JAZZ REVIEW : Kessel’s Experience Enlivens Show

Barney Kessel, who brought a trio to McCabe’s in Santa Monica on Saturday, has enjoyed a long and diversified career as a jazz and studio guitarist, with recording credits that go back to Charlie Parker and other giants of the 1940s.

Clearly an admirer of Parker and other bop pioneers, Kessel also was a disciple of Charlie Christian, although he tends toward a style more chord-oriented than Christian’s. Using a plectrum, he brought a rare fluidity and perfectly executed harmonic lines to up tempos such as “Flamingo” and “The Lamp Is Low” as well as to such tunes as “Yesterday” and “Brazil,” both played without accompaniment.

On almost every other number Kessel’s innate and infallible sense of swing was buttressed by the admirable bass work of Bob Maize and by the sensitive drumming of Albert (Tootie) Heath, who traded fours and eights with him in several good-humored exchanges.

As has long been his custom, Kessel uses his announcements as a part of the show; in fact, his dry wit drew laughter and applause. He is apt not only to give the name of the composer, but also his real birth name, where he came from, what other songs he wrote, etc. He claims that one song he played was once misconstrued by a listener to be “I’ve Thrown a Custard in Her Face.” Kessel’s blues sensitivity is his most compelling virtue. His closing tune, played for an audience obviously reluctant to let him go, was a totally improvised indigo journey into blues territory, enriched by funky chords of the kind he played many years ago in the Oscar Peterson Trio. Little has changed since then, and in the case of an artist of Kessel’s caliber, the less change the better.