Charlie Byrd Guitar Solos, Arrangements, Transcriptions, Sheet Music, DVDs, Lessons

   Charlie Byrd was one of the most unique and fascinating guitar players in jazz and pop music! He was also a leading supporter of the nylon string guitar as a jazz solo instrument when everyone else was going electric and a student of classical guitar maestro Andres Segovia that sought to combine classical guitar techniques along with jazz improvisation.

   In the 1950s Charlie Byrd was transforming the popular music scene with his combination of jazz and classical guitar techniques in a 3 piece group that included bassist Keeter Betts and percussionist Bertel Knox. Their repertory merged standard small combo jazz along with Charlie Byrd's solo classical guitar pieces. The trio experienced fantastic popularity in the Washington D.C. area and quickly rose to the positions of traveling American jazz ambassadors sponsored by the U.S. State Department!

    Charlie Byrd's primary achievement will certainly always be seen as bringing the South American music understood as bossa nova to America pop charts and inevitably the world's listeners. In a bigger sense, his efforts and excellence expedited the now typical genre of world popular music, then a curiosity and a niche market, to the majority of listeners. Along with Charlie Byrd's recordings the fine art of jazz guitar music obtained yet another avenue of expression still considerably in use today, a half century since Byrd first made his initial mark with "Desafinado".

   The year 2012 commemorates the fifty year celebration of bossa nova guitar music entering the popular culture, facilitated by Charlie Byrd and his collaborator, saxophonist Stan Getz. Their hit single "Desafinado" got to No. 15 on the American Top 40 charts in October, 1962 and was an early crossover success story, one of a handful in jazz. "Desafinado" continued to be in U.S. pop play lists for 10 weeks as well as reaching No. 11 on the U.K. radio stations in 1962. What began as a notion and musical experimentation envisioned by Charlie Byrd swiftly assumed greater dimensions and opened up the floodgates for the bossa nova trend that followed. Consider the following recording by Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto, launched as the British Invasion was in full speed. "The Girl From Ipanema" reached No. 5 in 1964 and won a Grammy for Record Of The Year in 1965!

 Charlie Byrd Plays "Samba De Orfeu"

   The unique sound, feel, and approach of bossa nova guitar music affected countless pop superstars, entertainers of all backgrounds, and famed composers after that and since. The short list features Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Herb Alpert, Oscar Peterson, Cannonball Adderley, Dusty Springfield, Stephen Sondheim, George Michael, Kenny G, Eric Clapton, Nina Persson, Norah Jones, and Diana Krall. The success of bossa nova in the U.S.A. set the stage for the importing and global promoting of regional Brazilian composers such as Antonio Carlos Jobim, Luiz Bonfa, Joao Gilberto, Bola Sete, Baden Powell, and Sergio Mendes. It has come to be indicative of and synonymous with sultry South American seasides, romantic love stories, and an easy going exotic way of life!

   In retrospect, Charlie Byrd's impact on the world's music has actually been profound and transcendent and remains to reverberate in practically every section of the globe. Charlie Byrd started playing the guitar at age nine. He originally studied along with his dad who played a range of stringed instruments. Charlie Byrd's very early influences were jazz and swing guitar players Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt. He listened to and played with Django in Paris in the mid 1940's while in a traveling U.S. Army stage band.

   Charlie Byrd was at first a plectrum or pickstyle guitarist but became curious about classical guitar and fingerstyle guitar playing in the late 1940s. By 1950 he had dedicated himself to the nylon string classical guitar as his instrument of choice. Charlie Byrd studied in Washington, D.C. with regional jazz-classical guitarist Bill Harris and later with classical guitar expert Sophocles Papas. He likewise studied theory and harmony along with musicologist Thomas Simmons. In 1954 Charlie Byrd went to a classical guitar master class in Sienna, Italy which was taught by classical guitar virtuoso Andres Segovia.

   In 1961 Charlie Byrd took a trip to South America on a U.S. State Department sponsored tour. There he obtained the inspiration to integrate Brazilian bossa nova guitar music along with American jazz elements and his very own classical guitar methodologies. Charlie Byrd's early recordings featured music pieces by Antonio Carlos Jobim, Luiz Bonfa, Joao Gilberto, and various other important Brazilian guitarists and artists.