobby Hutcherson is keeping alive a kinetic, be-bop approach to vibraphone. Hutcherson’s new album, released last week, is titled “Mirage” and features pianist Tommy Flanagan. Hutcherson, who appeared in San Diego last year as part of the Timeless All Stars, plays the Jazz Note in Pacific Beach (above Diego’s restaurant) Thursday through Sunday nights. Joining him will be pianist Dwight Dickerson, bassist James Leary and drummer Mike Hyman. . . .

Chameleon-like pianist David Benoit plays Humphrey’s Concerts by the Bay at 7 and 9 p.m. Friday. On his 1989 album “Waiting For Spring,” Benoit proved himself a capable straight-ahead player, but on last year’s “Inner Motion,” he returned to his best-selling light-jazz approach. Benoit, whose next album is due in October, hits San Diego fresh off a tour with an all-star band assembled by his label, GRP. At Humphrey’s, Benoit’s band will include saxophonist Eric Marienthal. Meanwhile, a new collaboration between Marienthal and guitarist Dave Murdy, titled “That Goes to Show Ya!,” is one of two new releases from Time Is Records, San Diego’s only jazz label. The other is a re-release of a 1953 recording of trumpeter Shorty Rogers, “Live at Balboa.”